Words of Wellness with Shelly
Do you get confused by all of the information that is available regarding ways to improve your health and wellness? Do you often become frustrated or overwhelmed with decisions on how to be your healthiest? We all know and understand how important our health and wellness is to the vitality of our lives, however navigating the wealth of health and wellness information available can often feel overwhelming. Understanding the significance of our well-being in leading fulfilling lives is crucial, yet determining what steps to take that are essential for our health can often be confusing.
Welcome everyone to "Words of Wellness"! In this podcast, hosted by Shelly Jefferis, M.A., a seasoned health and wellness professional with over 35 years in the industry, all of your questions will be answered and clarity will be provided through personal stories, education, tips and inspiration. Throughout her profession, Shelly has always had the heart and desire to help others feel their best and live their best lives through her supportive and compassionate approach. Through engaging solo and guest episodes, several topics will be addressed, questions will be answered and clarity will be provided in an effort to lead you to a healthier, more energetic life. With a master’s degree in kinesiology, extensive experience as an educator, speaker, coach, and entrepreneur, Shelly brings a wealth of knowledge and a genuine passion for empowering others to feel their best. By featuring industry experts and relatable individuals, the podcast promises personal stories, practical advice, and inspiration. She is excited to come to you weekly sharing all she has experienced, learned and discovered through the years. Whether you're seeking to elevate your well-being, gain practical insights for personal health, or simply be inspired to live a high quality vibrant life, this is the podcast is for YOU! Be sure to tune in weekly and join us along our "Words of Wellness" journey and embark on a path toward a healthier and more fulfilling quality of life full of happiness, energy and joy!
Words of Wellness with Shelly
Embracing Wellness and A Second Chance at Life: Rory Paquette's Inspiring Transformative Health Journey
Ever wondered why some men avoid the doctor's office like the plague? Our guest, Rory, Paquette, a fellow podcaster, opens up about his personal health scare and the common reluctance among men to prioritize medical checkups. His candid story is a powerful reminder of the importance of recognizing symptoms early and not relying solely on holistic practices. Rory's experience is a testament to the life-changing impact of regular health screenings and the crucial role they play in safeguarding our well-being.
Join us as we explore Rory's transformative journey and the hurdles of shifting ingrained attitudes towards health. His story sheds light on the resilience needed to embrace change and the valuable support a community, especially family, can provide during challenging times. Rory's newfound commitment to health, including daily walks and preparing for a family 5K, demonstrates the lasting benefits of early intervention and lifestyle adjustments. This conversation is both an inspiring wake-up call and a guide for those looking to enhance their own wellness journey.
As they wrap up, Shelly & Rory reflect on the power of family and community in supporting health goals as well as the importance of making sensible choices and setting supportive fitness goals. They encourage listeners to prioritize self-care, embrace healthier habits, and share the wellness message with others. Your health journey starts with a single step, and through this episode, the hope is to inspire you to take that step today.
CONNECT WITH RORY:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rorypaquette
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RoryPaquette
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-podcaster-nation/id1762108753
CONNECT WITH SHELLY:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wellnesswithshellyj
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ShellyNeumannJefferis
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Thank you for listening to the Words of Wellness podcast with Shelly Jefferis. I am honored and so grateful to have you here and it would mean the world to me if you could take a minute to follow, leave a 5-star review and share the podcast with anyone you love and anyone you feel could benefit from the message.
Thank you and God Bless!
And remember to do something for yourself, for your wellness on this day!
In Health,
Shelly Jefferis
don't wait until it's too late to experience. You're too late. That's probably the last thing that I would say. You know it's only too late if you don't do anything about it. So get out, get checked, take care of yourself ahead of time, Then you don't run into this in the first place.
Speaker 2:Do you get confused by all of the information that barges us every day on ways to improve our overall health and our overall wellness? Do you often feel stuck, unmotivated or struggle to reach your wellness goals? Do you have questions as to what exercises you should be doing, what foods you should or should not be eating, how to improve your overall emotional and mental well-being? Hello everyone, I am so excited to welcome you to Words of Wellness. My name is Shelly Jeffries and I will be your host. My goal is to answer these questions and so much more to share tips, education and inspiration around all of the components of wellness through solo and guest episodes. With 35 plus years as a health and wellness professional, a retired college professor, a speaker and a multi-passionate entrepreneur, I certainly have lots to share. However, my biggest goal and inspiration in doing this podcast is to share the wellness stories of others with you, to bring in guests who can share their journey so that we can all learn together while making an impact on the health, the wellness and lives of all of you, our listeners. The ultimate hope is that you leave today with even just one nugget that can enhance the quality of your life, and that you will. We all will, now and into the future, live our best quality of lives, full of energy, happiness and joy. Now let's dive into our message for today. Into our message for today.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone and welcome back to Words of Wellness. My name is Shelly Jeffries and I will be your host, and I'm very excited to introduce our guest today. We actually initially met in a podcasting group. He is a podcaster himself and I'm going to let him share what he does with his podcast. It's a really great service where he has other podcasters on and he shares their podcast and their message with the world. So it's a really, really generous service that he has through his podcast. But I have him on today for another reason. He actually had quite an experience recently and he's going to share with all of us what that experience was like, and I feel it could be very beneficial for many of us out there as far as being really in tune with our bodies and symptoms that might be telling us that there is something wrong.
