Health, Hardiness and Heart Surgery Insights with Paul Taylor

Paul Taylor. Welcome back to the You Project, my friend.

I know that we're recording. Thank you for having me.

Yes, I did nearly get caught. Well I did know nearly caught.

I was about to introduce show everyone, and there's this little thing that you've got to do. I mean, look, I'm no technical giant, but apparently you've got to press the button that says record before you start talking on a podcast. Usually Melissa or Tiff or someone who's smarter and better than me does that. But stupidly they gave me the control today. But fuckingly fuck we're under way, we're recording. It's been an interesting time of late on

So yeah, tell us what's been on on for you?

Well, on Monday, the twentieth of January, I had open heart surgery to correct day at birth defect what's called congenital heart defect. And I'm very lucky actually, and I think the first lesson here is you got to be proactive about your health. And fortunately for me, I play soccer with a cardiologist and Monday I was sitting with him and I said, hey, ma, I want to get the full mot's. Actually that's a British term and that's where you get your car all a big luck.

I said, what so you know and he said, look, come and see me. We'll do the lot.

So did everything, basically, did the stress test of cardiac MRI, all of that, and he came back and he, you know, talks about the plumbing, the electrics and one other thing. Can't remember, but anyway, he was going, like, your heart's in good ship, you very fit. However, you have a i cuspared aortic valve rather than a tri cuspared aortic valve, and we need to do a little bit of investigation.

So this was that you need to get this.

Done and now, but soon, and I went, let's just do it straight away.

So when when did you all?

Right?

So the operation was January twenty, When did you get this information?

I got the information about a year earlier.

That's when we first noticed someone was wrong.

I would have done the operation quicker, but I went and checked my health insurance and I was covered for a lot of stuff, but not aortic valve, not hard valve surgery, and it would have cost me probably fifty grand, right, So I had to upgrade my think and in weigh it for a year. Look, the reality is there's probably, all in all, maybe.

A six month delay, which was fine.

But by the time I ended up getting in my actually surgeon say to me, your regurgitation level was over fifty percent, right, which means that I was working on half capacity basically, Yeah, and what symptoms?

What symptoms did you have a year ago? And what symptoms did you have pre of right?

So a year ago I had no symptoms whatsoever because my regurgitation was significant but not horrendous. Look, I reflecting back and probably, you know, my fitness had gone. I was playing soccer, and last year, because Kira was playing, I was playing over thirty fives, right, and I'm fifty three now. But because Kira started playing on a Sunday, I then stopped playing in the and a me and of mine who was coaching another team, said hey, how about you come over and play.

For us on a Saturday because I know you're free. We got a lot of.

Young boys, but they need a couple of old heads, so me and a tyrone went and played for them. So that was open the inch, right, So it was quite interesting playing against the eighteen year olds. But on reflection, you know what, I really noticed my speed was just gone, and that's the first thing to go. But actually I think the heart had a fur bit to do with that on reflection, but I didn't really start to notice overtly any symptoms.

I'm prove probably November.

And I'm thinking, oh yeah, I'm starting to notice my exercise capacity in December and I'm thinking maybe this is psychosomatic. But certainly January, whenever I came back from the UK and was going again the CrossFit, I was way downing, like way dying and he said. The surgeon said to me, yeah, your regurgitation was over fifty percent. Once your regurgitation hit sixty percent or so, you start to develop heart failure.

Right.

I'm not a catiologists, but I'm thinking of block with a congenital heart dayfect. You probably not be sprinting on a soccer field year olds.

So, and it's really interesting because there's a bit of a trade off. Right.

So the first thing I wanted to do, I actually, let's reflect back, and you know some stuff that that I saw I learned was you got to be careful what you pay attention to, because what you pay attention to creates your narrative and your belief systems.

Right.

And as whenever my correologist told me that I had to have open heart chargery, I remember going out and getting into the car, and I sat into the car and the words of Seneca, the historic philosopher came to me. I pity the man who has not faced adversity, because he is not faced an opponent, and nobody, not even him, knows what he is capable of.

Right.

