Hi.
I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist, and speaker.
And I'm Sarah Hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer, and course creator. We are two working parents who love our careers and our families.
Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Term career goals.
We want you to get the most out of life.
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.
This episode is airing in mid March of twenty twenty five. I am coming at you live from Sarah's fancy recording studio also known as her closet. We are here in Fort Lauderdale together, Sarah. I feel like we've taken our relationship to a whole new level.
No, because I have recorded in your fancy recording studio otherwise known as.
I don't know if it's a closet, it's a closet, it's not big.
So we have reached this level of microphone intimacy before, just in.
A different location.
We have both been in each other's closets now recording which in case anyone is wondering, it tends to be better sound quality in an enclosed space. And so you have a lot of podcasters who if you're not in a real recording studio, which we have not yet attained that level, I guess we are in our closets. But anyway, we're here together in Fort Lauderdale, which is really really exciting. I am glad to be here with Sarah. It's always fun to come visit her, and especially good to see
her this time up and moving around. For those who've been following her blog, we know that she had a pretty major health incident a few weeks ago. So Sarah, maybe you could just give the quick version of that. I mean, if there is a quick version. I don't know that there is.
Oh wow, the quick version. It's not gonna be that quick because it's okay, but I'll give it. We've got time. We've got thirty five minutes.
That's true, all right, So and I won't be that long either. So some of you already know this stuff if you listen to Best Laid Plans, if you read the blog, but just in case you don't, I had an incident after running a half marathon in early March. It was the Miami Beach Half called the three h five Half, and you know, it was just like another race for me. I don't even know how many halfs I've run, like, I have not counted them at this point,
but it's got to be twenty or more. And I run that distance like almost every weekend, just as a routine. But it was a race, so you know, I went in. There have been some stressful stuff going on, nothing terrible, like fun stuff. I had come back from a speaking engagement, I went to a gymnastics meet the day before, so
just a lot going on, but nothing terribly unusual. And we stayed at Josh's parents the night before so that the kids could hang out with their grandparents and we could run this race and not have to get up so early in drive to Miami Beach, and the race itself was going good. It was about sixty five degrees, which is for us really nice. Humunity was low, so everyone was like, WHOA, this is amazing. We can actually run for once and not just be driven down by
the heat. And my goal was to run like around a one forty five, so I was kind of aiming for like sub eight minute pace.
And my plan was going off fine.
I was like a little tired and noticing my heart rate was like a little bit on the higher end on my watch.
Than what I would have expected. At the paces.
I was running, but nothing bad, and I figured, you know what, like it's not totally cool out, and you know, I just didn't think much of it. But I was going up. You go up bridges during this race. There are actually four times that you go like back and forth across from like the mainland. The geography escapes me exactly, but you're going up and down these bridges four times, and so that's the most challenging part. Otherwise it's flat.
And the fourth one, I guess I said to myself, Oh man, I thought there were only three somehow, but I guess we.
Have another one.
And I'm doing fine, and like suddenly it was like a switch turn on. I'm like, oh, I'm not fine. Something's wrong. Like I guess I'm hitting a wall. Oh my god, my husband talks about hitting a wall like runners talk about hitting a wall and a marathon, and I guess that's it. Because I can't breathe and I can't go anymore. And you know, I had been going like very solidly, steadily around like seven to fifty five, eight minutes, like right where I wanted to be, and I just like.
Could not do that.
So I start walking and I start jogging and still feeling terrible. Like normally, if you're going to give up and then you're going to run a ten minute mile after you've been running eight, you would think, well, at least now I'm going to be able to breathe.
Right. I'm sad, but I can.
But I still didn't feel right. And I got to the end of the race and I was like, okay, well I'm done. Now my body can calm down. I don't know what the heck just happened, but that was so sad, and man, I ran a one fifty that sucks, like it's not what I wanted. And my friend passed me, and you know, I'm thinking all this stuff, and then I'm like, but like, why isn't my heart slowing down? Like why do I feel like I'm still running and I'm standing still, Okay, I need to sit down for
a little bit longer. And I find my friend, my lovely friend Tracy, who did amazing in that race.
She's the one who passed me. She had a great race, and she's.
