Your Brain Knows More Than You Think

I got a brain injury a couple— 3 years ago, more maybe than 3 years ago, and it's really affected my life. I don't know. I often feel like I'm tricking people into believing things about me that may or may not be true.

To like, I know something's wrong. I need to see what's wrong. Yeah.

Like, they show you what a healthy brain looks like, and then they show you your brain. On my scan, there's literally a mark that goes across, like a divot that goes across exactly where I hit my head. And I felt completely validated in that moment in a way that I, it made me so happy. And most people would be like, don't you want to hear your brain's healthy? No, I don't. Because then I'm just crazy.

Welcome to the Soul Proprietor Podcast. I'm Curt Kempton.

And I'm Melody Edwards.

Each week we dive into the ethical questions that keep entrepreneurs awake at night.

Whether you're building your own company or exploring life's big questions, you are welcome here.

Hello, Melody. How are you today?

I am happy. Can you believe it? Happy. I'm saying the word.

I love that. That's so cool. Why are you so happy?

I'm in one of my favorite places, Provincetown, the very end of Massachusetts, Cape Cod, end of the world in a way, because it just goes off into nothingness. The blue, the colors of shades of blue. And I'm doing this with my nephew. The little angel baby. I'm like the unpaid nanny, and I'm taking my job very seriously. Like, he sleeps in my room. We took a nap together today. Like, I wake up early in the morning with him.

I'm doing all the things, just like when I was a nanny when I was 19, except the pay is a lot less.

It feels like you get paid in smiles.

I do. I get paid in love and adoration and a lot of auntie. I love hearing that. How are you?

I'm great. I am so good. I just got back from camping up in the mountains, got to escape the summer heat of Phoenix for even if it was only a couple days. It just felt so good to go outside and not have my face melt off. I'm really anxious for the summer to finish. And this year, it happens earlier every year, the older I get. And Rachel, my wife, was pointing out like, this has been a lot more tame year than normal, but my aging is what the problem is. I think this year around May, I was ready for it to be over.

And so you can imagine it just felt so long.

Yeah. I feel like our summer here has not, we have not had the same experience. There's been like some hot days for sure, but maybe it's because I haven't been here a lot also. I think summer was nice here.

You're in the Philippines. When I was in Cebu, it was so hot and so humid and the sun is so angry.

Yeah, but you were there not during rainy season where it rained every single day all the time. So I was there in rainy season and there was not a sun to be found.

Oh, okay. I was there during hurricane season. I was kind of hoping to get— or typhoon season. I was hoping to get into a typhoon in September, but actually it was this time.

That's like the edge of the season though. Yeah.

But I saw some, but it wasn't the whole time. So yeah, but it's been so rainy here that it's been so humid on top of our normal heat. Normally you say Arizona's a dry heat. This has not been a dry heat at all this year, but I'm thankful. We've been in drought for years and years and years. And unfortunately, these rains that we've gotten have actually caused some flash floods in the Grand Canyon. We killed a guide in there. It's been really problematic with the amount of rain that we've had.

However, we are seeing like reservoirs fill up again and oh man, that's— we need it so bad. So I feel really like I can't complain. I can't complain. It's just not right.

Yeah. But I mean, you can, but you can't.

Right. Yeah, exactly.

I mean, me neither. I think I'm only saying it like this. If it was really hot outside and I have been in heat like all summer, I probably wouldn't have this balmy attitude I have because The breeze is breezing outside. It's the perfect temperature. The water is perfect. Like, everything is perfect here. And it's because it's like right on the edge of summer into fall.

And the edge of the ocean. So you've got like the ocean air.

Yes, I do. It's been really fun though to be here. We were talking before this that both of us ended up getting sick.

I'm calling mine allergies. It just, it makes me feel better to say that.

Yeah, I like to say that too, except, so I thought I was in New York City last week. We were supposed to record a podcast. One of the reasons I couldn't also was I woke up and I was like sinus city. When I was there, I was under the impression that we'd be able to record a podcast because I would just get a hotel while I was there, and I hadn't bothered to get one beforehand, and I forgot it was the day before 9/11. So I went to look online for hotels and they were like $6,000. Where I was.

Whoa.

It was crazy. So wait, wait, wait, wait.

So people wanted to be in New York on 9/11?

Yeah, like to memorialize, to remember, you know. There were a lot of people there. I left the day before that, but it was just so interesting that it hadn't occurred to me. And it also— I was like, is it a holiday weekend? Like, what's going on? Because I've gone lots of places and not gotten hotel rooms beforehand, but this was a first. I sent Matt a screenshot. of $5,700 and something for a hotel room because I was like, can we afford it? He said, yeah, get dozens.

Did you really get a hotel room then?

No, I stayed with my friends. I have some friends in New York, and originally I didn't want to stay with them because I was there for my brain scans and I was nervous about how I was going to feel. And New York is so draining. I don't know how people live there. But I took the train in and then I did a lot of walking and it was exhausting.

The people who live there love it though. Like, yeah. So your brain scan, I want to get to that. I want to talk about that. Before we do, you talk about 9/11. Do you remember where you were at?

I do.

When you found out, where were you?

Not only do I remember where I was at, I remember why my life changed a lot that day. I was in my living room. with my Moroccan Arab Muslim husband at the time and with our 3-year-old little daughter. She was 2. And we were suddenly on the TV that came on. I don't know why we were watching TV because I think it was in the morning on a Monday or something.

But everybody was watching TV at some point that day. You know, like it just, it came on.