So I went straight home and I wrote on my bathroom mirror worthy opponent. Right, because historics talk about finding a worthy opponent to challenge and test you. And I wrote beside it my training program that I was going to do to really get myself on tiptop shape. The other thing that that came to mind, I've got a good a guy called Rege ex Lieutenant Colonel Special Forces for Australia. He was a very very senior guy in

So straight up way, because of all of that input into my brain.

My first instinctual reaction was, this is a challenge and I need to lean into it, and I need to embrace my worthy opponent, right, and all sorts of.

Negativity that come into your head, because.

Obviously there is some negative stuff that comes into your head that that fucking woul is me the whole victim mentality, and.

I just nipped that in the button.

Then the other thing that came to mynd straight away was that Carli's idea from Japanese psychology of arigamama, with things as they are, what needs to be done.

Yeah, on a level, it's like stimulus response, right, So there's the thing that happens, and then there's what you do about the things that happen. Ye, So here's what I know now based on what I know. Now, what am I going to do?

Now?

That's right, it's kind of you know, it's exactly that.

And so from you know, looking at that negative and you've got to do a bit of a risk assessment, right, So so I think again, in my background in Helico, we always did a thorough risk assessment.

And I remember from my time in that you know.

What's the likelihood of it happening and what's the impact. So I did all the research, you know, we decided to do something called the Ross procedure.

I went and saw the surgeon, so he give me the options.

Right, one was mechanical valve and you'd be on warfare and blood Tenner's for the rest of your life. I'm like, nah, it's the other one is a tavvy, which is where they just go.

Through the thigh and they have this.

Fucking awesome, this little sort of balloon thing that goes right up to your aota and they inflate at the valve and it pushes your own out of the way, and there's this like false valve. But he said, look, you're not going to be able to exercise a maximum capacity if you get a tavvy. And the issue is they only last for about ten years. And you can have a tavvy on the tavy on the tavvy and that's you. So if you want to live more than

Right, that's my surgeon said to me.

It's under about five millimeters of mercury pressure. You know, your blood pressure one twenty over eighty, and that's what your aorta is under your pomonary valves under bugger all. So he says, what we do is we harvest that because it's your valve and it hasn't worked very hard, and we put that into your aorta.

We cut out your aortic valve.

We put your own pulmonary one in there, and then we put a donor valve into your pulmonary He says, it's a harder, more complex operation, quite a longer recovery, but a much better prognosis in terms of long term. So I'm like, that's the one I want. And I

Right, Yeah, I'll be doing door dash and over rates to my house.

Yeah. But so it's like, well, okay, so what do I need to do?

Right, You've got to sort out all our first chat to Carly, you know, I had a life insurance policy, had the conversation with Carly about you know, what I'd like to be done with the kids, all of that sort of stuff. And then, you know, the hardest thing in all of this was then filming some videos for my kids just in case. Was definitely lea the hardest

And the other thing I did a shit heap of research. I've gone to.

See my surgeon, I'm both my cardiologists and they said, look, you need to take six weeks.

Off work, like six weeks get away.

And started looking into it and it said, like everybody's fucked for six weeks and I looked into it, about ninety five percent of people they end up anemic, right because of you. Yeah, a lot of people are aren't going in because of the heart issue. But then you lose a shit heap of blood, right, and they have to thin your blood. So they operation's pretty frigging amazing

Right.

So my hemoglobin levels which are supposed to be one thirty to I think one seventy or something like that host operation. Five days post operation, they were down at about ninety then and then about ten days ago they were up at one hundred and seven. Wow, So I'm

So I took that pre and when I was in hospital and I restored.

My biofunction within two or three days, and they were they were shocked.

Actually, yeah, So you.

Know you would have thought you and I'd be chatting about your pooing on a podcast, and who would have thought that I'd be proud of you for backing one out so quickly.

Well done.

All right, So just to give our listeners context, as we recall this, it's the twelfth, So my calculations are, it's twenty two, twenty three days since the operation.

Correct.

Clearly you're not having six weeks off work because I know.

You've already had enough.

I'm meant to say this, you've already traveled and made doing work right.