Like, you don't seem quite great, Like, let's go find the medical tent. So she like helped me find it, which is good because like I was kind of like in distress already, and I don't know if I would have been able to get there very well. Well, Josh had already finished like ten minutes before. I'm celebrating with some friends, but we called him and he's like, okay, I'm coming right over.
And I go in there and they put.
A pul sox on me, and they put a blood pressure cuf on and the pul sox says, Okay, you're like satting ninety eight percent, your pulse is eighty something, your blood pressure is like nineties over sixties. You're like, eh, you're a little degagraated.
That's fine.
And I'm like, okay, that makes sense. Like I think I'm maybe okay, and I start to walk away. But then I started to feel like I really couldn't breathe, like I was shorter of breath, Like I've never really had shortness of breath. I've seen it lots, you know, as a clinician. But I'm like, I think I'm having an allergic reaction or anaphleaxis, cause I feel like my airways closing and my chest feels like it hurts, and I don't know what I'm reacting to, but I need
to go back. So like we'd goten like ten feet away, but we walked back and they're like, okay, this time, sit down and we'll put the leads on you, like the little cardiac leads. I'm like the second they did that, everyone was like like there was like things had changed, Like everyone was like, oh, this is not good, Like we are intro because I guess my heart rate was going like over two fifty and the pull sox just
hadn't picked up on it. I guess because my pulses hadn't been making it all the way to my finger or what the pull sox was. But my heart was showing this like rate of over two fifty and it looked funky. I knew enough to be like, Okay, that's very bad, and they're gonna like code me and stuff
is gonna happen. And sure enough, I started feeling more and more dizzy, and my blood pressure is dropping and just a series of events, I'm getting on a stretcher and they're taking me to an ambulance and sticking ivs in me.
Really harrowing ride. I was awake the whole time, so it was not even like I passed out and got to miss out on this experience.
I was very dizzy and lightheaded, but like still there, and I kept hearing them say something about shocking, and I'm like.
Do not shock me. I am awake.
I cannot be shocked. I've never seen anyone shocked awake. I mean maybe people are shocked awake. I actually haven't gone back to looked that. It was just horrifying to me, the idea that I would be like electrocuted while I could still talk right, even if my vitals looked bad.
And we're like in the ambulance and I'm think gave me two doses of a medicine called dniscene, which if you have something called super ventricular taket cardia, often it will help stop it if you don't maybe even if you do, but it makes you feel like you're gonna die.
So I like, what like you can't breathe or you can't or you just feel.
Pad he like starts to go black and you feel like your heart is stopping, and in that context, I was like maybe I am actually dying, and I'm like some sort of yeah, and I'm like saying, I love you, I love the kids, like I need to be alive for my babies, like please like make this stop. And we get to the hospital, which was pretty close. I mean, they had the sirens on and everything, and I think it was like ten minute ride or maybe less because mounts On Hospital in mind.
Maybe it's just pretty close to where the race was.
And they get me the er and I'm like, okay. The doctors are here, like they're like, we have to shock you, and I'm.
Like, just put me asleep. I guess I acknowledge the most. Josh and the ambulance with yeah, yes, and he was like terrified.
I mean he was like he said he lost all of his medical skills during that time because.
He just couldn't like think of that type of stuff.
And they were able to get an iv in give me a dose of medicine to like make me not asleep but like amnestic yeah, so that I wouldn't remember the experience the dose over said, and I got shocked and it worked, so Josh said immediately was like what happened. My heart rate went from two sixty five to like eighty yeah, no, like right, just like it's supposed to.
Yeah, exactly.
And I think in retrospect that I probably had been in that crazy rhythm for like a long time, like for maybe from the race, or maybe I was off and on during the race when I was finishing it all the way that whole time in the medical tent, et cetera. My blood pressure got as low as like sixties or ver thirties or something terrible. It was a lot the labs they drew labs on me, which looked insane.
I'm like, that's what sick people's labs look like. So I was kind of like the definition of like cardio headed towards like CARDI you ding shock or whatever. And that was a lot in my completely boring health history of a life.
I yeah, because you didn't.
Have any really like I mean, you didn't have much warning that this was and that happened.
I had no warning.
I mean I am like healthy, like I have normal blood pressure, I have a really low resting heart rate.