Speaker 2:So I want to welcome you, rory, today on Words of wellness and so grateful that you are here with us because thank you right that that was a huge, a huge part of this journey and um I you know I'm really looking forward to just hearing all about it and hearing what you experienced and maybe just giving our listeners some tips and tools to be aware of if any of us experienced some of the similar symptoms. So I don't know where do you want to start.
Speaker 1:Well, that was a great intro. Thank you so much for that. I love when I get introduced just as a podcaster, because I've spent so long trying to have that be my profession that the fact that I get to do that for a living is just unbelievably gratifying for me. So I love being called a podcaster, so thank you for that.
Speaker 2:You're welcome and you do a wonderful job, and I think you're just a great example for the rest of us as well, and so I admire you for that. So thank you for what you do.
Speaker 1:Oh well, thanks for that, and I don't. You're gonna send me an invoice for that compliment later. You're right, it's going to cost me 20 bucks, probably, exactly. Yeah, that, uh, I appreciate that so much more than you, more than you could possibly know. So, um, let me start, if I can, just by saying the podcast that you're referring to, because I do have several, but the one you're referring to is a newer project that has just blown up. It's growing so fast I can barely keep up with it. It's called the Podcaster Nation and, yeah, that's how you and I met, and your episode comes out next week. From where we are today, I don't know when this one comes out, but the episode of yours will be out the week after Thanksgiving. So if somebody needs to go back and find it, they need to go back and find it because your episode is great.
Speaker 1:Thank you I can't wait to put that out.
Speaker 2:I'm really excited. I just feel like we had a really, really great conversation and I'm really looking forward to it. And how perfect is this timing? And you know, I guess we could let the listeners know that after we did our recording on your podcast, we were chatting after and we talked about doing a podcast recording with me talking about being empty nesters which we might still get to that topic, because it was around the same timing that we had just my husband and I had just become empty nesters, and so you and I were kind of sharing that similarity. And I mean, who would have thought that we're kind of taking a little bit of a pivot here today and talking more about your own personal experience and your health journey? So, kind of, I guess, take us back to what happened and how did you end up in the hospital and everything that you went through.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I appreciate that. I do appreciate the opportunity to share this too, especially on a show like yours, because you know, as men especially, I think, we don't like to ever go to the doctor. We always assume whatever it is will heal and just gut through it and take some medicine to get the symptoms under control and go to work. I mean, that's just what we do and, uh, I know a lot of women are that way too, but men are exceptionally pigheaded when it comes to going to the doctor and taking care of ourselves. I haven't been to the doctor, and I don't even know how many decades. To be honest, to look at anything, um, as it turns out, for the last year I've had um bouts where I would get sick for maybe two and a half three weeks. Uh, it felt like just a really bad flu.
Speaker 1:It would uh you know, be like runny nose, cough, you know, coughing stuff up, that type of thing. And when you get that, you figure you're going to let it run its course, You're going to take some DayQuil, you're going to get over it, sleep, you know, move on. And each time it would, you know, stick around for a few weeks and it would leave, Um, but every time it left I still had some kind of a nagging thing. I was, you know, needing cough drops and needing uh, Advil and um, still coughing once in a while. I thought for the longest time that I was allergic to my dog, like out of nowhere, and I've never been allergic to dogs, I've had dogs my whole life and so my wife and I were were a little perplexed because I'm like we can't get rid of our dog, you know, especially being empty nesters, like you said, it's, it's me and my wife and the dog.
Speaker 2:That's all we got left Right.
Speaker 1:So I'm like I got to figure something out here. Um, anyway, then I would get sick again and the same thing would happen. I'd get sick again, same thing would happen. But I never really was healthy. I was always something hanging on, something hanging on. Well, the last time I got sick, uh was in uh end of August, beginning of September, and uh, I mean it was awful and I didn't really get better. And so I said, okay, I'm going to go get an antibiotic. And they said you have pneumonia. And they said we're going to send you in for a chest x-ray tomorrow. I said, okay, great.
