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The Hoeflinger Podcast
Welcome to the The Hoeflinger Podcast, where Dr. Brian Hoeflinger and Kevin Hoeflinger delve into riveting discussions about life as a neurosurgeon, the world of medicine, healthy living, fitness, and anything else that piques their curiosity. Dr. Brian Hoeflinger, MD, brings his extensive 24 years of experience as a full-time neurosurgeon to educate and inform. Get ready for engaging conversations that will broaden your understanding of the medical realm and beyond!
The Hoeflinger Podcast
#3: Balancing Career and Family
In this episode, gain insights into how Drs. Cindy and Brian Hoeflinger's journeys in medicine have intersected with the responsibilities of parenthood. From long hours in the hospital to sharing quality time at home, they reveal the challenges they've faced and the rewards they've reaped in maintaining a harmonious equilibrium.
The Hoeflinger trio explores the role of effective communication, the significance of shared values, and the importance of finding moments of connection amidst busy schedules. Discover the wisdom they've gained over the years in managing the ebb and flow of their careers and personal lives, and the strategies they've employed to ensure that both thrive in unison.
Tune in every week for new episodes of The Hoeflinger Podcast with Dr. Brian Hoeflinger and Kevin Hoeflinger.
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Alright, welcome back to the Half Finger podcast. We got episode three. It's myself, my dad and my mom. We got the whole gang together, so we put out a poll earlier about what you guys want us to talk about the most. And work life balance, balancing work and life one out. So that's what we're going to talk about today, and maybe some other stuff too. We'll see what we get into.
Speaker 2:Yeah, work life balance is a big one. I mean it's, you know, when you got two careers going and you're busy and you have a family. It's not easy to always juggle things. They have to really work at it. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I think. I think too, there was like three distinct periods that we could talk about is when you guys were in residency. You guys were both in residency and you had started your family, having kids. There was once you retired, and well, actually, when we were working, yeah as jobs.
Speaker 3:We are working both your jobs that that's another phase once you retired.
Speaker 1:And then we could, you could talk about more, so like nowadays, like further along, so I guess for, yeah, like you said, four periods. So want to jump back to right. You guys both talked about a little bit and have some one or two but we could start there.
Speaker 2:For me it's kind of like a blur. You know a residency, I was so busy, there wasn't a lot of work. Life balance for me it was this work and Cindy did all the rest.
Speaker 3:Well, the balance was, you took care of right and I worked and took care of the kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know worked a lot more than I did, so I mean, I wasn't around a lot, so there wasn't a lot of balance there, but that's where that was the hardest part, because I mean that's where divorces happen, right? I mean, if you're not, if you've one guy's doing everything and somebody's doing everything else, it's, but it works somehow.
Speaker 3:I mean we acknowledge each other's career, I mean we also knew, going into it, that I would be doing more. Yeah we knew that going in which is one reason, one reason why I picked on pathology because it didn't have like overnight call like on a regular basis. We thought it would be a little bit easier. But I also loved it because I had already done my PhD in anatomy, so it's kind of a natural transition for me.
Speaker 2:The main thing was that you have to make time whenever you can. I mean, we would whenever we had a chance to do something together with kids. We would do it If I had a weekend off. Right, we took the kids up to Tienac Falls, which is this really cool place in New York, up by one of the Finger Lakes, and we would have our dog, coco, and we would take the I think Kevin and Brian having a backpack when you'd walk about a mile up this riverbed, up these huge waterfalls, and the dog would go swimming in the lagoon. I remember Brian, I said they're screaming no, no, coco, come back. He thought she was gonna get lost under the waterfall. So we did a lot of stuff like that when we had time off. But then there's times where we didn't have time off and then it was, you know, every man for himself, almost really Well it was actually you were on your own and I was with the family, I know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm not arguing that.
Speaker 3:No, I mean, I'm saying you just were at the hospital, Right, and it's funny how we would sometimes on the holidays and stuff I mean, forget trying to get a card and maybe coming home and and giving your wife or husband a card and was more on his end. But me too I was pretty busy, but forget that and then having a nice little dinner for like Valentine's Day or something like that. We would watch fireworks from the roof of the hospital.
Speaker 2:Or from the ICU. Icu was like on the ninth floor yesterday. Lots of fireworks up there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I didn't get in there, but we, we, we met one time in the cafeteria to have dinner for some special occasion and it wasn't him that got paged away, it was me that got paged away, which never happened, but it was kind of funny and I guess you know you just got to laugh at that kind of stuff and we knew it was sort of temporary, even though it seemed like it was.
Speaker 2:Well, what makes it hard to do is, you know, we were away from our families Like. We grew up in the Toledo area and our whole family was here. So for us to move away seven hours to Rochester, New York, by ourselves was a big deal. And then you know, guess where our vacations were. Every vacation was.
Speaker 3:Vacation capital of the world.
Speaker 2:Toledo, Ohio. So we would always come home on our vacations. We had like three weeks a year or four weeks, and every vacation we'd come home to Toledo to spend with our family.
Speaker 3:So well, it's funny, we always in the summer, we'd always go to see your point. And we like to stay at the breakers and it had no elevator and I was pregnant Like I don't know how many times.
Speaker 3:And so we'd have to walk up and down the stairs and I was like, oh one, when I was pregnant with you I was big. Because you were big and he teased and because Brian was laughing at me or something, Little Brian was like, Say, and mommy's so big? And dad said, yeah, she's like a walrus. And Brian just rolled. He just thought it was so funny, Because all I had was just this ball up in front, you know you remember anything about Chester, come I don't remember anything.
Speaker 1:Yes, your points. The amusement park with lots of rides. It's about. It's in Sandusky, it's about a couple hours from Toledo, but a lot of times it's had the most roller coasters of any park in the world and it's has.
Speaker 2:through the years, has always had a roller coaster that's been the fastest or tallest, so that's a big. It's a big amusement park.
Speaker 1:And it's very clean for people who are from like the Midwest or this area. A lot of people see the point is pretty massive.
Speaker 2:I think they just closed down the dragster the other year. They did. But then they read I think a reopening of this year because something fell off of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Also Kevin. Kevin always was disappearing when he was little and he's disappeared. When we were getting hot dogs one time at Cedar Point and we just were scared to death. He was like three we're looking all over for him and he was behind the hot dog hut.
Speaker 2:Yeah my biggest memory of Kevin was in residency. I don't know what year I was in, but you know, obviously, when we get to people all the time, kids that hit their heads and stuff. So Kevin was out front and he fell and hit his head on the concrete side, the concrete sidewalk in front of our house, and he hit it really hard and he was crying and then he started vomiting. And then I didn't want to be the guy who just rushes this kid off the merge bar, especially since I was a neurosurgery resident. So I thought we'd keep an eye on him and it was kind of stupid, but you know we watched him.
Speaker 2:He was still kind of sleepy that night, still vomiting, but I said, you know, let's keep an eye on him overnight and he was still had a headache and didn't feel good in the morning. So then I finally took him in for a CAT scan and thank God the CAT scan of his brain was normal. But that's the kind of stuff that you guys ever had your kid hit his head and they're vomiting and sleeping. You know you can have a blood clot over your brain. So I really should have took him to the emergency department and got a CAT scan that night and I did, but I should have, and that would be, my advice if you ever have your kid hit their head and they act like that.