I say that there's two clues.
And just in case anyone's listening to this, it's like I'm worried this could happen to me, which it probably won't, but like it could, these things do happen. The two warning signs I had where that I did have one race five years ago or had the same thing happen.
It wasn't as bad, it went away on its own, but it was like really fast heartbeat that I felt like I couldn't control, and short of breath that it lasted for like over a half hour after I had stopped running, and I was going to bring it up with my doctor, like I remember, but.
Then I think COVID happened.
This was twenty twenty pre COVID, like January, and then I don't think it ever turned into anything. And honestly, even if I had, I'm not sure they would have found anything at the time because some of my initial testing was normal anyway, even this time, so who knows if that would have come to anything. But I did have one prior episode, so I'd say do not ignore shortness of breath or weird heart stuff.
That is triggered by exercise.
And the other thing is I do have a lot of what's known as PVC's or like extra beats. I kind of always had, and I had actually noticed them like a little more than normal in the feud actually at a conference, mean like you just feel your heart like skip a beat or like like you feel a little palpitation, and then maybe you're like, oh that's weird. I'll feel my pulse and it's just like weirdly like irregular, like you'll feel like beat beat beat, like and you anyway, yeah,
like extra beats. They're called like PVCs, and they can be normal and a lot of people have them. A caffeine can make them worse than some people. But I had like actually when I was at that conference. I was at a conference in Texas speaking and I was went to some of the sessions, and I guess I think I noticed it more when I'm just sitting still. Plus I did drink coffee, probably more than normal because I was like at a conference, that's what you do, right, And I just noticed them.
So that's like my one other maybe clue. But other than that, no, nothing, Yeah, I.
Mean because you were running like fifty sixty miles a week pretty fast and not having this happen and like on a daily.
So many races. I've run two marathons in last year. I didn't have this issue.
I've run many really fast paced training runs. I mean, I guess the only difference with the half is like a faster pace for.
Like a little bit more. But I wasn't even like I wasn't dying in that race.
I actually was sort of thinking to myself, Oh, this feels good, Like I feel like I'm kind of going marathon pace. I'm not gonna push too hard. Let me just see what my splits end up. It didn't feel like a heroic effort until the part where I couldn't do it anymore.
Yeah, yeah, now that's well, who knows. I mean, these things happen so randomly. I mean, it's not like there's one thing that probably caused it.
They do, and there's a lot of underlying things that can cause us. And I still don't one hundred percent know why this happened to me. I did have quite a work up when I was in the hospital for about a week, CT scan, MRI echo cath to look at my cornarys cath to do an EP study and find out how like a rhythmegenic my heart is. So all those things put together and it does turn out like it was kind of a shock to me because I don't know.
I'm just used to getting like.
Medically good news or like medically benign news, and stuff came back that I do have some abnormal all my imaging that and on my rhythm study that I was kind of more prone to a rhythmias than they expected, like they were able to induce them, I guess very easily. And then also some just changes in the way the walls of my heart looked and the ways of the walls of my heart moved, and the sizes of the chambers.
Now you can get some like athletic remodeling, So that can be confusing, like people who are training can actually get like normal physiologic enlargement of certain chambers of the heart. So they had to really carefully try to figure out, like is what they're seeing in me that or is it like more than that. They consulted with some experts and stuff, and right now the consensus is it's more than that. It's not that we don't know exactly what
the underlying thing is. It might be something called a rhythmogenic right ventricular displaysia, which is actually more commonly seen in athletes because being very active as tends to be what brings out the phenotype and people that are predisposed in it, but we don't know for sure yet, and so I'm still kind of in the question answering phase.
And the other things they're thinking about is like, could it have been like an old myocarditis that caused changes in my heart and even some other really weird, rare things.
And I'm not even gonna mention all sorts of wonderful things. None of it's great. Yeah, yeah, we like to be normal. Yes, normal is good.
All right, Well we're gonna take a quick ad break and then be back hearing a little bit more from Sarah about her experience.
Well, we are back.
We've been talking with Sarah about her very scary incident after her half marathon where she wound up in the hospital for a week after a heart incident. So maybe you can talk a little bit more about what came out of that and what your current setup is.