Speaker 1:Well, that night I was sitting there with my wife. I was coughing, it wasn't working out and my breathing was getting shorter and shorter and shorter, until I looked at my wife and I said, at this rate, I'm not going to be breathing in about 20 minutes. We got to go to the emergency room now. So we hopped in the truck. She took me down to the emergency room. As I'm walking into the emergency room, I black out, I'm done, I can't breathe anymore, I hit the ground. So we barely got there in time.
Speaker 1:I woke up and my entire left lung was full of fluid there, a fluid type of gel that had formed all around the outside of my lung. That was completely immobilizing it, and so my right side, my right lung, had been carrying everything, the entire weight, and it just got to be too much so it was shutting down and the doctor literally told me if you waited five more minutes you wouldn't be here. I just wouldn't have made it. That would have been sitting in my car, probably dead, by the time I got to the ER. So you get in there, you get taken care of, and they tried everything. They put chest tubes in and tried to drain it. Uh, they tried to do a you know tube down the throat thing and tried to go get it that way. Nothing was working to get it all out. So they finally said we have to do what's called a thoracotomy, and what that basically means for those of you in the audience who don't know is that they just cut you open.
Speaker 1:I have a scar on my back. People who are watching the video can see it, but I'll just describe it. It's roughly 15 inches long and it kind of looks like this down and over on my back it looks like a huge shark bite, which is kind of cool, but was not cool getting it. So, but the scar is awesome, um, but only cause I made it the uh, they cut you open, they take out your ribs, they, you know, clean off everything on the outside along. They suck everything out of the inside along is brutal, just brutal. And um, then when you're out of the surgery you have five tubes sticking on you for different reasons, and I mean it. It's a brutal recovery.
Speaker 1:Um, and you know, one of the worst things, of course, for me in the aftermath is I had to be, uh, had to get a tracheotomy, you know something down my throat like four different times through this process and twice I woke up in the middle of it. One, really I woke up in the middle of it. One really bad woke up in the middle of it because they just wouldn't believe how much I weighed. I'm a really large, like thick, heavy guy and I don't look like I weigh what I weigh and I kept telling them I weigh this much. Give me the Clydesdale dose. Okay, like the big heavy horse dose, not, you know, the greyhound dose.
Speaker 2:Okay, give me the big, huge horse dose.
Speaker 1:No, no, even if it happened once, they still gave me not enough. And I woke up in the middle of the procedure, you know, with a tube down my throat, and so they're holding me down and I'm, you know, revolting against it before I even wake up, because that's what your body does, you know. And so they damaged my vocal cords what your body does, you know. And uh, so they damaged my vocal cords. Oh, my goodness, I spent five years trying to be a podcaster, full time and you guys damaged my vocal cords.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, Rory, that part of the story I hadn't heard yet. That's insane.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, um, my wife and I are holding that. Hope it's healed a little bit. Um, you know, if you listen to my episode with you and then you listen to your episode with me, you'll notice that I'm a little more raspy. Um, you know, but I mean, it is what it is. I'm going to keep talking. My voice just isn't as good.
Speaker 2:So it's going to be. Is it something where it just doesn't last? You lose your voice sooner than you used to Like it's going to like it might not last as long throughout the day. It and it might not last as long throughout the day.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like this all the time.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, no matter when I'm talking, I start from a place of being more raspy than I used to and it's just damaged because they didn't pay any attention. Wow.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean thank God at least you have your voice right, but still.
Speaker 1:Yeah, after the surgery, the doctor told me I had given my age I'm 54. Yeah, after the surgery, the doctor told me I had given my age. I'm 54 and I'm an older guy, you know. So I've been to the races a little bit and he told me that with my age and you know how heavy I am and everything else he said that I had about a 23% chance of making it through the surgery. And well, here I am. Apparently my heart's really strong. So I said, well, great, that got me through.
Speaker 1:I can laugh about it now, but it was uh, it was totally preventable. I just had no idea what was going on, had no idea what was happening, cause I never, at any point before that uh, went to the doctor. If I would have gone, I mean at any time in the past year, if I would have gone in and had a chest x-ray done, they would have seen the fluid filling up in my lung and stopped it. You know, treated it long before it got to this point.