Speaker 1:That'd be a good jumping point too. I know you've put a video out about it and you've done a like blog about it a while ago, but your mother's intuition that exact scenario, if you want to talk about that.
Speaker 2:Well, no, yeah, it's just mother's intuition, it's true, I mean it's appearance intuition, so dads don't get defensive, but it's more so, mom. And there was a child that came to emergency department and the child had his head was fine at first and then became sleepy. I think it had one bout of vomiting and I think you know the parents were talking about. You know, should we just keep an eye on them and just let them sleep overnight? And the mom said I just really think we need to take the emergency department. So she brought him to the emergency department, did a CAT scan. He had a big blood clot over his brain, really needed emergency surgery, and I ended up doing it and he did fine and he went home in a day or two, normal. But you know he may have died overnight because that that was actively bleeding when I took him to surgery. And so it's just one of those things that you have a gut feeling that you ought to do something with your child and take the emergency, or you should Don't ever second guess yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, better safe than sorry, especially when it's involving the head.
Speaker 3:Never trust the family dog, even if they're the best dogs in the world. Yeah, that's another thing we had the nicest lab in the whole entire world, but we always taught our children, no matter what, when the dog's eating, stay away from the dog. You're not down by the dog's dish or anything, and didn't you have a case I've had several cases when I was in residency.
Speaker 2:I had one even in practice. But you know family dogs been a family dog forever, just like your family dog, and took an infant and bit its head and it crushed the skull and actually the teeth went into the brain and so I had to take the child to surgery and repair the skull fractures and child's lucky they're alive. But they you know family obviously put the dog down but it's kind of sad. You know it's your. You just never know what an animal is going to do, and so never I with our kids and our new grandchild Archie, I never let they get their face next to the dog Because you just never know how dogs can react.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was a golden retriever, it was golden retriever. They're supposed to be such nice dogs which they are but it was just a case of always be careful, yeah.
Speaker 2:But I think you know to give people a final thought well, they're talking about all this other stuff, but what about the work-life balance? I think, from my perspective, I think it has to be given take with work-life balance and there's always going to be one person who, at times, is going to get away with more. And, you know, get out of some responsibilities, and you know we were always good about that. Like, we get in our fights here and there because you know she'd be matched that you're never around, I'm taking care of the kids, and and that's going to happen. And you have to just come to some type of agreement ahead of time. We kind of came to agreement, didn't we? A little bit? Oh, we had an agreement. Yeah well, we knew we knew.
Speaker 3:But it's kind of funny. It was all good until because our kids were it's all fun games.
Speaker 2:It was easy.
Speaker 3:You guys were good, you slept well, you guys got up earlier, early, with that kind of work schedule Five o'clock, five am.
Speaker 3:The boys got up. But when we had Christie it was a little bit of a game changer and I remember you know how you hear stories of like the wife is at home all day and or it could be the husband, but more often the wife and she hands off the baby to the dad when the dad comes home because she's, you know, she needs a break. One time Christy had a lot of issues with reflux and she had allergies and stuff and allergies to the formula, so she had a lot of problems. And he came home one night and I was literally thinking that I had either that I was going crazy, basically because I was so sleep deprived and I just handed him to her, him, her to him, so I could go take a little rest. And I laid down and I think I got about 30 minutes in and she just screamed and she would just pull your hair and climb up your shoulder and you came upstairs and you go, cindy, I can't, because we had the other three little kids too.
Speaker 3:Yeah and it was dinner time and he said Cindy, I just sometimes they want their mom, but they're playing times around, say.
Speaker 2:I remember walking around a little tiny dining room with Brian in the middle of night, while you were sleeping and I would he would be crying. We took our turns as much as we could.
Speaker 3:Kevin had night tears do you remember that when I was pregnant with Julie and he I was so big because we they were only 15 months apart and he would just scream and he was a little young for night tears? But the doctor said it sounded like what he had and he'd want. He didn't want to be rocked, he didn't want to be walked, he wanted to lay in bed with us. So we'd have him, him in bed with us while I was pregnant, in our full-size bed.
Speaker 2:Now, I want to tell the kids we have all the dogs in bed.
Speaker 1:But I think what's important, based on, like when you guys talk about it is communication is critical yeah, key, and just like, acknowledging each other's equals and, like you said, give and take with each other. So, having that open mind, communication. You know, sometimes he's gonna be at surgery all the time and be super busy, or even when he was more recently training for his Iron man, I bet you had to do a lot more, probably with cooking.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about that, but also real quick. I mean, there's gonna be fights too. We fought a lot, I'm sure of it, that we would fight about, but I think that's probably what kept things equal.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you have to get it out because he pulled it in.
Speaker 2:I mean, we would fight, you know.
Speaker 3:This is because I wasn't a I was a rollover and I expressed my opinion Well and I didn't take it either.
Speaker 2:So we had some, we had some good. You know it works out. I mean, we're still married 30 years later, so you have to.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's another thing. Yeah, you have to work on then, no, no relationships perfect, right, and nothing's ever gonna be perfect. So it's good to discuss things, put it out there and work on it, rather than like holding it in feeling resentful.
Speaker 3:Oh, if you don't discuss things and tell, like one of my best friends I said once after I moved back. I said what happens when you and your, your husband, argue, you know? And she said we don't argue and guess what but few years?
Speaker 1:later they were divorced.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I mean I think that even though sometimes we argue and it sounds like a knockdown, drag down, I mean I think that's partially what keeps the relationship alive, because we discuss things, because you have your argument when you're angry or what not, and then when you calm down, then you could calm down. Well an argument takes.
Speaker 1:I'm saying since high school read a book called thank you for arguing, but our arguing takes on negative connotation in our language. But arguing is not per se bad, you know, it's debating.
Speaker 2:Thank you for arguing.
Speaker 1:Thank you for arguing.
Speaker 3:We have to read that I mean. I didn't know it until Julie, who was a year younger, said mom. That's from our junior English book.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's just about persuasion and just talking with other people. Doesn't always argue, and does you think of someone like puffy red face, like very angry, like arguing Not? Necessarily that yeah, I mean you get to those points. That's not as productive as like arguing and bringing up solid points or like wanting to be heard about things. If you know, you do need a little help. Like you know, I've been take care of the kids the entire time. I need a little. I need, I'm overwhelmed, I need to take a nap.
Speaker 3:And you know, I'm not really sure, I think we knew that the other, like I knew he was, I knew he couldn't help. So I think that at that point in time we hardly had time to discuss or argue or do anything really and I knew, going in I was gonna be taking care of the kids. Yeah, you know, if I had it to do all over again, I'd probably do it the same way actually, because I wanted my career and Plus, we had good residencies and we have really good I.
Speaker 2:We came really close with our co-residents both our programs. We had a lot of fun with our co-residents and they're still friends of ours and people were having families and we'd get together with them and I mean that helps take the stress off. I mean there's so much that goes into the relationship more than just you and your spouse and your immediate family. It's about all the friends that you have and things you do when we go out at night and have fun.