Yes, so this all felt like was happening really really fast, because it was I mean, you know, I went from like no medical history, nothing exciting to like, your heart's not right in a very short period of time. And the doctors felt pretty strongly as well as my husband and talking with very like we actually ended up like consulting that doctors who work with my health system in addition to the ones where I was because we have
access to them. I feel super, super lucky and privileged that I was able to get not only just care, but like even multiple expert voices of care in the moment, which was amazing. But everyone felt really confident, not necessarily with the underlying issue, but that I needed a implanted defibrillator because I guess like the amount that it took to trigger more a rhythmias during the rhythm study wasn't
a safe amount. So we looked at the different ones and based on what they thought I might have and kind of thinking ahead to the future and like procedures that I could need or not need, we decided on a subcutaneous ICD. So I have a implanted ICD now that I had put in just a few days ago as we're recording this, So I had my first surgery ever. I'm healing from that and I don't know what that's going to be like yet. I feel like it's too soon.
I'm still like literally healing from the incisions and there's swelling and there's pain. So I do not think this is my long term reality, but I do know that as a pretty small person, I think I'm going to have a weird outline thing on my body to remind me.
That it's there.
It's not going to be so easy to totally forget about it. But I also know that it's there because if my heart ever decides to do something crazy again, it can help me right in the moment and prevent something terrible from happening. And they even tested it out, so apparently when they put it in this type, they want to make sure it works because it's subc it's not in the heart, it's like on top of the heart.
The leads go and so they like put you into VTACK or I think even v FIB during the procedure and then they shock you out of it and it worked.
It worked. Well, that's good.
I mean, so just you know, practical questions here with the device, like do the batteries run out?
Like how is it operating? How is this going on?
Yeah, so I believe the bats last on average eight years, okay, and so you just get it replaced. So I will have to schedule surgery for twenty thirty whatever, twenty thirty three years. So but that's down average. I think sometimes it's longer and sometimes it's shorter. I think it's under warranty for six warranty. Warranties are nice kind of like a used car or something.
Oh, dear, dear, And you know, is that like when you go through metal detectors.
Is that going to be a thing as well?
Yes, they said, don't go through metal detectors, like you have to request like a pat down. I don't know, like if there's like if you do, just make sure.
You don't linger run through, except don't run right right.
Yeah, we'll get to that, but yeah, yeah, yeah, like yes, but I think in general, my policy instead of being like, oh I can go through, but I can go fast, it's just gonna be like, no, I have a thingy whatever, pat me down, it's fine, and then saying yeah, like the airport and concerts and stuff like that. And there's some other really random stuff like they say like don't use like a body fat scale, like you know those are everywhere, yeah, and like we have one, and I'm like, oh my god, don't.
Step on that, like don't forget.
Yeah, yeah, I.
Mean again, I think a lot of these things are probably like not super high risk. But at the same time, I'm like, if I accidentally shock myself, I'll.
Be really sad. Yeah, so yeah, you gonna.
Try to be follow all the directions, try to avoid that if at all possible. So you're resting, relaxing as much as as possible in your life right here.
Yeah, I'm still like tired, Like I'm still I'm honestly still like in post up pain.
To some extent.
Today has been okay, Like I haven't even taken anything other than I yourprofene like a few hours ago, and I'm feeling pretty good. But I had to take like a long nap this morning because I slept so badly
because of pain. So just not like back yet. My thought is I'll probably have two weeks away from clinical work from the date of the surgery, which I think should be enough because it's not super super invasive, and I'm my hope is to go back feeling like pretty good rather than like limping on in there and kind of being halfway there. So yeah, but podcasting, I mean, listen, it's talking.
I love to talk.
It's like therapeutic. It away, so that kind of work. I don't mind.
Going back, don't mind going back to that's good. So yeah, yeah, now I'm excited to be here. I'm getting to see Sarah's house and experience the places that I've I've actually only seen through like the zoom camera because I hadn't been here before.
You know, it's funny because I've been to your house a bunch, so this is actually kind of cool.
Yeah.
Yeah, Well, Sarah's parents live pretty near to me, so she has many reasons to come up and visit. But I'm sure it's still like a huge adjustment and it's your family been all doing okay.
Yeah, they're doing okay.