Speaker 1:That's one of the reasons again, like why I'm really glad to be able to tell the story on your program, and as many times as I can, because you know when, when you're out there and you're doing this stuff and you feel like you're never getting better. You have to wake up and you have to stop being the stubborn you know dad who thinks he's bulletproof and say something's wrong. I need to go get looked at and I much. You know my wife is all about holistic medicine and the whole bit and that's what we practice on our family. And so I go to a doctor's my last on my list, absolute last, you know, right before dying.
Speaker 2:It's crazy, and I think that that is such. The important message that you are sharing now is, and you're right, there's so many and mostly, I guess, men, but so many who put off going to the doctor and I don't know. It's something that I've been trying to be intentional about doing, and especially, I think, as we get older. But it's easy to get caught up also in our day-to-day lives and kind of just think something's not serious, like in your case. You're just oh, it's a cold, you know it'll go away, you know it's. I think it's a lot of us get caught up in that as well.
Speaker 2:Even though it's a priority to get checked out, there's also that other side where so many are just we're caught up in our day-to-day routines, we don't want to take the time, you know, and I, I just think that what you're sharing just also again emphasizes the importance of just getting those regular checkups, those regular physicals and and having everything checked out. I, you know I, I used to share with my students at the college checked out. I, you know, I, I used to share with my students at the college the importance of of that. So it's like I have to kind of walk the talk. You know myself personally, as I'm sharing it, and then you know lecturing my students go get physical, get your cholesterol check.
Speaker 2:You know, especially at that age. You know community college. Most of those students are young adults, you know, 18 to 24, what have you? And and you know so much of that population not everybody, but a lot of people in general actually are more focused on the weight loss and how much they weigh. And even giving your body fat checked, which we would do at the college, is just a a fraction. It's like a piece of the pie, right, it's like a big puzzle. You still need your blood pressure checked and your cholesterol. So what was the last time you had gone to the doctor? When was the last checkup? Can you remember back when you had your last checkup, or do you not want to share?
Speaker 1:Let's see, I would say 2005.
Speaker 2:Oh, my Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, probably, and the only reason I even got checked out was because I got life insurance back then and they needed to do the round of physicals to you know, to see what rate you get for the life insurance, and that's the only reason that I got all that work done. Wow, they did the battery test, you know. And the only reason? I remember my son, my youngest son, was born in 04. So it was the next year and I needed to up the life insurance and, you know, get you know, good, sizable life insurance policy. So I remember that being that and, um, yeah, that was the last time I really had any of that stuff done in terms of a battery of tests, you know so. But you know, if you're fine, you're fine.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, I mean, if you, if you can get up and go to work and come home and you wake up the next day, you're still fine, right? You know, if there's a problem, take some day, we'll take a cough, drop man up and go to work. That's just what you do.
Speaker 2:Right, you know, that's the old school mentality, that's the yeah, so has that mentality changed now?
Speaker 1:Have you shifted your?
Speaker 2:thinking Well, yeah, Just a little right.
Speaker 1:My uh, my middle, my older son, my middle kid, uh is 24 and he's been sick for a couple of weeks. And I'm like how long has it been since you you've had that? Well, it's been like three weeks. Then I said you need to go get it checked, because you know you gotta get a lung x-ray or something, some kind of chest x-ray, cause you don't know if you have what I have, don't get into. You know, learn from me. And so now you know and I'm like, yeah, well, if you have it, you know, on Thanksgiving I'm driving you down to urgent care and we're getting a chest x-ray. You don't want to play with this. So I ended up having to show my scar to the kids every once in a while now to get them to wake up and start thinking differently, cause you know it's my fault. He's 24 and I've been putting into his head for 24 years that this is how you handle it. He's watched me do it. Now I have to teach him a whole new thing.
Speaker 2:Right, Uh, so yes, my my attitude has changed drastically.
Speaker 1:Uh, I don't want anybody to ever have to go through what I went through and, by the same token, I'm uh grateful that they were able to do what they did. And when the doctor tells you that you had a 20% chance of living through the surgery like the surgery should have killed you because of your overall condition and how bad it was it's like it takes a while for that to sink in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would imagine a long while, really truly, because if you think about it, do you know? I mean, when do you? Can you even pinpoint when the symptoms started, or does it? Was it just the accumulation of having those episodes of what you thought was just a cold?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had been having those episodes where I had been having like the two to two and a half week bouts of being sick with the flu. I'd been having those for about a year, on and off, like every couple months. You know, every two, three months I'd have this two and a half to three weeks of just being wiped out and it was almost like clockwork, like well, it's been a couple months, I have it again. And in this world of COVID and everything else, you just kind of figure, there's flu everywhere. I'm out all the time. You know, doing this, I'm getting older, I'm just getting sick, right, I got to take better care of myself, I got to eat better, yada, yada, and I don't really sleep a lot, so there's that too. So I'm always thinking, if I just slept more, I wouldn't get sick all the time. You know, um, and it was so weird because it was the way it just seemed to dissipate, like you almost felt like you were over it, you know, but it just was never really a hundred percent gone. You know I would.