It did. And I mean, we didn't know what was going on, of course. And really what changed for us is how people saw Muslims and Arabs. And I actually had the FBI come to my door later, maybe 2 years later after that, because that was the time when we were reporting people for suspicious activity. Remember back in the day?

Well, I wasn't married to anyone who was Muslim. I don't think I was close enough to it. I didn't know. I wasn't aware of that.

I remember people being really mad at a lot of Pakistanis and Indians because they mistook them for Arabs and Muslims, which they aren't. But yeah, it kind of changed everything. Even one of my ex-husband's friends changed his name from Muhammad and started using a nickname instead because it was a scary time for everybody. Where were you on 9/11?

I was newly married. We were living in our first apartment. We only lived there for 6 months, I think. Maybe it was a year. Actually, it could have been a year, actually. So anyway, I was newlywed. I got up getting ready for school. in college.

So I would go to school in the morning and then I would go to work. And my mom called me and she said, turn the TV on. I'm like, that is the weirdest. Never in my life has my mom ever asked me to turn on the TV. And so she was just in tears. And I remember being like, holy cow. So turned on, it was the local news station. I knew there was no school that day.

By the time I turned it on, the second tower had already been hit and they There's so much confusion. I remember driving to my sister's house because my wife was a dental assistant and she still went to work to go do dental work. But I went to my sister's house. Why did I go there? I don't remember why I went there, but I watched it with my sister at her house and I was just blown away. And driving there, it was so silent. Roads were so empty, nothing in the sky. know, you don't think you hear airplanes when there's no airplanes in the sky. It's different.

Like everything was different. And I was looking at the air like, is something going to come hit me? Like I thought they were going to come hit me. You know?

I do. That's something that changed for me that day too, is I never used to pay any attention to airplanes. Like I'd be like, oh, that's cool. For many years, probably well more than a decade, I got really scared of airplanes. Like I started noticing them. I started paying attention to them. And it's almost like I had a safety plan in my head as if I could do something if an airplane— it was irrational, of course, but I've never been really an alpha male.

I would not consider myself an alpha male, but I remember thinking, I need to be on an airplane. They need good people on airplanes. And thinking I would stand up, I would do it. And I think it was that guy that said on the phone, he said, let's roll. Do you remember that?

Yeah. Okay.

It was like, someone called his wife and I can't believe he had cell reception, but the last thing she heard her husband say, or was it an airplane phone?

It was an airplane phone. Yeah.

Okay. So back in those days.

Yeah.

And the last thing she ever heard her husband say is, let's roll. And I don't know, I just thought I need to be one of those people.

Yeah. I think a lot of young men that I knew then really felt like they wanted to join the military, join up, do something.

That's true.

And I definitely was terrified of the thought of any of that because we also didn't know who we were fighting exactly.

Yeah, but we wanted to fight. We all wanted to fight.

Yeah, we all wanted to fight. We didn't know the extent of what was going to happen. I mean, it wasn't like we locked it down and then everything was okay because there were so many attacks. It wasn't just the Twin Towers, it was like the Pentagon and Pennsylvania in a field as well. I think that's the flight he was on, right?

I believe so. Yeah.

I think his name was Mark or Jim. It just came— I don't remember, but In my head, that's what it is.

I'm so grateful to them. And obviously they sacrificed their own life for the lives of others. I find that noble. And anytime evil comes, I really appreciate people who stand up to evil. I really do want to get to your brain scan. I just, when you were talking about New York and being sold out for people wanting to be there, on 9/11, I had to go to YouTube to grab something. I was looking for a video I needed. And right there on the front was the 9/11 morning of Regis and Kelly.

They were doing their morning show and it said, this is the most iconic thing. And it was an hour long. I didn't watch the whole thing.

Wasn't it Regis and Kathie Lee back then?

Definitely not. Not the one I saw. No, the morning of, they were on the air when they first heard about it. And to watch them in their confusion, they didn't have that much information. They were in New York. They didn't have the information. And Reed just keeps trying to make it light and like, oh, what a devastating thing. Oh man, last night it was a major thunderstorm.

That was crazy, right? How'd you get it? And Kelly just would not allow it. She was trying to get into it, but she was just devastated. You just see it on her face. And then the second tower got hit and I just watched certain segments of it. I kind of skimmed through it and I got to the very end because I thought that by the end they might know a bit more. I didn't know how much within that hour they knew. they did know about that other plane that was near the White House, they said. Anyway, I remember as I was watching that, it took me back and I thought, I remember how afraid— and that's when I say everyone wanted to fight, everyone was afraid.

And fight or flight is so real. I remember being very sad and angry and all those stages of grief for your country.

Yeah, no, I do know. And I felt like a compounding of that in that I was really sad and angry for my country. And also now I was worried about my family.

Oh, yeah. A whole other element. So how did that play out for you guys over the coming months?

Not good. It was not good. I think at that time, everybody was so angry. And the people who were going to get the brunt of it were the brownest, most Arab-looking people, right? Because remember, people had said, oh, they were cheering. That's something that people still say they saw, but that didn't actually happen in New Jersey. But there was a lot of people who were saying like Arabs were celebrating. They might have abroad. I don't know.

That's how I always understood it, is that Muslims abroad were. And I just want to add one other element. I never knew what the Quran was. I didn't understand the Quran. So what happened was I had people who probably also didn't understand almost anything about the Quran telling me about Sharia law, telling me about how Allah has virgins for people who go out and kill us.