Speaker 1:Thank God we get those friends, people like groups that you guys are both Friends with and you're doing stuff with like socially and it's because you're all in the similar situation.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're all going through the same situation, yeah, you can kind of relate to each other because, like we, it would be hard for us to have gone out with On friends that were just working a job, and because they, we are our. You know, and we wouldn't be available to do a lot of things because even our own families never, I don't think, fully grasped Just how you know why you, why do you got to go back in there's? No, I can't ever.
Speaker 2:You can't ever know what it's like unless you've been through something, just like you know so many a family does. You don't know what that's like until you've been through it. So it's hard to put yourself in other people's shoes. I think you can try to think about how it might be, but until you've been through you don't know.
Speaker 3:So I think everybody has their own unique one time one of your siblings was like something about call or something, and they like figured you could just do whatever you want because you, you can just, you just on car, you're just sitting at home. And I don't think they fully grasped the fact that he actually had to go into the hospital a lot of times. Yeah, and, and it's not even how often you do go into the hospital, it's the fact that you have to be prepared to go into the hospital anytime, even if you haven't gone in in Several days.
Speaker 1:You got to be prepared to give examples to like, even since I've been older, just Nowadays, like so if my dad's on call and we go to a movie, he's got to drive separately, or if we're going out of stuff, he can't be more than like 30 minutes away from a trauma call, not trying everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah but that's what I was talking about, but just different things like that. There's all those extra things you have to be thinking of. We used to nowadays you might pass off call like for your normal call if we want to a movie. But when we were younger if you went to a movie, right, his beeper would go off during the movie. Sometimes you have to go answer those. So there, there's so much extra stuff like that and I think it's better. Now. There's like social media, like tic-tac, instagram, we you show some of that and people can get that. Think about 40 years ago you couldn't even like.
Speaker 1:There's no internet, there's no Netflix, tv shows about there's no brazen, that I mean there's no Filing medical influencers so you can't a lot of people did have no idea.
Speaker 3:Well, because you were at the hospital too, you weren't, you weren't, you didn't have the luxury of going to a movie. You would sit at the hospital because you didn't have a pager. Or even if you did have a pager, you had to take in-house call but don't think too.
Speaker 2:It's like being content with your life, like we were both very content. I enjoyed residency and I mean, for instance, like we were residents God, it was so cool, like the helicopter flying to the roof and we go up there and we'd be waiting for the helicopter land. We'd be right there, like you see on TV, with helicopter lands and then we get the patient, help them get them off the helicopter on the stretcher, take them down to the emergency department, and it was really exciting times, you know, and and if you're happy at working, you're having fun. It helps at home, right? I think when you're more content, like you're unhappy, you're gonna fight. Then you're gonna take it out. We enjoyed what we were doing. It was exciting because we had residency.
Speaker 3:Our residency program was so big and I hate to say it and to make sure that nobody would misinterpret it, but then the amount of cases and the number of things that we saw were incredible. Like my program Soft tissue tumors, bone tumors those are very rare but we saw of quite a few cases because we were a tertiary medical center and it was pretty cool to Be able to have a chance to see those in real time, not just read about it in a book.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know we had a.
Speaker 3:we had an interesting case together, do you remember?
Speaker 2:that one, yeah, I remember it. So it was, um, it was a long time ago and it was somebody who Was cleaning their crossbow and and whatever, but came in the Mercer bar and there was a big crossbow arrow in in his forehead that went into his brain about that far and it was just sticking out and the guy was awake, talking but obviously couldn't leave it. So we had Taking him to surgery. I was in on that surgery and we had to Cut the whole front skull off, you know. So we had to take a scalp and then reflect it way back and over his face and then took a piece of his front skull off and we sent the the, the arrow. You know, the arrow has problems in it. So we had to take the skull off carefully, take the arrow out of the brain and then we sent that arrow With the skull around it to cut off at the end.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, and then that was sent to you and then you did and I just happened to be the resident that was on gross that day and gross anatomy Is when you take the specimen and you describe what it looks like with the naked eye. Microscopic anatomy is when you use microscope. So you, you, you, um, get the specimen, you describe it, you measure it, you know. So it's kind of funny. And then those um specimens are kept for Probably there's a certain amount of time that they're required to be kept, but I would imagine, because it was probably a medical legal possibility, they would have kept that for a long time. Plus, it's a very unique teaching tool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the person actually did find um. You know we had to do um Mesh to cover his skull, to make his skull nice contour again, and he actually did well and how cool is it when you're standing there grossing a specimen and you see your husband's name.
Speaker 2:I remember the funniest time is uh, um, paul Maher was the attending is a wonderful surgeon. All our surgeons were great at my program but and they were all really nice. So I was like in my second or third year and I had my magnifying loop glasses on a headlight and I was doing a brain biopsy and, um, and Cindy walked in because she was going to get the specimen. When we did the biopsy she came to get the specimen. Dr Maher goes what do you think your husband? What do you say Like, what do you think your husband over there?
Speaker 3:Doesn't he look it, doesn't he look cute?
Speaker 2:Or doesn't he get you excited or something? No, I'm so silly.
Speaker 3:But it was funny because I was doing neuroanatomy and I went to pick up the specimen. And so funny. And neuro, when they do a biopsy, um you, you can't even see the tissue. It's so small and it's what's a tiny little needle?
Speaker 2:you, yeah, and it's all you need.
Speaker 3:It's very pale and it's sitting on a piece of white gauze. It's very difficult to even see it, but it was funny Um so we have to interact with residency.
Speaker 2:It was kind of cool.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and like I can remember going out for blood bank, we'd go up on the floor when I was doing my blood bank rotation and and one time somebody said, are you really upset neurosurgery resident doctor Heflinger?
Speaker 1:And I said yeah, yeah we still, we still get that, yeah, all the time, anytime, and that so many times around Toledo. Just, is your dad doctor Heflinger? Or because Heflinger is pretty unique name, or some people are like is your dad like Heflinger?
Speaker 2:Mike, who's an orthopedic surgeon Right. So my first cousin is an orthopedic surgeon. He's about 10 years old with me.
Speaker 1:He retired but we had that big people confuse it, so people would always he's like the one with mustache, like I don't know, that's that's how I did, but yeah, it was funny.
Speaker 3:And um the when I was doing that blood bank rotation they said the nurse said oh, he's so nice, I would get that a lot, he's so nice.
Speaker 2:You gotta be nice to people, yeah.
Speaker 3:So, uh, I think, so what's our next?
Speaker 1:Well, I think I mean. One thing I was gonna say is definitely to to go back for a sec was the sense of purpose and Kind of mission for what you're doing. I think in medicine it's heavily there. That makes Getting through things much easier.
Speaker 3:Yeah, um, and knowing there's an end date, yeah you guys knew yeah, residency like this.