Speaker 1:Uh, when I did your podcast, um, I was having a cough drop in the pre-interview, like before we started, and drinking tea to get ready for my podcast, because I wasn't a hundred percent healthy and I don't know if I said it to you, but I said it to probably 30 or 40 other podcasters at that time. You know, hey, you know, pardon me, finishing my cough drop, it's Indiana. I have allergies acting up. This is just what we're dealing with. It wasn't allergies at all. I was, my lung was filling up and I was dying while I was interviewing you guys.
Speaker 2:Insane to was crazy. I mean seriously like crazy because it literally was just, I don't know, a couple weeks a month later, when I, when I, I think when you did your live and I went what in the world?
Speaker 1:when you did it from your hospital bed yeah like oh my gosh yeah, sometimes I overshare is what people uh tell you know, but that was. You know. I have a couple other podcasts. I've got one that's been going for five years.
Speaker 1:I had all you guys, we had that huge response to the podcaster, nation Um, and I knew I was going to be down and out for a while. So I didn't want to just send out a text. I mean, I really wanted all you guys who had come on and joined this project to know this is really what's happening. You know I'm I'm not playing. This isn't like a oh hey, I got sick text and really I'm sitting at home. I don't feel like doing the work. Everybody saw me in the hospital several times. You know.
Speaker 1:I kind of documented what was happening so that everybody would would get it like you know, oh my gosh, this guy really means that he's wiped out, um, because I wanted everybody to know why it was taking a little while to get that podcast up and running and, um, I think that went really well, you know, and it also demonstrated, honestly, the type of community we're building there, because I mean, we only had like 40 people in the group or something at that time the Facebook group and I think I had interviewed maybe 60 folks and I'm getting messages and you know, uh, you know texts and you know posts and everything else from from all you guys Like hey, I just saw this, you know, are you okay? You know what's going on and um, prayers and the whole bit, and so it was just one of those those moments where it was like we're doing the right thing here. It's just going to take us a little longer, because I almost died, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I and.
Speaker 1:I hope.
Speaker 2:I think you have. I hope you have given yourself grace on that because I know you were like you know we're going to get back at it and I mean you know, obviously you know your health comes first and, and you know, just grateful that you're here and to be able to move forward now. And I think that, going back to what you're saying about sharing too much, I think that it it shows you're human for for sure, and I think people you know for the most part, every many people are so are very good people and they want to know and they want to want to be, you know, praying for you and sending good thoughts to you and on all of the things, and it also, I think, is a testament to you and the community that you're building. You know you've attracted good people.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'd like to think that that's what you're doing, but I think you know it's a topic that comes up kind of often, like how much to share, and I think that you don't have to share every single detail of our lives, but I think I mean I I like to be, you know, authentic, open, honest with what's going on and it depends on, like, the timing and such, but personally, I guess, in this long winded way, I'm just saying I don't think you shared too much, I think it was, I think it added value to to many of us just going, wow, you know, life is fragile, this is what's going on and you know, you're just kind of letting everyone know what's what's happening and and I'm just glad that you get to be able to share with us now about it and I'm just glad that you get to be able to share with us now about it.
Speaker 1:Thanks, I appreciate that. It was my rule for sharing, because I do share a lot. I'm very public, have been for a long time because I just want to be authentic and lead by example when I can, and in some of my other podcasts and other groups. That's important especially, but when something's going on that directly impacts the listeners or the people who are involved in the podcast, then I just want to make sure that it's out there and it's public. You know, and everybody knows, you know what's happening. So, um, yeah, so I tried.
Speaker 2:Now, how long were you in the hospital, rory? Because I feel like there was a time where you were like getting better and then did you have a little bit of a setback, or was that just because you were in and then you had surgery?
Speaker 1:That's what happened. I was in and when I got in I started to feel a little better, because that's when the painkiller started. You know, was when I got into the hospital, and so I'm getting a painkiller and I'm starting to feel like, hey, I'm getting better. I really wasn't. Um, they just were doing tests and we'd had a couple of procedures to see if those would work in lieu of surgery, and by the time they ran out of procedures, they went. The only thing we can do now is surgery, cause as soon as we take you off these pain meds, you're going to stop breathing again. We can't keep doing this.