We all heard the 16 virgin brides or whatever, like that's why the guys went down in the plane for. And but honestly, I didn't know a lot about the Quran at all. I still don't in the same way, but I knew a lot about Muslims and I knew that they're some of the kindest, most generous people that I've ever met or lived with or stayed with, you know. And so I really felt confused a lot, and I felt really torn. But that was me. That wasn't even Ahmed. So—

That's so fascinating. I just know how much poisoning I had. I'll call it Muslim poisoning. I don't know if that's actually a term. I'm sure I just invented that. So I was so poisoned against Muslims in my sheltered place And I've always been skeptical of, like, if something is all bad, the source you're getting it from is probably very skewed, right? So I've always felt that way. I did not feel that way after 9/11. I felt like what I was being taught about Muslims was all true.

And so I'm now imagining you being married to a Muslim and to the poisoning going on around you. And even sounds like you were even conflicted and confused. So can't even imagine him going out in public.

It was a very scary time, and it didn't feel like you had any right to be— have a different perspective or be afraid. Like, and also Arab communities, they're very communal, you know? And so, like, Ahmed had a lot of friends. They hung out all the time. It just looks like a big bunch of Arabs, you know, Arab men. Why are they always getting together? Like, that's why the FBI came to my house, because they had been told that Ahmed and his friends were gathering, I guess, and that it was very suspicious. And it didn't take much to, you know, to run down just to see. So— but the fact is they didn't just talk to me, they talked to my neighbors, they talked to other people, like, and I'm just a side character.

But they can't risk another one. That's the thing. Like, they couldn't risk this happening again. Oh, man. It's just so gross.

I think I remember, like, one of the Pakistani maybe, or Indian people at one of our local stores. I think they got either attacked or their store was vandalized or something. And a lot of good people that I would never have imagined talking like they were talking, like they were so angry and hate-filled about that. And, you know, it kind of in a way reminds me of the whole ICE and, you know, all of these non-white people who are taking all our stuff and doing all these bad things. And— It's the same rhetoric. It was the same feeling like you could be taken off the street. It felt very un-American, you know?

Gosh, as you said that, I remember being at the Holocaust Museum there in Washington, DC when I was visiting, and I just needed someone to explain to me as I'm watching, because it takes you through the beginning of like when the Jews started to become the enemy. And I'm like 3 floors up and I'm like, wait, no one ever explained to me why we were able to villainize this other group of people? How was Hitler able to get this sort of excitement out of the people? And it finally became clear. It was always because Germany had lost World War I and he was able to villainize, hey everybody, you don't like the situation we're in? I can show you the problem. And he pointed at them and he poisoned their mentality against Jews and then later on other classes as well. But that's where the ghettos came from. And then from the ghettos, then the Night of Broken Glass. And then from the Night of Broken Glass around, all this stuff is— and so now as you're saying this, I'm thinking to myself, that's it, is when people are scared, they get angry. When they're angry, they need a place to put their anger.

When they have a place to put their anger, bad things happen. And like I say about, we can't risk another 9/11. We don't even know who the enemy is. So what do we do? We try to find people who look like the enemy. And part of me, I guess I got to say it, Can you blame them? They don't know what to do.

No, none of us know what to do. And I guess you can't blame people because people want certainty, even though life offers us no certainty. They at least want to feel like they have some control over uncontrollable situations. And that's just human nature. You know, there's only a couple of times in my life that I've been scared. It's not— it's that time that was very scary to me. Also, because I was worried about our country, of course, and everything, and my whole life and existence, and my children, my child at the time. The second time was when Trump was elected.

He was on a Muslim thing back then. I don't know if you remember. And he was talking about getting rid of all the Muslims from the country at that time. And an Arab Muslim, whoever. And he talked about— it had gotten to the point where I was crying with my daughter on the couch when he was elected because we were scared that because she's Arab. that she would be seen as a Muslim and be taken. Like, that's how crazy we felt back then. And yet look at us now.

Man, what a stroll down a bleak time. And but at the same time, how thankful I am that people would flock to New York now to celebrate the resurgence, I guess you could say, because that was another time as I felt very close to my fellow Americans which obviously, I mean, that's— is there a silver lining there? I look at today, I don't feel very close to all Americans right now.

Yeah, that's true. Facebook would've been probably 4 and 5, maybe 6.

Yeah, it was later. So we didn't even have that at all. We had no connection. We talked to people on the phone back then, right?

Yes. And cell phones, my mom called me on a cell phone, but it's like my first cell phone. Like it was right at the beginning.

I got my first cell phone when I was like 23, so 22 or 23. And I needed it because I had to go to work in all the different places. So, you know, it feels like such a Different time, long time, just like COVID. Actually, that was another time I felt very scared for my life.

Really? Because of the disease? The disease itself or other things?

Oh, absolutely. Well, people in Massachusetts were dying like crazy. We had a lot of people close to our family and in our family die. So there were some people who had no experience with COVID at all. It was just like something people were talking about and getting hysterical about. And then Matt's grandfather was in a soldier's home where 130 guys and men and women dead very quickly. And 2 of Matt's workmates died. They were young.

Like, it was crazy. And so it was so scary because we just saw people dying around us all the time. Like, it didn't make sense. And then the rest of the country was— seemed oblivious or not dealing with that reality. And we were very not— like, we did not feel like a nation who had come together at that time. So I wonder, is 9/11 the last time we felt that?