I mean we did a lot of frequent like text chain updates and stuff like that. Josh kind of took over a lot of that. But yeah, everyone seems okay. I had the shower of love I got from like friends, family, community members, blog readers, et cetera. Has been like totally amazing and unexpected and not even like I just feel bad like people are sending me on I'm like, you don't need to do this, like thank you.
No, It's been wonderful.
It makes me just recognize, like what a wonderful community has been built out of doing stuff out there in the world, and I really appreciate it.
Yeah.
Well, and we'll talk about this a little bit in the question section of this. But you know, there's this tension between planning and like life happens, of course, and you can't plan for big things, unexpected things to happen. But on the other hand, that doesn't mean that planning is useless and not worth it either. And so I feel like sometimes when big things happen, people come at this it's like we'll see you know, you we make
our plans and God laughs. But no, because then just even stuff like making sure like your daughter still got her braces off at the right time, like a big milestone for that, even in the middle of all this, like all the good systems make that happen.
Yeah, I definitely do not regret any of the past planning I've done, nor do I like feel like, oh, well, that was dumb. I wanted to you know, just because my twenty twenty five goals had running related goals on them make all of them worthless. I mean, first of all, I always go in knowing I'm not going to meet every goal, like maybe Laura.
Doesn't, but I don't.
Ever.
I don't meet every goal. No, No, I know that.
I definitely I think you sometimes aim more to meet every goal. But I have like an open mind about like, you know, this is what I'm thinking about, and if I meet like a good amount of these, like, that's amazing. But you wouldn't be here right now. We wouldn't actually be having this time if we hadn't plan on it. And even though it looks different, I'm still really really
glad like we planned it. Yeah, it's working out nice, and it turns out that actually I'm getting some really nice distraction.
Even then we would have been.
At the beach, So that's all right. Planning can pause and you could take time to wallow. I have a whole chapter about like I'm gonna read my own chapter.
Chapter you reach your own chapter on wallowings.
No, but really I have a chapter on like when things are hard, and like I talk about wallowing, and I talk about like taking a minute to just like regroup and letting yourself go slowly and all those kinds of things, and those all apply, and you can still plan and use planning to help you kind of recover from something like this rather than be mad at the fact that you did it in the first place.
Yeah, well, we're going to take one more quick ad break and then we'll be back with a little bit more about this topic. Well, we are back talking about life updates, Sarah, you know, adjusting to the new normal with being a I don't know, being a cardiac patient, being a cardiac patient. But you know, it's like we
could hold two thoughts in mind simultaneously, Hairy. One is that, you know, we're all so grateful that things did not go worse, that you got medical help quickly, that people recognized what was going on, you were in a place where that could happen, as opposed to like ten miles from the house on a long on at four am that you were doing on your own, where nobody would have noticed or something until all that, So we could
be grateful for that. We can also just realize, like everything about this sucks, Like there's just you know, yeah, yeah.
And it's hard, like you know, there's no like suck Olympics.
Like part of me is like, well I wish it was this condition, are like, well that's worse than it's like, you know what, that all sucks it all sucks, all of it, and there's no like even real like comparisons to be made or anything. And one piece of the suckage that Laura hasn't mentioned because I thinks she's not sure whether she should mention or not, is that I
probably cannot run anymore. Don't know for sure, but if the diagnosis is what they think it is, exercise has been shown to cause further remodeling of the heart in a maladaptive way and can lead to heart failure over time. Now I don't again, don't know for sure, so maybe like there's like this chance they'll be like, actually it was my ocarditis and that doesn't apply to you, and like whatever. I don't think it's healthy for me to hold on to that hope because I don't think it's
super high. But I'm just you know, I'll keep an air of uncertainty there because it is there. But if it is that, and certainly until we figure out that it's not that, I can't really run, like won't be able to do even like high intensity spinning. And before
you're like that can't possibly be true. I mean, of course we don't know everything, but it looks like there is enough research on this specific thing where the top centers kind of really recommend very specific amounts of exercise that are not what I was used to doing anywhere close would I be able to maybe sometimes do a slow three mile run, like maybe great, But it's going to be a change.
It's going to be a an enormous change.