Speaker 1:So they scheduled a surgery and then it got kind of bad. So the surgery floored me, just wiped me right out, and, um, you know, I was in the hospital for a total of about three weeks, um, yeah, which was just brutal all by itself. And then I had, uh, about a four week recovery, um, before I could really do anything. And you know, I just got cleared, um, yesterday for the final. Yeah, the final. It's okay If you lift more than 20 pounds. Now you can, you know, pick up your briefcase if you need to. Uh, don't use your left side to, you know, straighten yourself up when you get out of your chair. I mean little things like that. Or you, you blow all your stitches out and everything.
Speaker 2:So my goodness, you're asking about that. Next, if you've been clear to you know if there are any restrictions not anymore, not as of yesterday.
Speaker 1:So, and you know I was, I'm a guy, I was an idiot. Okay, during my final four weeks you know I don't lift more than 20 pounds. So I said, okay, well, I'll just grab this case of water bottles and move it real quick. Stupid Pulled every muscle that was left in my left side. I was like covered in ice bags going oh that was so dumb. But the doctor looked at me and said yeah, it hurt, but you didn't damage anything. You know, you're just stupid.
Speaker 2:You, just you didn't follow the rules.
Speaker 1:So what can I tell you? Right? Yeah, so, but um, you know, I'll tell you this, since you know this is a health and wellness show. Um, as soon as he cleared me to start doing anything, I started walking and I uh, I've been sharing that on all my social media also and um immediately went for a walk around the block. And that first walk was tough because I mean, let's be honest with you, total transparency I wasn't a walker before. I mean, I was a big guy who didn't walk if he didn't have to. I mean, I'd rather drive if I had to. So I started walking and I haven't missed a day since that day. I've gone out and walked every day and I'm up.
Speaker 1:My personal best now is four miles.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:And I'm walking in a 5k on Thanksgiving morning with the rest of my family. It's a tradition. They always go and I'm always the guy standing there taking video of everybody, because I have no interest in walking. This is the first year I'm walking it.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, Rory, that's wonderful. That makes me so happy. That's really, I mean, I guess, when you have to say there's a light at the end of the tunnel, something positive that comes out of a very challenging experience, that's a beautiful thing. Be able to, and being able again to be able to be here and do that with your family, that's special Thanksgiving coming up for you for sure.
Speaker 1:It really is. I'm really looking forward to it. I've wanted to be able to do it for a while and you know just my overall health and you know from working hard jobs throughout all the years. You know bad back, bad hips, bad knees, the whole bit. And now I'm walking, you know, and I'm posting it and sending it to my kids and everything else. My youngest son's like dad, is this a typo? You really walked us and I use an app. You know a walk tracker or whatever it is. You know, map my walk, I think is what it's called, and if I'm not sending them the screenshot of that, I don't think they believe me. So you know I'm tracking the walk and then sending them the screenshot.
Speaker 2:So they're like oh my God, he really walked, it's proof, right? I love that. Well, I guess you know I'm sure they're thrilled that you are here and you're doing better. And I mean, I guess the main message really is to just one, get our checkups. And two, when the symptoms keep returning, that's a sure sign that something's not right, right, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. If you just can't get healthy, there's a reason, you know you go get looked at. And the other thing is don't wait until it's too late, you know. Don't wait for you're too late to start thinking about avoiding the too late, you know. I mean, I could have been walking five years ago. I could have been walking 10 years ago. I could have been eating better 10 years ago, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that you say that because that has been a big message that I have shared.
Speaker 2:I, my dad, both my mom, my parents are no longer living, but my dad had this was many years ago had a mild heart attack and, um, that's when he discovered he had diabetes, he had cirrhosis of the liver, fatty liver disease.
Speaker 2:So he made some major changes, my point being and you hear that often where it takes that kind of a health scare like what you've gone through, to make those adjustments and I'm like, no, let's make changes now so that we prevent or at least reduce the risk of having these health scares later on.
Speaker 2:And you know, and I talk about that for me personally, with seeing my mom battle cancer and then my dad battling all these other basically metabolic diseases, and and I know there's not a guarantee, but it's definitely a motivation for me as I hope and pray my kids don't have to see me go through that, right, right, but again, it's not nothing's 100 percent, but at least we can take the steps to hopefully reduce the chances of it happening. And that's hard for me to see and it's hurtful for me when I see people, oh, I'm fine, and then when they have something like that happen and like what your experience was, then they make those adjustments Like let's make some adjustments now. Even when we're feeling good, we could even feel better, right, we never realize how good we can actually feel until we actually take those steps to make some adjustments in our exercise, in our nutrition, whatever it might be. So thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 1:That's no problem. I appreciate the opportunity to share it. I did a reel recently, you know, on social media, and it was um, simply put, the best time to make a change in your life is, you know, 10 or 20 years ago, whenever your demise started. The second best time to make a change in your life is, you know, 10 or 20 years ago, whenever your demise started. The second best time to make a change is right now.