Speaker 1:It's easier when you know like we have to get through this. It's gonna be really busy Having those discussions, knowing there's a light at the end of the tunnel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not always I remember after Seven years when I turned my pager and it was so weird because that pager you have the same pager during all residency and that pager would go off so often. It was so weird turning my pager in.
Speaker 3:I remember that feeling too, after all that time.
Speaker 2:it was kind of like I'm giving away a child. It felt like and and then it was like weird, like I'm not gonna be a resident anymore. It's just what a weird feeling to think you're gonna go somewhere and be Be attending and the surgeon and not have anybody else watching over you. You know, you're doing all by yourself.
Speaker 3:Well, I remember going after I was done and I had Brian and I was at either. I was either at McDonald's or the post office. Both were places, but you know places you go and um. I was like. I felt like, oh my gosh, what if somebody needs to get a hold of me? That was the feeling and then I was like wait a minute, no, nobody needs me, nobody needs me. But it just was really weird.
Speaker 2:I remember like because you're so needed all those years.
Speaker 3:And then going and going and doing errands and stuff, and that wearing dressy clothes, because we used to dress up and I always wore like dresses or nice pantsuits and I just felt weird not being dressed up. I mean, I dress so much more casual now but um, and so does everybody, but back then we were a little bit dressier. It just felt really weird. Yeah, walking around and nobody knew that I felt like nobody actually.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I was gonna say was that, yeah, I'm just feeling weird to give the pager back, but then the identity of like it feels good, almost just like a kid like as a kid growing up they're feeling needed. Yeah, like you're the average, like you're kind of it person there. Well, I remember when I first because I didn't have.
Speaker 3:I don't think I had a job At one point. I didn't have a job and I felt Really odd. I mean, I felt I didn't like the feeling of feeling like I was nobody, because that's how society is. Yeah somebody that stays at home does not have value like somebody who has an important job, and I'd wear my nice tailored dresses and I, you know, care about like also. It's sometimes it's different now.
Speaker 1:Well, first of all, being a mother or being the primary caretaker is a huge responsibility. It's the most important job and that that shows like even the neurosurgeon coming home Can't always deal with the kids, so it's not an easy job. Second of all is there's just that sometimes you need to be getting out of the house and stuff Like that's. Coming back around with remote work is, if you just like are at home all the time, you could go insane.
Speaker 3:You can go insane. I don't know how people did it during COVID. They like Julie at school she's in this tiny little room that if the hallway door was shot or her roommate's door was shot and it was in the winter, there's the. It's pitch black in there. The thing other parents did it.
Speaker 2:May my mom stay home and have five kids.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, and my mom and your mom, I mean they.
Speaker 2:They just say well, that's why they were all on value and they drink cocktails, I think well, I'm not joking, no, no, it's a different.
Speaker 3:it's definitely a different era Of a woman was expected to uh, or like a good wife is expected to be at home and just watch the kids cook dinners.
Speaker 1:Never complain. Yeah Well, it's just a good hand, the husband the cocktail we walked in, that was the 50s.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I mean even what? Well, when was woman?
Speaker 1:suffrage was just a little over a hundred years ago, so it's before that we couldn't even vote in this country. So I mean it's which is insane. Yeah, it's just crazy.
Speaker 2:So strides our mate.
Speaker 1:Continues to be made. Obviously, it's always way slower than it should be. Yeah, without without things are because back to like your age group I.
Speaker 3:Julie. She's sitting in that little cell I don't know how big, it was eight by six or something and she's studying in there. You know you couldn't go anywhere. So you got to work out in your room, your, your eat. Well, you get to go downstairs and eat in your kitchen or whatnot. But I how does anybody think that's fun? We're social creatures, us humans.
Speaker 1:We've evolved like you need to be in tribes to survive evolutionarily and we Like we need a social interaction. So, yeah, kovu was definitely terrible for a lot of like things like that. Just being so, I say it's just never the same. It's not the same. Interacting over zoom compared to being in person with people. So you know I would.
Speaker 3:I would shut my office door once I worked and I would, um, you know, sit, sit in and do my slides and everything, but I came out when I was, when I needed a break and I could interact with the secretaries, or I could talk to my other pathologists, or go into the, into the lab and talk to the techs, and I thrived on that because, oh, I couldn't stand to be alone all the time. That would. That's horrible, definitely, yeah, um.
Speaker 1:It's a little veer there but so let's move on now from your guys was residency. And then you said once you guys were both working, but actually when you were, you were finishing, finishing up residency, when you were just starting to work and you were the.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was a deputy medical examiner For a few years. Why we were when he was finishing. It was that different compared to, like, when you were both in residency. Now you're actually like the two.
Speaker 1:That was pretty cool. Yeah, because my hours were my own and I felt more in charge and they were better hours.
Speaker 3:Um, but I did do Leave. I remember could you leave if?
Speaker 2:you needed to, yeah, like other kids needed. Oh yeah, I had two partners, right, you know, while they were, they were my superiors.
Speaker 3:But they, they were. There were two men, older men, and if I had any kind of emergency I could have said, um, they were so flexible. It was a very understanding, oh, very understanding.
Speaker 1:You think you got better than from residency when you were working that job. Deputy medical examiner, those two men, yeah, um, they were wonderful and like.
Speaker 3:You know you set your own hours like one. It was like one day I was on and whatever Um homicides or deaths or whatever came in that day then. So if there were seven, I did them, but if, if there were, a lot of top is if some people died or an accident, she would do those seven Autopsies that day, but if there were a lot, the other two guys would.
Speaker 3:One of them would jump in and help out, but and then the next day it would be the next guys, dr Forbes or Dr Smith, you know, and we just rotated every three days. Um, and aside here, how long do you think a typical autopsy takes?
Speaker 1:Depends on the person and the training. So explain what, explain what you mean by the person. I'm assuming you mean well, when I was here. Be very careful what you say no me, I'm saying like okay it goes both ways.
Speaker 3:Um, why would I have to be careful? It's like me saying, why is one surgery?
Speaker 2:harder than the other.
Speaker 3:Right. Why my first autopsy? As a resident? That's just facts, I know, but still as a resident.
Speaker 2:Took like seven or eight hours.
Speaker 3:Okay, because a I was A resident and I had never done one before. The person was heavy-set and the person was morbidly obese.
Speaker 1:I think they weighed either 400 or 600 pounds.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I um, I can remember my my boss was out on the golf course but I was with the autopsy assistant and he was very experienced. But, like everything, on an obese person there's it's very fatty and on the surface there's it's very fatty and on this person's like liver, instead of at weighing 2000 grams it weighed 4000 grams and it's very slippery because it's it's fatty and I can remember, you know, lifting that liver Up to put it into the scale to weigh it. It's really heavy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, and it's slippery, was that right? Wait, were you wearing?
Speaker 3:gloves yeah, that's just kind of worse.
Speaker 2:So remember the guy in medical school. One of our professors said take these organs out of the formaldehyde with his bare hands and never wear gloves. And it was just disgusting, yeah, but he he let, he couldn't feel the gloves and one of my attendings.