Right at the beginning of COVID I did feel that we were all coming together when it stopped the spread. Do you remember like the first couple days when they had people sheltering in place? I actually remember feeling like at least we're all on the same page here. Now we had no clue what we were talking about.

Yeah. Yeah. You're absolutely right. I remember feeling that for a minute and then it actually took Trump just to say, this isn't a real thing or whatever he said.

And then immediately it was like, no. they're trying to control us. So, okay, let's shift over to something that I'm hoping so much is good news based on how happy you are as we got together today. I'm hoping your brain scan went well because that's something I've been kind of dying to hear about.

Well, for anybody who doesn't know, I got a brain injury a couple, 3 years ago, more maybe than 3 years ago, and it's really affected my life. And it was a really silly way to get an injury. I was on a trampoline. I went down on my butt to stop jumping. I went over to my side, and this was not out of control. I was controlling all these actions. And then my head just gently bumped against the cloth part, not even like the metal or anything. And I just felt like something had shifted there.

And, you know, once I talk about the scan, it's— now I'm actually reconsidering if I did only bump it gently. Maybe that never happened that way.

Kind of funny thing about concussions.

Right?

Yeah. Yeah.

I just remember thinking to myself at that time, as I have many times in my life when I get an injury, but the next day I'm like, where'd this huge bruise come from? I remember thinking, Melody, if your head hurts tomorrow, remember this happened. And so first, what do you think a good result for me would've been?

I think a good result would've been we understand what's wrong. This is not as uncommon as you think. And we have a very high success rate in helping people who have this condition.

Yeah. I realized when I was there that I would have been really upset if they had said that nothing was wrong and I have a totally healthy brain. Not because of the story, but because it would not explain anything in my life. Right. And I was looking for data and explanations. And so I went for 2 days. I'm going to run you through it really quick so you understand what this involved. I had something called a SPECT scan.

And that is a scan that measures blood flow to the brain. And it's not a scan that people usually use to do brain stuff. Usually it's MRI or other things, but this man, Dr. Amen, believes that you should be looking— that the blood flow to the brain is a key indicator of like a lot of different problems that we have in our brains. And you can look at patterns in the way that the brain works or the blood flow is. And he's done 300,000 of these now on many different kinds of people. And so over time, he's done the research and he says like, you can heal a concussion, you can heal ADHD. And it's very holistic, you know, his whole approach is very holistic.

And so how do you think that flies?

Did you tell him as part of the holistic that you had recently been on a—

Absolutely. I told them everything on my drug trip. Yeah.

I didn't know how to say it. Your drug journey.

A drug journey. Yeah, I told them everything. I'm a person who is not gonna hold back because I want the exact right data and they need to know everything.

So— Yeah. If you hold data back, yeah.

It was 18 pages and it was dense and I had to say all the things. So when I got there, I had already done all that pre-work. I had to take the first scan and you have to do it where your brain is active. So they have these numbers on a screen or letters on a screen, big letters, don't need your glasses for it. And every time you see a letter, you just press the spacebar. And if you see an X, you don't press the spacebar. And it sounds so easy, and it was very, very difficult because it takes a lot of concentration.

Really?

Yeah. I was shocked at how hard it was. And then I had to do it for 20 minutes. So like, they want your brain to be highly active in that state, and then that's when they're going to take the scan. Now, on the scan, I started having like some sort of panic attack. I was battling my brain at that time because I don't like being restrained in any way. And they don't restrain your body. Your head's not in a machine like an MRI necessarily.

You just have this other thing around you, but they do tape your head down to the table so you don't move. You need to be still. But I also didn't have a podcast or any music playing, so it was just me battling my brain.

Oh, that's where claustrophobia gets Like the cycle.

Yes. And I'm not like that usually, but I think I was more emotional about this than I thought I was. And so I must have moved a little. I kicked off my blanket because I was like so hot and that was the one thing I could control. And the lady came over and she said, okay, try not to move. Okay. And I was like, okay, but I was dying. So finally it was over and she came over and she's like, hey, your scan is blurry.

And I suggest we do it again. And I burst into tears because it was the longest 20 to 30 minutes of my life. And I could not imagine doing it again, but I was like, I can't have come all this way and not, like, I have to do it. And also that's how you work through your brain stuff. You do it again. So I like got some water and took some time and then she's like, well, you can listen to a podcast. Or I'm like, what? I'm like, that changes everything. So I did not freak out the second time.

I listened to a podcast and—

They need to be telling you that on your first scan.

I know, like, tell me in the beginning, ask me. So that scan got done. And then the next day I had to go back and they want you to do a second scan where your brain is in a relaxed state. And so you sit in a room for 30 minutes, no lights, no phone, nothing. They tell you, try not to fall asleep. If you do, it's okay, but your brain might start dreaming and then that goes into a more active state. That actually wasn't too bad. I did the thing.

And then I did the second scan, or third really, and that went fine. And then after that, I had to do some cognitive games. I've done them before when I did my ADHD or my ADD testing 20 years ago, where you're like trying to remember details and then they ask you at the end. And I feel like I messed up because I now know in my later years, because I've already taken the test, I knew to like sing the words and put like word things together and like I was trying to beat the game, but I'm like, that's not my natural way, but maybe it is. I don't know. So I did really well on that. I've never done well on those before. It was just really interesting that I chose that moment to do really well on something that's measuring something about me that I struggle with.

So all that was done. I did like 4 different things at the clinic. And then the next day I had a Zoom with the doctor who went over the results. And it's amazing. I'm not getting to the result yet. They have 2 different scans you do.