Speaker 2:It's so true, Well, you know you've probably seen a lot of the information that's, I'm so grateful, is coming out more and more now with some of the big leaders. But these different metabolic diseases can start, like you're saying, years prior and we might have no inclination or no clue that what's going on within our bodies and it doesn't you know, it doesn't manifest and show until later on, and sometimes it's too late. And so it's just definitely something to you know. Remind everyone to just really be in touch with how our bodies are feeling and get those checkups. And again, it's never a guarantee. We can't always catch everything a hundred percent of the time. However, we can take steps to to do our best. I guess is what it is really truly.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I'm so happy you're walking. Walking is such a great exercise. I love it.
Speaker 1:I'm happy too. It's the only thing I could do right now, so I started with that, but it's leading into other things. Now I'm losing weight, I can breathe now. So I'm like, hey, I haven't lifted weights in a little while, let's go try that after Thanksgiving. I just got cleared, yeah, one step at a time, for sure. I think I pulled a muscle just trying to lift the turkey you know the frozen turkey out of the bin to put it in the in the cart those things are heavy.
Speaker 2:Let me tell you they are.
Speaker 1:I didn't realize how heavy they were until you know you have surgery yeah, you don't realize I made.
Speaker 2:I made the silly. This is, this is one of my silly moves. I've done this more than once in the past. But walked over to Whole Foods and saw the bigger size turkey that I initially wanted and I'm like, oh, I can do it. So I get this 20 pound turkey and I walk home and I had to like stop and take breaks, I'm going to admit, and at one point the bag ripped out from under, so I had to like carry this turkey like a baby, I mean, like Shelly. That was not the best choice, but that's me, I've done that in the past, so I'm sure it would have been entertaining had it been videotaped, but luckily I don't think anybody saw me walking along carrying my baby.
Speaker 1:I was going to say I mean, it's hard to tell on Zoom, but you look pretty tiny. What are you doing? Carrying a big old frozen turkey walking back from the store?
Speaker 2:I had to stop one side and set it down, hold on the other side, walk a little bit, set it down. I adjusted right from right to left to center and then oh my gosh luckily it wasn't too far from home that I had to go, but yeah it was. It was quite something crazy, not the smartest moves, but I did it. It's all right. I wouldn't. I wouldn't recommend it, but I survived, so so okay. So you are walking and you're making adjustments in your nutrition.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Right oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, my uh, my wife is like is very into you know, the um, whole foods and, um, organic, you know eating and the whole bit, and I'm a great cook so it's easy to put all these things together. Um, I'm Italian, so that just comes with the territory, and um, so that's been you know good, we're experimenting with new stuff and you know I can't I actually can't remember eating anything other than organic turkey for quite a while at this point. So it's working out pretty well. And then my sons are both, you know, gigantic muscle-bound guys who study this stuff on a regular basis, and so they've both helped a ton. My youngest is really into it, he does.
Speaker 1:He went for a 50 something mile ruck walk with, like the weighted backpack thing and he got like 33 miles straight without stopping. It's his personal best type thing and I'm like and I'm over here going, I got four miles done someday. So it's uh, you know they've helped a ton. You know my family's really helped a ton. They've been there to help me change the diet, help me get workouts done. And uh, uh, you know they've helped a ton. You know my family's really helped a ton. They've been there to help me change the diet, help me get workouts done. And uh, you know, once I get this 5k done on thanksgiving, which is been my first goal, then the next goal is to be able to do a 10 mile ruck walk by june 1st. So that's what I'll be building up to at that point, kind of cycling up and stacking and actually treating it like it's workouts. So I've never done anything like that before in my life. I haven't gone four miles ever in anything without driving it. So wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, those are the goals coming up.
Speaker 2:I love it. Well, I really always enjoy chatting with you and I know we could talk more. I feel like we we could talk about the empty nest, empty nesting topic as well, um, but I'm sure we probably should wrap things up here soon just to be conscientious of your time and our listeners. But I'm glad to know your, your boys. You have two boys, right?
Speaker 1:I do. I have a daughter and two boys.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's exactly right. You had three, just like us. So is your daughter your oldest.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, so we are very similar. And then your youngest is your 24 year old.
Speaker 1:No, my youngest is 20.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:My 24 year old is my older boy. He's the middle kid.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's exactly us. That's so wild.