Speaker 3:when he did breast biopsies, looking for cancer, he would take his gloves off because that's the way he he was 60 some years old. That's the way he felt and he was very major hippo violation. Now, would be. But even back then they hadn't started doing the formaldehyde Um. They started, um, you know, taking air. They'd have you wear a thing so you could see how much for out maldehyde exposure you were getting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but at times that definitely the hip is definitely had to have changed like crazy, oh yeah and I stopped right before hippo really kicked in, yeah so, oh so, hippo wasn't even hippo wasn't there when I actually retired.
Speaker 2:Okay that's funny. But so so, hippos, like it, you guys, it's a regulatory body, most you probably know. It's a regulatory body that sets standards for hospitals about what you need to do for patient safety and your own safety and wearing gloves and all safety precautions, and so.
Speaker 1:Incompetency, very it's confidentiality.
Speaker 3:I thought it was confidentiality.
Speaker 1:You can't reveal.
Speaker 3:I'm being an ocean. My bad, I was in an ocean.
Speaker 1:I was gonna say yeah, hippos can't my bad. Yeah, confidentiality. Well, osha is definitely.
Speaker 2:OSHA is the regulatory body. Regulatory body, yeah, but yeah hippos, just all about.
Speaker 1:You can't reveal anything about like even you with your, with kids once if they don't want that, you have to say hey, yes, my mom can know about my medic like you can be paying for someone's yeah, stuff at school you can't even tell that's another thing they can't know your grades.
Speaker 3:When christie was at ut as a high school student and was taking college classes that dual credit thing yeah, I was trying. I tried to talk to one of her professors about something and, um, there's a law called FERPA. Yeah that's the high school that I thought was shoes you know for two's 15, 16.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think she was 15.
Speaker 3:So I figured you know that didn't apply to her. She wasn't 18, right? Oh no, once they're in college, doesn't matter how old they are. So Daniel Lou, when he was nine and went to college, he had purple too. The student has to sign something to release it.
Speaker 2:I hope I, like you, remember when my dad my dad was taking the hospital except a heart attack and and I called the emergency Department doctor who I knew and knew me and I said is my dad there? And she's, I can't tell you. And I said what's my dad? I mean, is he having a heart attack or what's happening?
Speaker 3:I had taken him.
Speaker 2:I, yeah, I can't give you any information. Those only went down to see over.
Speaker 3:Oh, oh, when we were in Rochester. No, no, here in Toledo.
Speaker 2:But when I'm just saying they wouldn't. It's my dad and they know who I am and they recognize my voice. And she still said I can't give you any information. So then I sped out of my car. I Was on call what? I was going down the street, a cop stop me, he's gonna give me a ticket. I said you know, my dad's having a heart attack. I don't know what's going on. So he was nice enough to let me go and I went to the hospital. But boy I I mean I had a few words with her when I got the emergency department, because I mean, is my father forgot?
Speaker 3:Well, you're a doctor so I know. But but no, I mean it was very powerful.
Speaker 3:Well, even my dad, even even my dad when he had he had a mass in his chest. He ended up dying of a metastatic lung cancer. And I was talking to one of the pathologists when they had done the, when they'd taken the Fluid off of his lung, and I said, was there cancer cells in it? And I already knew he had mass, so I knew he had to have cancer. And my Co-worker that I used to work with just a few years before would not discuss it with me, said I cannot talk to you about the results. And I was like whoa, I mean same.
Speaker 1:It's not on them or it's just because it's so. The Consequences are so steep.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what they?
Speaker 1:do with HIPAA, like, even if a doctor online acknowledges that, if someone Posts online to your Google business that hey, like thanks, dr Treffler. If you acknowledge that that person was your patient, even though they put it out there there, your patient, you can. That's a HIPAA violation. You can't. You can't reveal that, that you've done surgery on someone, because that's Disclosing the the gap that what if they do?
Speaker 3:do it first doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:No, I just said that they can say, hey, I'm not careful patient, but you can't acknowledge it.
Speaker 1:Oh my god, I can't know. Yeah, you can't acknowledge anything.
Speaker 3:I didn't know that that's.
Speaker 1:That's why I take a weird thing and I mean they're cracking down like the whole online. You really can't give out Like any type of. You came the inkling of a personalized advice, so that's yeah, that's why social media have to be very Little bit careful what you do, especially as a doctor, because you have to be.
Speaker 2:You can't reveal any patient information when you're giving these. Yeah and just, but you've shown what you're doing like some people.
Speaker 1:There was recently the surgeon who got Her medical license taking away, right, she was live, she was live streaming, yeah, so like they're, I mean that it seems very silly, but you know I'm saying there there are people who ask, like can you, can you take live videos of surgeries or can you put videos up with surgeries? And there's reasons like that you can't that actually takes. I think there's very big Distinction between, like, if you're waiting for the surgery room to be ready and you're taking a video explaining something real quick and we added that, post it later, which I do Versus trying, you can't really fully focus on surgery. If you're trying to do videos and other stuff too, you can't. I mean.
Speaker 3:I don't know, I don't know all the details of that, it just you know.
Speaker 2:You know, if you're in surgery you're not gonna be.
Speaker 1:really, if you're actively doing surgery, you can't be doing a video, I guess yeah, you know, but no that those are just things like how the times are like changing, like that. That sneeze will be addressed over time more and more, I imagine, in medicine, with all these doctors who now are on social media, and how that works out. So do be determined. But going back now, it's the work life balance. What about? We've talked about residency? We talked about when you first started. What about when you were both working? We're a little older, maybe when I like more in grade school at the time I'm thinking about is probably like you know, like Second grade, like fifth grade, when I was that age, he was definitely working a lot long, like he was working some long hours, I Think it was the same to me, about the same as residency, in the beginning because I was so busy and I was doing a lot of Trauma calling and I think everything's new and you're, you know you're stressed because you know I'm doing surgery by myself and you're not
Speaker 2:used to it. You're just getting used to your, you know, being a surgeon on your own. So I mean I think Cindy understood that. So I mean, again, it was really. It was. You know, she took care of the kids and I did my job and maybe I mean I, I mean I'm sure I helped out in the evening when I couldn't stuff. I mean we always did that, but but it still was, live was lopsided. It's always been lopsided, it always will be lopsided.
Speaker 3:Right, I ended up retiring oh. Right before I got.
Speaker 1:Right after.
Speaker 3:Christy was born.
Speaker 2:I ended up retiring because then we had four kids and you figured I tried to go back and do forensics but we didn't want the kids growing up with nannies either. Right, that's what it would have taken.
Speaker 3:I, I definitely retired because I told you that the other time that I had this headache and I Just, I just was always stressed and I, finally, I just decided I had to, I had to quit, and it wasn't like I was quitting for a year, a day, or Couple weeks or a couple years. I would never go back. I knew that because you can't. There's no like Remedial programs.
Speaker 1:Five-year break or ten years in anything, but especially not especially medicine, especially pathology.
Speaker 3:I tell you that because even when you take a week's vacation, it takes you longer to look at slides than it did.
Speaker 2:It's a skill set, you know you gotta, you gotta keep up on your skill set if you're gonna be good at and I think um, I Mean pathology.
Speaker 3:Look at the slides, or just that's what you do every day as you look at slides.