So I am grappling with that because it is nowhere near it's important as being alive and being with my family, and it's still like an annoying, crappy loss that is going to change my lifestyle a lot, because I just really have always loved to be active, Like I never really had a long period of my life where I wasn't working out most days for a significant amount of time, and I feel like I was like really relied on that like hormonal endorphin kind of whatever it was.
It's not.
It hasn't always been running, and there have been periods where I've done a lot lot less. Like actually, I look back on my infertility period when I was mostly going to yoga, and I was like, you know what, other than the infertility part, I kind of liked that lifestyle, Like it wasn't that bad. So I'm glad I actually have that to refer to and think about.
So you've been through this before in the sense of remodeling sort of your identity differents like I canun.
Yeah, I can like feel active and enjoy life and didn't really have like some huge gap in my my existence when I wasn't running during that time. So, and I didn't run that much when my kids were little either, So I'm actually really glad that I've had breaks in my life at the same time in the last two years or so, it's been a huge source of joy. And you know, I always wanted to be Q which
is Boston qualify, and then I finally did. And now even if my time from Jacksonville Marathon in December makes it, I like, I'm not going to submit it because I'm not gonna be able to run the race.
And that's that sucks that you qualified?
You qualified? Yeah, yeah, you know, no, it's rough. Well, we need to find you a new nine to ten hour a week hobby. I guess I know what could it be.
I don't know. Maybe I'll write some more, write more books. I don't know. You can sing, I don't know, choir. Maybe I'll just sleep a lot more.
Yeah, you don't have to get up at four fifteen in the morning. That whatever hobby you're doing that may not have to happen. Then maybe you know, play musical instruments. You want to get violin back out.
Probably not probably not, okay, piano, maybe maybe piano. I mean a few of those hours could be filled up with like yoga, Yeah, yoga, that's true.
We're gonna try some pilates, you know, all that kind of stuff. Maybe more socials. I don't know, we'll see. I'm not signing the hours yet, but it is a fun thing to think about. Yeah, it's a positive.
Yeah.
Well, and again it's the holding two thoughts in mind at the same point that you maybe things will be different. I mean, medicine advances at a crazy rate. There will be you know, you talk about making the appointment for your surgery in twenty thirty three, but I can tell you the device world will be different in twenty thirty three than it.
Maybe you could just like shoot it in there.
I know it'll be like AI powered entirely and like a robot that like does I don't know. And then you know, gene therapy if it is genetic, like there's all sorts of things that will happen in the next eight years that we just have no idea, and that's one of the most exciting things. But you can have that thought, but then also build your life in a way where you can be happy now whatever that takes.
Yeah, and I believe I'm I don't have a doubt that I could be happy again, like I think I might if I hadn't done it before.
But I have done it before, so I could do it again. You can do it again. Well, that's wonderful. Well, I'm happy to be here.
I'm glad that we are still able to be in the closet recording that there is a March eighteenth episode or whatever date this is of.
And by the way, if you're listening to this and you're like, I don't think she's even fully processed this, you're absolutely right. We are now like ten days or so out from the event, so I'm still just like what happened, Like, Yeah, there's lots of pieces of me that are still just trying to figure out how I feel.
And that's okay. I'm going to give myself time for that.
I think there's a time and a place for therapy and I think this is it, and yeah, just well be going forward from.
Here, going forward from here. I love it.
Well, our question for the week is actually related to this, and I'll read it and then we can have Sarah's advice. And this is just sort of like maybe how she's giving her own advice to a degree. But this listener writes in that she has a broken kneecap, can't walk without crutches, this is an accident that happened, can't drive. It's been really challenging to leave her house. They're up a lot of steps. So basically she is going to be staying home except for medical appointments, for the next
several months. Fortunately, her job has been able to convert to be a one hundred percent work from home job, which is very unfortunate. She's adjusting reasonably well to that situation, she says, but most of her hopes and dreams for other aspects of her life in twenty twenty five seem to be lost. They were going to be taking a European vacation as a family this summer, but it's hard
to know. Will she be able to walk around on cobblestone types treats, you know, the various fitness goals, she had, self care goals, friendship goals all seem out of reach. She's still feeling kind of emotionally down about this whole thing. It is grateful for advice on how to pull off a major pivot when the things.