And it's not like that was yesterday, that was a bit ago. So what was their kind of projected recovery for you? And how have you compared? Like how has it actually worked out? Like what are you right now?

So my sergeant and my cardiologiys book said you got to take six weeks off work, right, and then they give you this book and it's like after four weeks you can hang washing out, don't lift anything other than one to two kilos for I can't remember it was six or twelve weeks, right, I've already done a light weird training session, but it was twelve weeks before, you know,

And I'm just looking at that going now and.

So we're we're three weeks now, you're.

Tight, We're we're three weeks.

So day seventeen, I flew to Sydney, got a tree into the to the central coast, ran a tow our workshop, and then came back home in a day.

So that was I hope.

I sat, it's not listening to this, but yeah, I think you just boy, did you warranty? But I you know, that was my target because that boxhod been booked in penalties, Like do we need to cancel this? And I'm like no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, not cancel it because that's my target.

And so I was.

Incrementally going, here's what I need to do on the gateway right fourteen days.

I need to be doing this on the Monday.

I need to be able to record a twenty minute podcast, and then I need to be doing I need to do on the Wednesday.

I was showing Tuesday, two days before.

I need to be doing up around ten thousand steps and so I did that and then I took an easy day on the Wednesday, Thursday, I traveled up.

I also made it again.

You know, I'm sitting I'm sitting to get to the airport out of a driver and I'm sitting in the plane. I'm sitting on the tree in it's you know, it's travel still a bit tiring. But I got a hotel room because I had two and a half hours, So I got a hotel room and had a sleep and that that really helped. So I did the workshop and was fine, and then came home. I was tired because I didn't get home till half eleven I think it was.

Right.

So, but I have also been I've been more invested in my recovery than I think probably anybody would be.

Right.

I've got a red light panel. I was doing red and near infra red light therapy every single day.

I was doing saunas.

I started off just with five minutes because it's good for your cardiovascular system. I've also taken a whole heap of supplements Klinac, which is has been clinically proven to combat inflammation and oxidative stress. So I knew I got my sareactive protein measured right, They don't measure in the hospital because it's off the chart. So she reactive protein for the listeners is a level of inflammation in the body, and my whole history was it's less than one, and

Tell me about through this journey cognitive function. How's your Brian going? How was your Brian going in the first week?

Then I never had any issue like I was in the I was in the in the hospital.

I've got a video that says otherwise.

Overally, Ah, that was that was under the influence of a fair bit of morphine, but within by So I got out of ICEE.

You.

I mean I was reasonably like Monday night, I hardly remember Carly was there, oscar was there, and I might woke up on Tuesday, I'm like, were they there?

And then I talked to the surgeon. Did he do the ross procedure or not?

Because you know, there was still he had to check the geometry when he went in there, so you know, Tuesday it was like, yes, we were there, and yes, you did get the ross procedure right. So but then I see my cognitive function was fine, and I was doing some work on my PhD in hospital because I'm doing a lot of sitting around. But yeah, I had an interesting experience in hospital. You know, I've always said

So I got out of ICEE.

You.

I think it was here Tuesday night or Wednesday morning.

I got put in a room on Wednesday and had a fur bit of sleep on Wednesday, but it did a fair bit of walking. I did I think about twelve hundred and fifty steps, which was reasonably good.

Thirsty I was feeling quite good.

I did over three thousand steps, and I'm thinking, actually, I'm doing quite well. I mean, the breathing was really hard. But in Thirsty Night, I had a fucking night from hell. Right, So I was in this room where the rcon was super large. Right, So there's a bit of a bit of context to this. And as you know, a lot of the listeners don't know. When I was in the military, I went through combat survival of resistance to interrogation training,

I fucking hate them. I hate them with a passion, like if there's a fire.

I walk into a room and I feel a bit edgy, and then I realized.

The fans on the kitchen fan. I turned it off. I'm like, ah. And the only ongoing argument.

That we have is the ceiling fan in the in the bedroom because Cornie loves it and I detest it.

So she would go to.