Speaker 1:Well, I think some people they're like slide after slide after slide how good people in medicine are surgeons or pathologists.
Speaker 1:You have to think that person, since, really since after Undergrad they've already been doing stuff really through medical school and all of their residency and then all their time, like in the field, you are just drilling in, like knowing that people are like wonder who aren't in medicine, like how do you know all this stuff? Like you just kind of drill that becomes your second nature, like that becomes like who you are, so you understand all that stuff. You can Pick up on something faster. So if you stop that for five, ten years or any, you're not going back. No, you can't pick it up. No, program.
Speaker 3:No group will hire you. They're not gonna hire you, and if there was a remedial program they might, but when I, what I ended up doing is going back into forensics. After a few years, after having her, they were gonna Start a residency program, fellowship, and I was going to be the first one to go through it because, as I said, I was too. There was too long a gap. Yeah and I couldn't take my boards, so you would have to do a redo, a fall show.
Speaker 3:Yeah so it's amazing. Just the terminology, you lose it.
Speaker 1:You don't use it, you lose it. It's not like riding the bike you can't just jump back.
Speaker 3:I'm a certification.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like you just said, boards are you want to explain boards to people?
Speaker 3:Yeah, boards are just. It's a specialized test that's really really hard and complex and over a couple of days, different for every specialty and, for instance, there's some specialty boards too, and it was at the point where, for forensics, they're they're not gonna allow you to do autopsy's and testifying court without having boards.
Speaker 2:Well, boards are to test your competency. So they want to make sure you're confident in your field, your chosen field. So you have to pass boards to become board certified, which is your society that controls your Profession says that you're certified incompetent.
Speaker 1:It's like the bar for lawyers right, and you have to. It's like if there was a driver's test getting licensed, but you have to keep Proving like. You have to get CMEs every year so you can stay accredited, so people can trust like this person.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you're not bored. But some people that aren't board certified, hospitals won't hire them. Insurance companies won't give they give them insurance because they don't. They're not gonna sure somebody's not board certified.
Speaker 1:So it's a big deal. Yeah, it's the United States safety mechanism against letting certain people get you know, do do something in the hospital. I shouldn't be doing stuff and they use, and even then there's people who will sneak through boards and still, you know, have I.
Speaker 3:Think it really hard now.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, about Dr Daff, yeah, that's insane.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you guys won't get died super deep, maybe we'll do an episode on that sometime. The doctor that there's a thank you. Matt, it's on HBO or one of those ones, but it's with them Alec Baldwin.
Speaker 2:It's a recreation of it, but he was a neurosurgeon with a lot of bad outcomes and was able to keep practicing and moving from a hospital Till finally he got stopped by a few surgeons who recognized that he shouldn't be operating. But you know, I think he was board certified and it's amazing how he went from hospital hospital, kept getting hired, with all these bad outcomes. So it you know no, it's still.
Speaker 1:It's. Stuff like that can still Certification doesn't mean that you're still. Guarantee.
Speaker 2:But it's a Netflix series. I think I Couldn't why I started watching and it just upset me so bad. It literally upset me. I had to stop watching because and I go in the surgery next thing and, oh my god, I mean, this guy did this and can I do this? And it's like how does that happen? It just was upsetting me, so I didn't even finish the series because it was too upset.
Speaker 1:I was with my girlfriend because you were and and now is you like? For you it's just like so far, if you know what you're doing and that's how this one guy who did surgery, who's the type surgeon? When you're going from the front, what's the best, I'm sure the vascular surgeon who, like, did a procedure with him, said this guy only to think understands basic anatomy. He was doing stuff so wrong.
Speaker 2:So like how he got through all this stuff, residency and everything well, that's the key is how did he get through residency, How'd he get approved through his residency, and so I'm sure his residency program had a lot of questions thrown at them About that.
Speaker 1:But you know I mean that's, that's a very outlier case, but it's crazy because there's always still things and that's even in the United States Like there's still stuff that happens all across the country and world. That were so yeah. So I was saying is like what about when we were, you know, younger? We were all in a lot of sports and stuff and like school plays and other things like that. What was it like? He's obviously working a lot and you running around to all that stuff. What was that?
Speaker 3:Well, you know what I did and of retiring. It was such a relief because If he, like my schedule was my schedule, if I was to work till five, I pretty much worked till five, yeah, whereas if he got done with surgery or one got canceled or the patient load was lighter, he might get out on a Friday afternoon at like three o'clock. So there I am working till five, so you can see there are Time together was not as great. So the nice thing about when I did decide to retire is if he got off when we wanted to go do something, I could just get. He could call me and say, hey, I'm gonna get off in an hour and I could gather everybody together and we could go do something.
Speaker 2:And then I was, and then I don't show up, and then she get mad at me. I said I can never lie in you.
Speaker 3:No, I always happens a lot right.
Speaker 2:Well I say I'm gonna be there, and then all of a sudden I'm not in the very beginning it was.
Speaker 3:It was a little crazy, but then it got a little better after I retired. But, um, I Learned to an hour or two every time that he told me that it he would not be home at four, he'd be home at five.
Speaker 1:That's a good, that's a good trick. Right there you learn that instead of getting mad, if you get used to it, to you and you're. You adapted you like. Okay, he's. He means beyond mat 4, but he always gets caught up with it's how I do with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, ready to go at six. It's always six or seven. So, you almost have to say we have to leave at 5 30 because I'm gonna leave on time well, and here's a you can't deny I'm not going to, I was gonna say something.
Speaker 3:I was already thinking about it I'm never on time and he is on time. One time one of Brian's coaches he was in seventh-race grade and you know who he is, he's so cute he told Brian tell your mom that practices at 5, 30 instead of six, so that that I would get him to practice no, no, this cat, okay, he did not like we.
Speaker 2:We have a guest, we have. I'm came surprise guests.
Speaker 1:Pumpkin down now video.
Speaker 2:Yes, I've, guys didn't hear the dogs and cats?
Speaker 1:did they barge into the door?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well I think a push the door, open up the dogs and they all came through, they like very good.
Speaker 1:I want to hang out society if they're annoying in background.
Speaker 3:But um yeah so he told Brian and at first I was kind of mad and then I was like you know, that was actually quite creative. I was always late, so it got him there on time. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I was gonna say so, yeah, I learned to add some time on and and then you know, um, I don't know I did take a huge. It was a huge relief, in a sense, not to have to work anymore, even though I hated being at home in certain respects, because I I mean, I put a lot of time in every very intelligent woman and Again, like that, it's a two different senses of purpose, like raising your family, versus when you're out there doing stuff and you know providing for society or provide.
Speaker 1:You know helping other people and helping solve cases. There's very exciting.
Speaker 3:But you know, I Kind of you know what you said the other day about when you're really when you're busy and how it you seem to get more done. Because, yeah, that's how it was, because, um, you know, I'd have to have dinner ready by this time, or you know Whatever, and then I'd pick this one up or take that one to practice and then I'd study with the other two or whatever.