I'm enjoying the journey.

They show you the outside of your brain. Like, they show you what a healthy brain looks like, and then they show you your brain. And you must be feeling like I was feeling when she was explaining the healthy brain to me and not showing me my brain. But it needs to look more smooth on the outside, in the scan at least.

I was gonna say, I thought smooth brains are bad. All right, cool.

Well, that's what my other friend said. And yeah, for Alzheimer's, they say if your brain is smoothing out in certain areas, but this is a different kind of test.

'Cause it's blood flow.

Yeah. So it looks smooth on the surface in the scan. And I never told them where my injury was or what side of the head my injury was on, which I think it's interesting they never asked me that. But on my scan, there's literally a mark that goes across, like a divot that goes across exactly where I hit my head. And they said it's a mild injury. Like, it's not like severe or anything. It would've been like, but it's very visible. And I felt completely validated in that moment in a way that I, it made me so happy.

And most people would be like, don't you wanna hear your brain's healthy? No, I don't. Because then I'm just crazy.

Yeah. I've diagnosed enough stuff. Like even like working on a car, you don't want to like, I know something's wrong. I need to see what's wrong.

Right. And then after the test, I mean, after the thing, I was like, Matt, see, I do have a brain injury. He's like, I know you do. you think I doubted that? I'm like, I don't know. I often feel like I'm tricking people into believing things about me that may or may not be true because that's my inner dialogue, like my inner monologue. Like I said that about being in the hospital. I believed that I had tricked— no, I didn't actively think this, but I felt like I didn't deserve, I didn't belong in the hospital when I had been put in when I was 18 because I wasn't bad enough. I was just faking it for attention or something is what a story that lived in my head for decades.

And then it took an adult being like, wait, do you think like these well-trained doctors who deal with people in hospitals, like schizophrenics and delusional people and all these people, you, the 18-year-old innocent Melody, fooled them? I was like, oh yeah.

I hate that I understand what you're saying right now.

I know.

Like, yeah, I get it.

What is that? Like, it's almost like when you're a good person and you're trying to live a good life, you don't want to be a freeloader.

You don't want to be the person who is the one taxing the system. You don't want to be the person who— like, things like that happen to other people.

You don't want to be a drama queen.

So I'm faking it. And like, but I don't know what to do if I am faking it. Like, how do I stop faking it?

I bet you a lot of people understand that. So that was immediately just, thank God that I now understand that this really happened to me. And I have been struggling for 3 years because there was a period in those 3 years where I stopped talking about it probably for a year, year and a half where I did not talk about brain injury anymore because I was trying to like move on, but I couldn't because I wasn't myself either. My memory wasn't as good anymore. And then I started feeling like I was using it as an excuse to get away with stuff like, sorry, I don't remember names anymore because of my brain injury. But I really struggled with a lot of those things. So the part of my brain that, that relates to where the injury was. It was very interesting what it affects, things like lower blood flow in my left temporal lobe, which affects memory, recall, processing, mood, and brain fog.

All the things.

All the things that you're like, yeah, I know. I know it.

I was like, hallelujah. And then lower activity in my parietal lobe, which is where I hit my head exactly. And that's spatial awareness and orientation, which is interesting. And then there were some other things like mildly in my occipital lobe, which might have explained the vision problems I was having after, and I continue to have at times. Mildly lower activity in my cerebellum, which supports my balance. Speech learning integrated. I can sometimes start stutter and forget words. Yeah.

I thought you were going to say I forget words. I was going to say maybe it's that part where you don't know what you're saying. Like you start setting things in order.

Things like that. And it said my prefrontal cortex looks relatively good, suggesting that my ADHD-related impairment is not severe. She literally said that to me, that you probably don't struggle too much with— what it actually is, is I have gotten so good at compensating in every area of my life, overcompensating, because I don't want to be seen as somebody who is ADHD, like that kind of person.

Sparkly brain.

Sparkly brain. I own it in many ways, but I don't want to be seen as like one of those like ditzy people who is like all over the place. So it's interesting. So the scan was helpful. Now, the second part of the scan that they show you is— that was the outside of the brain. They look at blood flow in the brain, and that was even more interesting. It blew me away because it validated some things I've believed already. They want to see good blood flow, but they can see more—

Right.

They call it like, they have red, white, and blue in these pictures. You want the least amount of white. And I think the least amount of red and white, but white is the main one. They call it hot white. You don't want a big blob of hot white in there. It's okay if it's in the back of your brain because that's like where you're doing stuff, right? But you don't want it, especially in the front of your brain because that's like the limbic system and all the stuff. So when I'm resting, My brain is extremely more active than when my brain is active. Does that make sense?

No, but like when you're laying in bed and you can't fall asleep, maybe your brain goes wild.

Okay.

That makes sense.

All the time when I'm doing work or anything else, my brain is on autopilot and there is how I think of it. So it explains wanting to be a workaholic. Like, of course I can do that easy. And I don't, I'm always kind of like in fight or flight. Basically, that's how they interpreted it. So I have like this diamond pattern of white hotness in front of my brain.

A diamond pattern or like one central shape of a diamond?

Well, it kind of is a pattern of different white spots that come together. They call it the diamond lust or something.

Oh, like an outline of a diamond kind of.