Speaker 1:I remember having this conversation when you and I were talking before how similar our families are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were talking about our families and empty nesting and all of those things. So very, very similar. I mean, our oldest is our daughter, she just turned 26. And then our middle boy, he's 24, he'll be 25. And then our youngest is 18, soon to be 19. So right in there with yours probably very similar ages.
Speaker 1:Yeah, very close.
Speaker 2:Very, very close, so so they've been around helping you get back on track, so that's great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they were all there when I went into surgery and you know they, they were popping in and out of the hospital the whole time and, uh, you know, bringing me Gatorade, sneaking me a Subway sandwich now and then, you know, because the foods so just, oh my.
Speaker 2:God, oh it's, you know that's a whole other episode, I think you know, talking about the hospital food. I don't. I don't quite understand that and hopefully that can at some point change in the future.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had a 20% chance of surviving the surgery. I probably had about a 5% chance of surviving the food without all the other stuff, so my kids got me through that. Yeah, probably some home cooking and, you know, maybe a Jimmy John's here and there.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I'm glad they were able to bring you some decent food, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it worked out.
Speaker 2:But hey, you know if you ever want to have me back on again, we can delve into, you know, the emptiness thing that we both are going through and that hundreds of other people are going through to be happy to to do that. I would love to do that and I think you know when we had talked about it originally, I was getting ready to do a podcast with with another mom and I said I would love to do an episode with, with the perspective from like, a dad. So that's kind of how we had talked about that. So for sure, we need to do that. We'll have to plan that for next time.
Speaker 1:I appreciate you having me on just to kind of talk about this. Like I said, it's a big deal for anybody, honestly, but especially for stubborn dads who don't ever want to do this, and that's the message I'm trying to get out on any platform I can, especially a good one like yours, where this is kind of your topic, that you cover, um, people who are listening, or here, you know, for wellness advice and um and stories and stuff, and so I hope people listen to that. Take heed, and if you're not getting healthy, you know, if you think you're over whatever sickness it is and you're not healthy and you're still taking cough drops and everything else, go, get looked at, just go. You can't play games at some point, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely true. Well, I'm so happy to have you here sharing. I really appreciate it, rory, again, grateful that you're here, period, so very, very thankful for that. And thank you for taking time to share with our listeners. And where can people find you, you know, if they want to reach out and and especially if people who have podcasts, they should reach out to you, but also just generally, if anyone wants to reach out and maybe they're going through something similar.
Speaker 1:You know, one of the best places to reach me is just, you know, on Facebook. My account is open, it's a business account on Facebook and I post everything there, about everything. So I mean, that's a real easy way to reach me. And it's just my name, you know, just R-O-R-Y-P-A-Q-U-E-T-T-E, you know it's, it's posted everywhere, so, and it's a wide open account. So anybody who wants to message me there or contact me there or comment on a post, the easiest way to reach me. And then you know, if someone's a podcaster and they want to be interviewed and join the Podcaster Nation, it's thepodcasternation at gmailcom. So really simple, really easy to reach me.
Speaker 2:Perfect, and I will add all of that information in the show notes. And then I can also add links to your podcast as well, just to share with listeners.
Speaker 1:Thank you, that's great.
Speaker 2:You're welcome and thank you so much again. Any last I mean I think you've covered it but any last minute tips or advice you want to share.
Speaker 1:Don't wait until it's too late to experience. You're too late, that's probably the last thing that I would say. It's only too late if you don't do anything about it. So get out, get checked, take care of yourself ahead of time, then you don't run into this in the first place. Prevention is the best medicine, right?
Speaker 2:It absolutely is. It absolutely is Well. Thank you, my friend, for being on today and sharing your story and your experience with our listeners. I so appreciate you doing so and, as Rory has shared, get those checkups done and listen to your bodies and take those steps to look into anything that maybe doesn't seem right within your health and within your bodies. And hope you all have a wonderful, blessed week and, as always, do something for yourself and your wellness on this day and until next time we'll see you back here on Words of Wellness. Have a great week everybody.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. I hope you gained value and enjoyed our time together as much as I did, and if you know someone who could benefit from today's episode, I would love and appreciate it if you could share with a friend or rate and review Words of Wellness so that more can hear this message. I love and appreciate you all. Thank you for listening and if you have any questions or topics you would like me to share in future episodes, please don't hesitate to reach out to me through my contact information that is shared in the show notes below. Again, thank you for tuning in to Words of Wellness. My name is Shelly Jeffries and I encourage you to do something for you, for your wellness, on this day. Until next time, I hope you all have a healthy, happy and blessed week. Thank you, you.