Speaker 3:So, it would. It actually kept me. It was good for me because I have a little ADD To have a rigid, a more regimented schedule. Yeah, so at the beginning of the semester I would you know, write down everything. I had a big calendar and all the different colors and everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I might be botching this by. I believe it's Parkinson's law, where, whatever, how are the available time you get done With a task and the available amount of time you have. So say you have four hours to do something, you'll take the entire four hours to do that task, but if you only have an hour to do it, you'll you'll Get that task done now. So I think it's the same with that. I think like right now really I'm training for an iron man. I bet dad was like this too when he trained for his iron man. When you know you have to do that those different workouts and they're there. Like, if you know you have a long bike ride on a Saturday, like a four and a half hour bike ride on a Saturday or Sunday you like, you know you have to do that. You get everything else done during the week, you get all your stuff and you you don't waste as much time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can't send social media, you can't watch TV show. There's a funny one. It's totally. It's totally reminds that too, like if you're jogging and you're only you don't know how far you're gonna go. It's like you're just can't wait till it's done. You're sitting here, you're thinking, if you have your minor reset, I'm gonna do 10 miles, and I know I got to do it. It's much easier. I mean you're, you're prepared for it.
Speaker 3:So here's a. Here's an example to Understanding and knowing what you got to get done. He had very little time left before his iron man and he needed to get along long bike ride in, and we were moving Julie into Ohio State and so we drove two cars, which is great because we had a lot of stuff, and your dad went off and South of.
Speaker 2:Columbus did 112 mile bike riders while I.
Speaker 3:Julie and we went to Target or whatever, and got all the stuff and he had lunch and and then he joined us afterwards.
Speaker 1:Well, when you and that's awesome First of all, and then second of all is when you plan something out and you put it down. That's the importance of planning your week or planning your days. Once you put it there, it's way hard to like negotiate in your own mind like, oh, do I really have to that? If you just say I'm gonna go bike today and you know you haven't said exact goal, what you're gonna do, it's easy to say, well, ah, I'm too busy today. I'm doing this. It's way easier to make excuses with yourself. Who would?
Speaker 3:have, that's true. So that's the importance of writing it, scheduling it.
Speaker 1:Schedule your workouts and and, just I mean schedule important everything schedule the important things in your life, if you know, if you don't schedule to Like have coffee with a friend or schedule do this and that as you get busy in life, you just all that, do it. Yeah, you don't if you don't schedule things, your prioritize them. They all yeah, I said but Do you guys have anything else you want to say on work life balance, or just funny?
Speaker 3:Well, that was in the earlier days, and then why? You guys were in high school. And then you talk about work life balance. There were a couple changes. First of all, when you guys all left, that was really weird.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were on for three months when they were well, yeah, well, I was a very short, long, long thing.
Speaker 3:But, I'm the one that always stayed up with the kids and for the kids and that was very stressful after Brian died Having them for everybody, not just me for them. They have to negotiate high school and and everything after having a brother die of a drunk driving accident and I would just be so stressed out but he had to sleep and you know, take call and do all that and then all of a sudden there was nothing. There was no sports, there was no kids, there was nothing, and it was weird for a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I started cooking for the kid the dogs instead of the kids. Do you remember that We'd go out To dinner sometimes and then I would go to bed really early, like you do, and and then I'd be up at like one o'clock in the morning? Because I'm not used to?
Speaker 1:you've always been, you definitely like he's very much a morning person, I think. Even when we're on vacation he wakes up early. You naturally will stay up later. I think you're more of a night. I think I night oh, I enjoy. Like you get a lot done in the morning. I'm more like you. I can do that and I like it, but I can just naturally stay up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I love like Reading at night or watching TV at night. I used to read all the time. I used to stay when.
Speaker 2:I was in high school, I would stay up and watch Johnny Carson I I Remember when I worked at the gas station. I closed the gas station get home, or 1130.
Speaker 1:I thought 40 years ago big dog.
Speaker 2:I know, I said to 130 or two, and I've watched TV and I make my grilled cheese sandwich. Oh, but you know you get in the residency and I got to be in there at, you know, 430 in the morning, 4 o'clock every day.
Speaker 3:You just you like to get up? We would study late sometimes we would say late, but I do.
Speaker 2:I get you like to because everything's clear in the morning, like in the morning, your mind's clear. I could absorb stuff. That's different. That's what it's hot. That's different you are definitely. I can't, I can't remember anything at night time, in the morning, everything, just I could absorb everything it was staying my mind. In the afternoon it's like it's gone.
Speaker 1:That's people who like. For some people like they, they feel clear, they feel clear-minded at night, like that yeah, you and I are night.
Speaker 3:Oh, thank you, I like some people.
Speaker 1:If you step you're like two or three am. Some people are Like that, wired for that. And if you look through history you can see examples of both all the time, of like how different people Like writer really famous writers, like F Scott's jail would go out and party and then he'd come on right and verse other writers would want to write Right early in the morning and other people they get. I've heard like Joe roving before he'll talk. He writes his best jokes like I'm nice sometimes.
Speaker 2:They're just intro at night, just even tonight for me. I mean I wake up all the time. Oh, that's my best ideas, for everything come in the middle of night.
Speaker 3:That's all. You wake up.
Speaker 2:No, no, no. I that's been my whole life. Oh, if you wake up in the middle night, I haven't ever done that you wake up and you got ideas?
Speaker 3:Yeah, they won't ever know. You got a down you got a right down. I but I don't remember you ever getting up in the middle of the night when we were younger, before Brian.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would in bed, I would wake up and I would have ideas for things, but you just weren't as inspired to write them down.
Speaker 1:And then yeah, just like you know, right, your dreams down Anyway.
Speaker 2:I'll break the goal right now.
Speaker 1:So I mean there's there's 100% science behind that. There's so many people talk about it. Thomas Edison used to. He had this like contraption. He would like fall asleep and have like a notebook.
Speaker 1:Oh, and he have something that wakes him up. So, like once he fell asleep, you'd have, like, all those brilliant ideas. It's pretty. If you guys haven't heard that, you should look. It's pretty, it's pretty nerdy, but it's a fact, because we have so many of our brightest Ideas right out of sleep. It's crazy, but we don't. It's hard to capture that. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because you don't want to take the time to run them down.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you think you're morning, I think you're remembering the morning you don't remember.
Speaker 2:you got the hammers over there yeah it's true.
Speaker 1:I mean something we could all work on, just capturing Right after, in the middle of the night or first, when you wake up, like anything you remember. I swear I have Sometimes I'll have dreams and I'm like that could be, like that could be a novel.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, what's really weird is I used to dream a lot, and very vivid dreams.
Speaker 1:And I would.
Speaker 3:I would have dreams where somebody was trying to kill me. I don't know, but um, I don't have dreams anymore that I remember.
Speaker 2:You're probably still it's runs the streets I'd last. Four nights I've had dreams was odd in it dreams and hardly years and also.
Speaker 3:I think you don't dream as much when you get older.
Speaker 1:That's an interesting I think you bet again You're probably, you're probably still going through ramen everything.
Speaker 2:You just don't remember.