Yeah, that's what they do. So like when I'm concentrating or handling stress, that pattern goes away. Like if I'm doing stuff that's stressful, I have a great stress reaction, right? I can handle that, no problem. When I am like, my anxiety is highly active, so I'm very cautious. I can be risk-averse, constantly preparing for the worst. And truly, I'm not somebody who's like thinking of worst-case scenario, like in terms of being a pessimist. I'm just preparing for every possible scenario at all times, which is a lot of work. And then it also talked about like, it can show kind of where your brain Like where empathy lives and stuff.

And it was talking about how my brain shows the place where there's like attached to other people's emotions. I can, you know, disassociate. Anyway, what I wanted to say though is it makes so much sense to me now that when my brain is at rest, it's when I'm most active, not when I'm doing stuff. And the last 3 years, even more, I've kept pulling and pulling away from responsibility. Because I don't trust myself to the point where I haven't volunteered for my son's, like, things because I'm afraid I wouldn't be a consistent person. But the more that I give space in my life, which is what we are all striving for— aren't we striving for space and we can do whatever we want?

We are. We are.

But the more I do that, the worse it gets because that's when my brain is most active.

That makes sense why your sabbatical sucks so bad.

Yeah. So that was like that. was even better to me understanding that than understanding the other brain injury part. Like, it just explained so much about me and how, like, the more space I give myself, the less sure I am, the less confident I become. Like, I'm constantly overthinking everything. And some of that's okay, but, like, not to the extent that I struggle. And that's why we're not rich, Curt.

Yeah. I wonder what my brain scan would look like and how similar or different, but Probably more similar. Might be. I've never had a concussion. No, I've never had a traumatic brain injury of any kind.

You sure? Yeah, yeah, pretty sure. I feel like when I was a window cleaner, I was constantly hitting my head all the time.

Well, I've hit my head lots of times, but I've never had the lag after of a concussion. I've never had the thing where you go, what is wrong? The closest I've ever had, I was in a bike accident where I hit the back of my head. way I got bucked off, I flipped and landed on the back of my head. And when I did, I had whiplash the next day and I could not figure out why do my shoulders hurt, my head? I got to go lay down. I can't keep my head up straight. And it took me almost to be— when I was healed, I was like, oh, that's probably from my bike crash. But I've never had an unexplained, what's wrong with your brain all of a sudden? I've never had that.

I don't recall a time when I really had that, except when I had heatstroke and I had a very serious case. Whatever the next one above heat stroke is, I think there's one more. Maybe it is the highest. I had to go to the hospital.

There's heat exhaustion and there's heat stroke. Heat stroke is worse than heat exhaustion.

Oh, then that's what I had. 'Cause I lost all ability to regulate my core temperature. Like it was bad. And that was from window cleaning, of course. Just work, work, work, right? So anyway, this was very, very, very expensive. I did it out of my own pocket. Do I have $5,000 to spend on a brain scan? Not really, but I will figure out a way to make it tax deductible. And I'm also going to put it into my insurance now that I have a diagnosis.

Okay. You have a diagnosis and we're getting to the part. I mean, I'm not going to ask my question.

I'm going to put it into the, but this was well, well worth the money for me. It was invaluable because the other part of it is how do you heal this? Right. Most of the things that she said were not new to me. A lot of the things are things I should have been doing anyway, for instance, you know, like what? Well, treating food and water like medicine, especially water. Our brain apparently— I probably knew this, but our brain needs lots and lots of water. Yeah. I've got this thing right here.

I just took a drink of water because I'm like, yeah, I'm due.

But she's like, your brain, just think— and it kind of like, I started thinking of my brain as like this sponge without water in it, and I need to like be soaking that up. And so it can't heal well without fuel. It's basically medicine, and I have not been giving it any medicine. So that's something I'm really trying hard to work on. And then especially like she talked about electrolytes being a good thing when I'm struggling, and then exercise, of course, because that increases blood flow to the brain.

But you, you get out and walk every day, do you not?

No, I do not. I go out for bike rides. I love walking. There's somewhere to go, but where I live, there's nowhere to go. So it's like walking in a circle. I don't like that. But I do inconsistent activity. But having her show the correlations with actual data of like what this is gonna affect and why, it makes it more, less vague.

You know how everybody's like, do this, you're supposed to do this and this and this to be healthy. Healthy is a vague word.

Yeah.

And then also all of those things are like huge, like all the vitamins and minerals and all the things we're supposed to do. It just gets overwhelming and I shut down. Like I don't even know what's working, what's not. They talked about doing coordination activities like dancing, table tennis, hand-eye exercises.

Everything you've said so far sounds actually kind of fun. Like eating, drinking, that sounds great. Getting out and riding your bike some, playing table tennis. Like I'm hearing this and I'm going, so far it hasn't been like we need to operate on you or you need to start taking more chemicals.

No. So that was the only thing that was outside of like, there were some like minerals and vitamins that she discussed, but hyperbaric oxygen therapy was one of the things that they said they found a lot of good results for people who have struggled with Lyme.

You're gonna need to explain that to me. I don't know what hyperbaric—

All I know about that is what, like all of the fitness and bro culture people, it's like kind of when cold plunging became a thing. Then also hyperbaric oxygen therapy was also a thing. It just increases the blood flow to your brain, I believe, but it does it in some crazy, amazing way.

So are you inhaling some sort of special oxygen?

What? Well, Curt, a hyperbaric chamber is a specialized pressurized device used in hyperbaric oxygen therapy to help your body absorb higher amounts of pure oxygen to promote faster healing.