Bed early put the ceiling fan on, and then I come to bed and I turn it off because I just can't sleep with a ceiling fan.

And this thing was so loud.

And I was laying there on Thursday and I'm I'm a side sleeper, and you can't sleep on your side when you've had your chest cut open, right, So by thirsty, I'm starting to get like massive paying all the way up my back and neck and stuff like that.

But then I'm lying trying to sleep on thirsty.

Night, and that fan get in my head big time, and I'm actually, I looked at my sleep I got not one minute of sleep on thirsty night, and I was lying there and it just it fucking really got in my head. And I'm like, half the time I'm back in that room in fucking stress positions.

I think the peeing in the back you know, it all amplified and.

Wow, it's trauma. It's trauma, it's literal trauma.

Yeah. Look, I mean Cardie says, that's PTSD.

I think it does a disservice to people who have reaped real PTSD. But it's I would describe it as very unpleasant memories.

And it took me back there.

Right. Some people might be listening to this going do this fucking PTSD, but you know not, I really just stuff, but it really, it just fucking warned me up like a spring. And Carli came in on the Friday and she's like, Jesus, I've never seen you like this. And she actually said to me, you've got to channel your siege. And she thought I was going to bite her head off, and I went, oh, fuck it, right, because my gremlin

That's negative, and siege is your best version of you.

And she actually joted me out of that because I was I was I was at a ship state on Friday, I was going to check myself out and all sorts of stuff.

I'm like, I got to get out of here.

I have to get out of here. And she's just like, pull your fucking head in and be your siege. So they ended up and I went and saw them and said can we move?

Can we move rooms? And they moved me to another room, which was a shit a little better and that was really helpful.

But then and on Saturday that the plan was that I was going to get home on Saturday, and then the cardiologists came to see me and he said, look, I don't want to let your home because he said, look, you've had a little bit.

Of VT ventricular attack of cardia.

And which is normal. You know, it's only a problem if you hit thirty seconds. Mine were two seconds. There was just a couple of little things, he said. But your rejection fraction, because they did an echo, was only about forty percent, right, and they like.

Mind people, what just explains people? Rejection fraction?

Yeah, so that's when you're when your ventricle contracts, like how much of the blood actually gets out and around your body, And mine was at forty a typical one. Most people walk around fifty to seventy percent, right, and they like it post up to get sixty.

So they said, look yours a bit low.

It's understandable because you've had the Ross procedure, which is more traumatic. But given those two things, he said, I want to put you on this drug Ammy of their own right, and that will just kill off those those little taki cardias and just give you the best chance of recovery and you can go home tomorrow. And I rather stupidly and didn't ask what you should ask on every medication, What are the side effects? What are all

Right?

So I got a dose of the drug sorry after anoon or Saturday evening, and then on Sunday another one. And I woke up Sunday and I was feeling shit harsh.

So I'm like, fuck, I've gone backwards here, And.

Then Cardy was was was there her and Oscar visiting me and then they left and I they get out of bed, and I thought I need to get up and move because they tell you you need to move.

And there was this walk that I was doing, lots of.

Down to the fish tank back down, and I was kind of doing laps, so I thought I'll just walk there.

I walk slowly, and I was walking. I was really struggling to walk, and my breathing was labored. And I got to the fish tank and I sat down.

I'm like, fuck, I'm screwed, and this this guy walked past me and he went, are you okay? And I went, nah, I'm not okay, and he said, okay, let me go and get a chair.

They got a chair, and that's when I twigged this, this is the drug. It's just white man.

And I told him he was obviously a senior medical guy, and I just went, I'm not taking that tug again. And he brought me back and he said to the nurse, call, call the cardiologists, stop that medication, and let's get him in the bad I'd get him monitored.

And then it really hit me.

So this drug on me, on their own is a sympathetic nervous system suppressant.

But I had a bad reaction to it.

It dropped my heart rate low, dropped my blood pressure, and I was being monitored and my breathing fuck, I was struggling to breathe and I was lying in bed Saturday night and I was frigging her or someday night, I think this was. It was her rndous and I was in pain. I could hardly breathe, and I was trying to move and then get up, and it was so people and I'm just like, you just got to

And then I'm just trying.