Speaker 1:You have to like remember we're doing the gym quick thing, like if you really train yourself to like think about Okay, I'm going to sleep right now I'm going and like have a nighttime routine and then, right when you wake up in the morning, write out everything. At first, I like I don't feel like I'll dream once I start to. If I did that for like a week, I'll start noticing dreams a lot more because I mean, I think most people are having around. I know there's things like if you smoke marijuana or weed or whatever, you stop having as much, rem sleep really, or that's like a thing. People smoke weed, like we'll say they are there studies on that.
Speaker 3:They don't sit, and that sounds like they don't sleep as good. No, I mean is it REM sleep? Good for you?
Speaker 1:The most problem. Yes, I rem's good. I think that's where you're most creative, right. But the most important part is deep sleep, right.
Speaker 3:That's where you're releasing each day which was which ones for Think that's deep right there.
Speaker 2:But oh, but yeah. Deep, deep sleep is where you're consolidating memories and things like that, I believe.
Speaker 3:Rem is where you just hear what your brain right there brains very active during around us.
Speaker 2:It's like being awake, but you're still sleeping around.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what's the one? You can't move your fair. That's well, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 2:I'm right when you're coming out of rem and going in the room.
Speaker 1:Oh, when you your body like uh, because it's not as eyes itself, so you don't carry out your dreams.
Speaker 2:So dogs, dogs, they don't have. They're not paralyzed during REM. So when our dogs are, you know they're making the, they're racism bad and they're moving. It's because they're around. They're probably chasing a squirrel or something, but they're still moving. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, I will say, none of us are sleep or dream experts, so take everything we have to look at that some more. But I because I still from training, I still from training that like deep sleep when you're releasing, like the HGH, maybe Donald Trump it's, it's very important. But okay, we touched on a lot of a lot of things tonight in this episode, but hopefully you guys got some from the work, like balance and it's kind of funny because we definitely now he I think we're switching back.
Speaker 3:Now he's doing trauma call again and stuff. He was a little less busy. And then COVID, when he was completely off Usually we don't like your dad to be off at work because he he needs to be busy, very antsy, he needs to be busy and he's be doing something, but he helps out, he will. He's always been one that'll clean up after I make dinner. He has.
Speaker 2:I'm the perfect husband.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, yeah, that's it, yeah, yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2:I do always help with dishes.
Speaker 3:I always have yeah and like he'll get groceries.
Speaker 2:But I hate like Thanksgiving because then I everybody's eating and everybody nobody helps.
Speaker 3:No, yeah, so well, yeah, I know that I know that feeling. No, you, I know. Well, you cook, you spend all the time cooking there and stuff and then I end up cleaning all the and us too, do it all, Although, as they've gotten over it, it helped a little bit more. But like you'll call sometimes it and say, hey, any dinner plans I'm going. I'm going to stop at the grocery store. Do you want me to pick up anything?
Speaker 1:I'll say it's just give and take, give and take and that's so important. No, it's very important, yep.
Speaker 2:So I think, for our next podcast should we just touch upon nothing else. Should we? Should we? Do you want to keep going or just stop, or not, or no?
Speaker 1:Oh, I was saying I think that's good for this episode and what did you want to talk about next episode?
Speaker 2:No, no, I well, we had, we had polled everybody. We could do another poll and see what people want us to talk about. The second biggest thing that people want us to talk about was about grief and how to deal with it, since our son died, and that would be an interesting podcast.
Speaker 3:Which we can Because. I think we Our way of talking about it.
Speaker 2:Well, because you're. You're in your own world, like when Brian died. I think we all wanted to die, but we're all in our own world. Like I remember, I couldn't think about you, or you I like to think about is you're just in your own, you couldn't. It's like you're alone, like you were just alone on your own. And then trying to get back into work and your routine was very hard and I'm sure we all have our own different perspective on how it.
Speaker 3:I think kids, I think young people, have an amazing ability to to go forward and not deal with it. I think you guys, as teenagers, were able to kind of a lot more, somehow because you dealt with it a little more later.
Speaker 2:I don't know if that's true, but having lived through, I think we could give people some idea what you know, what's what it's like, and maybe how to handle grief a little bit better. I mean, everybody handles it on their own, so there's not a road way to handle grief, but we could, I think, give some tips to people that might make some sense to you. Well, I think sharing our experience.
Speaker 1:I think, because, compared to the amount of things that are discussed about lots of other topics, I don't think people talk about grief.
Speaker 2:Cause it's uncomfortable. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's uncomfortable.
Speaker 1:I think that that and then just like what's worked for us, what doesn't work, um, so I think that'll be our. We'll do that episode next and, as always, you know we read everything uh, you know the feedback. Let us know what you guys think. If you have topic suggestions, things you'd really want us to discuss. What you think of these podcast episodes so far, if you've listened or watched them, yeah, and if they're moving too slow, let it go. Or, yeah, we're trying to keep the dogs out this time, but they like to be in here.
Speaker 1:They broke in, so hopefully that wasn't distracting. And if you could, if you enjoyed this, please give us a rating. You know, give us a rating on Spotify or Apple and, uh, our view and let us know. That definitely helps, Um, as we do these.
Speaker 2:So, and then I think you know, eventually we're in a like we'll probably talk as a family a little bit more and then I think, eventually we talk about having some fun different guests. On that you guys would be interested, just be people that you wouldn't meet offhand, that we know that we could have come on and tell some cool stories and be interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just kind of get, uh, just to have interesting conversations with different people we know and just kind of progress from there, Um, and just go back and forth between either we do some episodes and have guests on, and maybe we'll have, we can, different guests we've met through social media too, um yeah, we're trying to get Kristian's.
Speaker 2:She could talk about being a new mother with a new baby. And probably a lot of moms out there who are just getting ready to have a baby or have a young child, and how do they handle it?
Speaker 3:Well, especially as a 21 year old girl.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I think that was everything, and there's so much um, I don't know what's critiquing criticism, advice I mean, nobody was sitting around on the internet telling me what to do. Um, it's helpful to be be able to get information, but then everything you do now is there's 50 people giving you advice about it.
Speaker 1:Well, there's not one right right way to do stuff. That's the issue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so and I think it'd be cool to have Julie answer. Julie's our um third. She's in London now, but this is our quiet, shy daughter who went off to London on her own and I think it'd be cool to talk to her about how, how did she get the gumption and the courage to go overseas move away from us, cause she was pretty shy. Oh, she's shy and she's I mean but but tremendous how she's gone over there and done that.
Speaker 3:And she's loving it, and she's loving it.
Speaker 2:And so it would be good you know if people are thinking about should I take a trip or do something different? I mean, Julie, be a good one to give you some advice what it's like to go out of your comfort zone, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and how long does it take to start feeling comfortable? Because it definitely took a little bit of time and she's planning on staying for at least another year.
Speaker 1:So she could talk about a lot more stuff too neuroscience and other stuff.
Speaker 3:So she'd be good to her and dad would be good to talk together, since they speak the brain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so lots to come, but that's that's wrap on this one. Thanks everyone for watching and listening and I hope you have a great day.
Speaker 2:Thank you All right.