Interesting. So It's an oxygen-rich environment. It's the opposite of what in cycling we use altitude tents. Like we'll sleep in an altitude tent. So we're not going to drive up to the top of the mountain, but we're going to deprive ourselves of oxygen. So our body becomes more efficient at processing it. But what this is, is the opposite. You're enriching it, but it sounds like you have to be in a pressurized chamber for it.

Oh, probably because otherwise it'll diffuse and it'll just come to equal.

It'll just become regular air. Yeah. It says you breathe nearly almost 100% pure oxygen in a mask or a hood or directly in a pressurized environment.

That doesn't sound good. That's too much.

It's for a short amount of time. So it says high pressure dissolves oxygen rapidly into your bloodstream, plasma, and body tissue to repair damaged cells and fight bacteria. So I definitely have seen this used in, especially I feel like there's certain injuries. Is it— there's some injuries I've seen in recent time where people have been using this. So you either have to go to a practitioner or you have to rent your own or you buy your own, but it can take, like she said, 4 to 20 sessions to really— 4 before you really start to see big effects would be expected, I think she said. And then the treatment might go for up to 20 sessions or something. So that was like the outlier of everything, but the other ones were like, of course, a high-quality fish oil. Which I've known since I was diagnosed with ADD.

That's the first thing they said.

Maybe I should try that.

You don't do it?

Fish oil? No.

But a high-quality one. They usually taste the worst, I've found.

Wait, you have to taste it? I thought you just swallow it.

The really good ones, the ones that I've bought in the past, they came in a— it wasn't in a tablet, it was like in a bottle. Maybe that's why I hated it so much, but it was really good for you. And saffron with curcumin. For mood and inflammation. I know that it's very good for inflammation because I have it right next to my stove and I put it in all of our things when I'm cooking. So yeah, she didn't think I needed urgently any medication. She did say like, I am on Adderall, so that may intensify my fight or flight sometimes, but I've been on it for 20 years on and off, and I don't think it does. It barely has the effect that it used to have.

And a sleep study. 'Cause I don't sleep well and I never have.

And the stuff that they're recommending, they don't project what would make your sleeping better?

For them? No, that's like a different specialty. But like sleep is where you heal. Sleep is needed.

I was thinking just along the side of that oxygen, like your body needs great sleep.

It does. And it does not get great sleep ever, usually. So I was already planning, I already have a sleep study scheduled for me. My doctor had recommended that a couple months ago and I had finally put that in. So overall, I was thrilled with the recommendations because I will actually do these things and take it seriously because I understand there's gonna be a correlation. It's not just generic. I made Matt come though, because I was afraid maybe they'd say, you have stage 3 Alzheimer's, if there's such a thing.

Oh gosh. No.

I don't know what I thought. Well, my, all my family—

You don't have a history of Alzheimer's in your family, do you?

Oh, I do. My grandma has it. All of her sisters and brothers had it. My nana on my dad's side, his father.

I gotta be honest, that's my greatest fear. Alzheimer's. Yeah. Dementia. Yeah.

With my grandma, I help her now with a shower and I go once a week and change her sheets and give her a shower. And she's gotten to the point where she is a little afraid of who I am. Like, she's like, only my mother can shower me. I'm like, she's gone. But it's getting harder and harder with her because she just, she's holding on by a thread. And Curt, the saddest part is all she ever wanted her whole life was to go to heaven. Like, that's all she ever talked about her whole life. And for some reason, the Lord has kept her on this earth for 97 years.

Maybe she's heaven.

She is heaven. I love my grandma very much. So.

I just, I've been training Rachel I say this, I'm going to say something that's a little bit crass, and I hope people will take it in the spirit that's intended. But I have a little training exercise I do with Rachel. I say, the moment I'm in the hospital and they plug me in, what do you say? We're going to practice. She's like, pull the plug.

Yes.

You got it. I'm like, I say that I understand that people survive and go back, but my point is that I just, I don't want to be a vegetable. I don't want to be in a fog of Alzheimer's or dementia. I don't want you to spend your life savings and retirement and security to keep this vegetable alive a little bit longer, to keep this dementia person— I was dead a long time ago. My point being that even though I have my own thoughts about when you die, your body doesn't have to be dead, but you're done on this earth. What your contribution was, your ability to be a part of society, Living is being a part of society, having experiences, experiencing things with other people, allowing other people to reach new heights because of the things that you're both interacting together. 1 plus 1 is 3 kind of thing. And yet the people who are closest—

Of course, that sounds like a good sole proprietor podcast episode. When does life end? Even though it's not about business, but I often contemplate that as well. I'm not the same as you, but I will say your version of being crass is very different than my version because Matt has told me several times over the many years, if I'm ever in the hospital, he literally just said, if I'm ever in the hospital, shoot me with a gun, with a shotgun or something. And I'm like—

That's pretty crass.

Yeah. I'm like, I don't have a shotgun and I'm not shooting you. And secondly, that's not even written down, so I'm not going to follow your directives. Because I don't know what that means.

Well, by crass, I just mean, I don't know how people feel about euthanasia, but I don't want to act like death is just this thing that we can deal out willy-nilly. But I do feel like the way I feel, I can't just project it on others, I guess is what I'm saying, is because my wife is going to feel a certain way when the time comes, and I don't want her to feel that way, but that doesn't mean she won't feel that way.

This is an ethical question, but wouldn't it be better If she wanted to take care of you until the end of your natural life, to just let her because that would make her feel better and you won't care because you won't be here anymore.

But if she has to suffer—

It's what she wanted. Yeah.