You planned for the years seem like they might not be happening. Yeah.
Well, there's a book coming out in January with a whole chapter about this, and I definitely recommend that you like pre order about ten copies because I'm just going.
To give it to all your friends. I hear it's called Best Slide Plans.
Yes, So I mean yes, I one hundred percent like I'm in the same place. And after the quote wallowing, which I think can actually be helpful, just kind of let yourself like not worry.
About anything for a while, Like don't even.
Try to plan when you're just first contending with something, but just like rest and watch TV and like soak it in and like take a little bit of time to process. And then once you've done that, I really what I'm trying to do and what I have recommended is to just like try to go short term first, like not oh my god, I have to plan August right now, and like will I be able to walk? And like won't I be able to walk?
And what can I do?
But like, okay, what can I do this week? Like what can I do tomorrow? What little joys can I still fit into my life? How can I practice self care tomorrow in the ways that I can, rather than thinking too much about putting big goals or even like pie in the sky ways of caring for myself like for the long term. So I would focus yourself in and then my other thing is to like get all
the support you can, like, don't feel bad. I noticed there was like a little hinte of like, you know, I did this to myself, but like you know, no one wants to do that to themselves, So that needs to just go. And I would lean on people who want to help you, because they probably truly do want
to help you. And whether that is the support of of paid caregivers or therapists or whatever, or just like having your family help you a little bit more, you should definitely accept that to the extent that you are able to.
Yeah, good advice. That's where I am right now.
Yeah, yeah, well, and just I mean figuring out what you can still do. I mean, and if it doesn't happen to go to Europe this summer, you know that that's something that you want to do as a family. That's why you planned it for the summer, which means that if it doesn't happen this summer, you make it happen next summer, right, and by that time things will probably look entirely different in terms of your recovery. You
said that you had friendship goals. I bet you can still come up with fun things to do with friends because people will come visit you.
You have a very good excuse to not go to them. You can make them all come to you.
They can bring wine and snacks or board games or whatever it is that you can all crouche together, who knows whatever you like to do, right, You can do that and figure out new physical goals that still work, and as you're recovering from this knee injury, that it's gonna look different than if you didn't have that. But that doesn't mean you can't have anything that you are aiming for and then just keep revisiting as things go along.
So yeah, but definitely nothing gained by like beating yourself up about any of this.
I mean, people do not cause their medical things like this. I mean, you know, anyway, we won't go on that soapbox. All right, Well, hopefully this has been something of a positive. Yes, yeah, I know it's a little less raw than the one. We're all we're all feeling a little yikes, yeah, a little bit yikes.
I'd have recorded an episode of Bestlay of Plans like from the Hot partly because like it's probably dumb, but I was like, well, I have an episode due and whatever. I probably could have just done something else, but I maybe I also wanted to like share the story, like, yeah, a process. So this one's a little more calm because I'm a whole like ten days out now, the.
Whole ten days out and in your closet and not in the hospitals. So it's all feeling a little different, all right, So.
Love of the weeks, Sarah. Yeah, shout out to the super nice nurses I had.
I mean they were all good, but like there were just some total standouts.
One of them her name was Sarah. She was awesome.
She was telling me all about like COVID times and how that's what was her very first job was working in the ICUs during COVID and I can't even imagine, but like, yeah, the nurses were just they made the experience great.
Like the way they were like really made a difference. So that was great. And then my other I'm giving two because whatever, we can have two loves of the week. This Why is that.
Anvil's teeth are so straight? They're so pretty, Like I'm jealous. She wore racist for a long time, and I you know, I helped pay for them, so I feel like I can take a little bit of credit. Oh and I drove her to a lot of appointments.
Yeah. Yeah, it's like your street teeth too. Yeah, if they're in somebody else's mouth exactly. I'm going to say that.
It's only a two hour and fifteen minute in the air flight from Philadelphia to Fort Lauderdale, So you know, I was in my house this morning and I'm in Sarah's closet right now, and it's kind of cool how that works. And yeah, I mean, air travel is amazing and gets you far distances very very quickly, and that's good because we can come see each other.
Yeah phl fll. It's done it many times, done it many times.
All right, Well we will be back next week with more on making work and life fit together.
Thanks for listening.
You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you.
Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together.