To just say and get through the morning, doing all my breath work, trying to control it. And then I managed to get some sleep and I woke up and I thought, actually, I'm starting to feel a bit better.

And she came in.

My heart rate had gone back up, my blood pressure gone back up. She checked my EKG and she said, oh, you're back to normal.

Man.

So then the cardiologist came in and he said, look, sorry, that clearly didn't work out as planned. He said, the good news is that your VT's all gone. And he said the bad news is you've obviously had a reaction to that drug. So you're not going home today because we need to observe you, and I went incorrect, I'm going home.

She did, Can I just can I pause you?

Yeah, in the middle of the night because the first night you had no sleep. All the second night so you had zero minutes sleep. And then when you're when the shit hit the fan and you got to the fish tank and you're rooted in the and then you were in agony and you couldn't breathe.

And did you at any moment think is this it?

No?

No, I didn't, because I knew I was being monitored. I knew I was having a reaction to the drug. I'd looked the drug up at that stage on a drug data pius. I knew that it paked three to seven hours afterwards. But then I started reading the fucking side effects. Twenty percent of neurological issues, twenty percent of pulmonary issues, Seventy percent of people who are on it long term have to come off it because of the

But you know, he decided to use it on me.

I've heard a cardiologist said he used a sledge hammer to crack a knot. But you know it is it is what it is. I get the reasons that he did it, and I didn't give many shit. I was just like, and he was apologetic. I just went, I'm done, I'm out of here.

Because I looked at my sleep as well.

I had in five days, I had a total ly at our sleep track of my sleep, and I'm like.

That's that's going to kill you without the surgery.

Well, that's exactly my thinking. I'm I'm massively sleep deprived. I cannot fucking sleep in this hospital. They've given me sleeping tablets to work. I'm like, I've got insomnia. I've got industrial insomnia here that is massively driving inflammation and oxident of stress in my body.

I know all the negative effects of sleep.

The food is shit in this place. It is so low protein. You know protein, as you know you need more protein when you're sick. I ordered steak and it was about fifty grams of steak. And then the next night I ordered pron linguini. I thought I'd get some seafood. There was two fucking prawns on it. There would have been about five grams of protein in the main meal.

I'm like, and the.

Ox there's no fresh air in this place. I'm not outside in nature.

You know. If I go home, I'm out looking at the water. I'm in a great environment.

I can release all of my back and all of that stuff.

I'll get sleep. So I'm just like I'm out here.

I'm like, you guys have lost the right to be in control all of my recovery.

That was my view.

My surgan didn't take it too well. We had a bit of a robust conversation, so we say, and I just said to him and he had his run and I said you done?

And he said yeap, And I said, I'm out of here.

Yeah, you said, thanks for your feedback.

So you I was.

My man had a heart attack and he's a diabetic, and he was, I don't know, three or four days post top open the art surgery. And I'm in standing next to him and one of the catering staff brings a snack and the snack is scones and cream and jam for.

An tarabatic fucking love it.

And I'm like, who's I'm like, oh, he can't eat that. She's like why, I go, well, he's a diabetic.

It says it right there. And she's like, oh, well, I just bring what they tell me to bring. I'm like, well take that away. My old man's like, shut the funk up.

So CARDI was bringing in my food.

Lucky enough, there was a Vietnamese across the road, so she was bringing me in a protein cheek with a hypercollagen and berries and all of that stuff.

And then I was getting my food from the Vietnamese.

I was getting far from across the road and stuff like that. So I didn't eat in the hospital again from my think Thursday or Friday. But I was just like, and you know, some people go Jesus, that was irresponsible.

But I knew I was out of the woods.

I knew I was out of the woods, and I knew I had to get out of there for my sanity and for my recovery as well.

If ten out of ten is you when you're normal and healthy and fit and strong and robust, like two years ago, you with no symptoms, just healthy, that's you.

Ten out of ten? What do you reckon you are at the minute as we record?

Look, I'd say I'm probably a five right, so normal function, talking, walking.

Moving around.

When I get up, I'm got to be a little bit careful because my blood pressure I had to stop my blood pressure medication, so they put me on three different heads, aspiring a blood pressure medication, an SGL two inhibitor the strengthen my heart, and the blood pressure. I've been taking my blood pressure four times a day and it was getting really, really low, so I've stopped that. So I've just got to be worry if I spring up.

Was doing that.

So, but that I think is a combination of my ejection fractions still not there, and my hemoglobin and iron are are really low. Right, So if you've got low iron and low hemo globe, and anybody who's anemic knows, you've got fucking no energy. And also I'm feeling the cold and that's a low hemoglobin thing as well.

Right, But do you know I have ficious tsunamia. Did you know that? No?

I didn't, Jesus Christ.

Yeah, you know I have to jet myself with a twelve.

Right, okay, yeah, because I'm taking be to Yeah, jeez, anybody's got any mayall. I feel them, I really do. But I've got that combined with low ejection fraction. So and look, the great thing you know for me was going and doing that workshop. I did another workshop yesterday, and I reckon, I was probably ninety five percent on yesterday.

Wow, so that was pretty good.

I reckon, I was probably eighty percent eighty five last week, and I did a very light resistance training sess. I'm just I'm curling nine kilo dumbbells when I used to be doing it eighteen. I'm doing twenty four kilos on the tricep pushed up. But I'm just like, my body needs stimulation. I rackon, I've lost between two and two and a half kilos a muscle.

Yeah, you'll get tell me about your your wound, tell me about that big bloody slice and dice down there. Oh god, wow, Well you know you've just made my primo.

Thank you. So that looks to me like that is fuck twenty centimeters?

God is that?

Yeah?

Yeah, definitely, definitely.

Maybe more maybe so we're looking at like an eight nine ten inch scar everyone, wow, and then you.

See those two little things done there.

Yeah wow, where they had tubes, So they have tubes and your dreamage tubes about as thick as your finger. And then on the I think it was on the Friday or maybe the Saturday, they pulled the tube.

Sight Yeah, I.

Bet mother fucker.

And there was about four or five inches of juben there. So they're pulling and it just keeps coming. It was like, that's smarted, I can tell you.

And now, of course the second one hurt twice as months as the first one did.

Well, you got Marc's really as like.

Fuck, be a stoic lean into it and then like fox stoicism this.

I think there might have been an F bomb that sneaked out for sure.

Did you have any did you have any philosophical moments like.

Why yes, so so pre.

So. You know, I'm a fan of the stoics. I'm a fan of Memento Maury. I've got a tattoo on me. You know that's Marcus really, you know, it was all the stoics, remember death, Remember that you were mortal. So I've always I've always been very aware of my mortality and very grateful every day that I'm alive.

But what I did deliberately was meditated on.

My death, and I actually think it's a really good exercise for people. I thought a lot about my not from a morose perspective, but just like, well, if this was to be it, you know, how would you feel? And my reflection, I think was I would be really content with the life that I had, but changed with a huge bit of sadness, and that I would not get to see my kids grow up, and that I

Right.

But when I reflected on it, I thought, fucking hell, I've had a good life, and I've had an action fill, I've crammed a shitload in right.

I had a pretty good.

Upbringing that also prepared me for the world, you know, being brought up as an Irish Catholic in a Protestant neighborhood. I think that helped an in university, I absolutely loved it. I did a shitt heap of travel. I joined the military. I had a wonderful time in the military, but also saw quite a lot of stuff, and it prepared me really well. You know, I've visited over sixty countries. I've explored consciousness in numerous different ways.

I've done you know, shit, had to poison. I've had toad poison.

I've had shamanic rituals and deep in the Amazon jungle with this Italian guy thousand kilometers from the nearest road, no sat phones.

Like, I've done some really cool shit in my life.

But you know, just reflecting on it, it was like, well, if I do good ide the other side, well, I do differently last time on my phone, right, even though well, probably not my phone, I'm not that big of my phone, but last time watching news and sport.

That's probably my weakness.

I think the other thing that would that I was a bit rueful of if it had been all over, was got so close to my PhD but didn't do it right.

And I was actually trying to get it submitted before just so I might get a posthumous PhD.

That's hilarious. But that's that's crossed my mind. If I die before I finished this.

I'll be pissed off. But the other thing was, you know, if if my time is up, I get.

To see I get to go on life's last great adventure and find out is there another side?

And more?

All the fucking holy jewels? Have they just wasted their lives because there's fuck all on the other side?

Oh? You know, what is it like?

So I think that's philosophically, and I actually think coming out of this, everybody should meditate on their death and actually go, fuck, if I was to die tomorrow, what would I really regret? And if I did get a second chance, what would I do differently? I think that's importantly do that.

I think it's a really I mean, it is people. Obviously, people are scared. We're scared at times, and it's uncomfortable and it's not you know. I did an episode about three weeks ago called in the Proximity of Death and.

I call her my second mom.

She calls she called me her fifth kid, because she's got four daughters and me and our families grew up intertwined with each other.

She was very much my second mum.

I was always at their house four sisters, four pseudo sisters. And she passed away about three or four days after Christmas, and our families spend every Christmas Day together.

And I left the barbecue or the Christmas.

Lunch and I went to hospital and sat with her for an hour and it was just, without trying to be weird, but it was so fucking profound. And I'm like, I'm sitting with this person that I love, that this is it. This is the last conversation, this is the last hour that I will spend with her. And she knew that and I knew that, and yeah, it's like, oh, this, like everything else melts away like nothing. And I know

Right, Yeah, And it's just oh, and it's funny how certain.

I don't know situations or events or whatever environments or can just give you a level of perspective that you seemingly can't have unless you're in that Yes, that's right, you know, imagine if you could have that like in that Like towards the end, I was I was about to go, and her name's Ray and she goes, you know how much I love you?

And I'm like, well that was it. I was fucked right. I'm like, I'm I'm.

Out, and I go, like a sun does dismissively. Yeah, I know, like yeah, I know, like a fucking alpha male moron. And then she grabs my hand with her skinny, little cancer ridden body and makes me look at her and then says it again.

And then that was it because I knew that would never happen again, you know, and she knew that, and she wanted to make sure that I left knowing that. And what was interesting was.

I feel fucking she was more worried about me. She wasn't worried about herself at all. She wanted to set me at peace with that. She wanted me to be okay.

And I came out of there going fuck, I've got so much to evolve and learn, and you know, I felt like I wish I could be a bit like her, you know, so interesting, so interesting?

Yeah, I really don't you know that that experience of really thinking about your death. I think everybody should do it and and really think deeply about it, right, and think about then through that LANs.

Where are you spending your time? Right?

You know?

How much of your time is spent fucking doom scrueling. How much of your time is spent doing a.

Shit job you don't want to do, or particularly around your your free time?

Right?

Are you using your free time in an optimal manner or close to an optimal manner? Right?

And even turning up the volume on things that really don't matter?

And you like, this is a one out of ten issue. I'm making it a nine.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you go.

This is not a nine, you fucking idiot. This is maybe not even a one.

Yes, But your get like whatever's got your attention's got your mind, has got your body has got you.

Like you are.

Literally creating an emotional and psychological prison for yourself. Like there isn't a problem, but you're inventing one. We're so good at that, absolutely, you know, just pluck plucking a problem from mi there, Hey, tell my my listeners about you and your stuff? How can they find you? And I know we're doing a co share, but for my audience, how can they find you and follow you? When by your book he has written a fucking brilliant book.

Thank you.

And my book is called Death by Comfort and my second book I'm just about to start once I get my PhD submitted.

But we'll keep up on on their wraps.

My podcast is the Paul Taylor Podcast. On website is Paul Taylor dot bisbeei Z.

Perfect, perfect, well mate, it's been good. In the words of the greats, I'm glad you're not dead.

That's it. Glad to be on the other side.

I'm glad you're not dead. And yeah, we'll chat again.

Thanks buddy, cheers. Could you say yeah,