I don't know.

I just made this up.

So, and maybe it's because I'm not by nature a caretaker the way that, you know—

She's a nurse. Not saying she wants this for you, but like—

Right, right. I do view like If I'm caring for you by saying yes to that, I'm saying no to many other things. And I guess in my mind, it's like all those things you're saying no to are living. But by you wiping my butt and reminding me who I am, and maybe you've wiped my ass aggressive because sometimes dementia and Alzheimer's can be very aggressive.

Yep. My grandma's gotten aggressive a couple of times.

And that's not how I want her to remember me. No way.

See, I think it's cute. I feel like she was so docile and patient and kind her whole life. It was always about everybody else's life, never her own. It's almost like she didn't live while she was on earth. And that's probably why she wanted heaven so bad. But like, in a way, when she has a little fit or something, I kind of think of it as like a toddler and I think it's cute. And I'm like, well, grandma's just, this is what she would have wanted to be if she hadn't been living in an orphanage, you know, like.

Yeah.

This is who she really could have been. Like, you know, it's a repressed part of her, but that's my view. I don't think my parents who live with her feel the same way. But anyway, there's a lot we can do to protect our brains. And that was one other thing they can predict, I think within 15 or 20 years, if you're on the path towards Alzheimer's, I believe, because your brain shows something. It's like a blood flow thing. That was what I was afraid of, I think, is that they were going to look at my brain and be like, and then in 15 years, you're going to have Alzheimer's.

But that's not what they said. They did not say that.

They said my brain looks pretty good besides all that trauma in there.

What advice would you give to our listeners who maybe have experienced a concussion or have this brain fog or whatever? What might you say to someone like that?

I did this so you don't have to. I would just say, like, if you think— if you had a concussion and you're still affected, and I, by the way, I have many, many friends. We have a mutual friend who has dealt with one for years as well. It's very invisible. You look like yourself, but you're not yourself. But like, just take all of the things that I've learned and start doing them. Maybe that'll help consistently.

What's this scan called? Like what would someone look up?

It's called the SPECT imaging scan. It's S-P-E-C-T. I want to say it's radioactive, but that's not what it is. 'Cause that would be weird. But the SPECT imaging is, this is what he specializes in, Doc. It's the Amen Clinic. He has many across the country. It's nuclear imaging.

To me, that just sounds like radioactive, like a spider that's gonna—

Is it nuclear or nuclear?

Nuclear.

Nuclear.

Not nuclear, sorry. Nuclear medicine imaging test.

I've gone around saying it wrong half my life. I just don't know which half. of my life I was saying it right or wrong.

An X-ray or CT scan only looks at the physical structure of the brain. That's what I got when I got a concussion. I got, I think, a CT scan. They were just looking for brain bleeds, I believe. And then they saw none. They were like, you're good. You'll be fine. Give it a weekend.

SPECT scan measures blood flow and chemical activity. And the last thing I'll say that was interesting that I learned is that it's not just from that day. The blood flow and everything, it's gonna be from 3 to 4 months, I believe. Like this is when you see that changes are not happening every day like we would think. It's kind of like an overview of a span of time, which I found to be interesting. I'm gonna investigate further.

So this was all by and large good news.

It was absolutely. I am so happy I finally did this. I'm thrilled. Anything that I do from this point forward, It's clear to me what I'm supposed to do, and I feel more of a sense of purpose in terms of having a plan, right? It feels like I know what I'm supposed to do, and I actually will do it because I understand that there will be an outcome and not just like, maybe. So whether that's true or not doesn't actually matter. Like, I need to do those things anyway to take care of myself, right?

Yeah.

That's true.

That's true. Although I think we're hoping for a little more than that.

Of course I am. Absolutely. But it'll be good for me anyway, but this is what it took to get me there. So yeah, it's all good. And I think if people, you know, are struggling with this, it really can feel like you're crazy. It can feel like, you can feel a lot, but he actually has written a bunch of books, Dr. Amen. One of them was the one that made me want to first get a scan.

It's Healing ADD Naturally, I think. I skimmed that one, but—

How apropos.

It was. That's how I learned about the Amen Clinic to begin with, like probably 6 or 7 years ago. But it was this experience that made me get there. So just take, I guess, proactive measures. Don't always listen to what the doctor says, because if what your experiences and what they say is happening versus what you're experiencing is different, You have to trust yourself because those are just human beings. They're really smart and they're good at what they do most of the time, but they're very focused on a narrow lens and you are a whole person and you know best. I mean, don't diagnose yourself. I'm just saying.

Well, thank you for sharing that. I know that was really personal, but it was really cool as your friend to be able to hear it. And I think that people listening in, this is some, one of those things that I just think is so interesting because you don't get a chance to hear about it much. And I, I don't know how many people listening would be in the same boat or would, like, this could really turn someone to a page that they didn't even know was available.

It's more people than you know, Curt, because when you get something or when, this is when you find people coming to you and talking about like, oh, I had one 4 years ago and I still struggle. Like, that's what happens. So yeah, feel free to reach out if you have any questions, listener or Curt's mother.

Yeah. Well, speaking of my mother, it's kind of interesting. Today happens to be my birthday.

What? How did I not know this? And why did you wait till— we could have talked about that the whole time.

Because that'd be really weird to talk about.

What is your age approximately?

Yeah, I'm like 46-ish.

Oh, little baby. That's adorable.

It could be 47 or even 49. I could be somewhere in there.

You're ageless is what you are.

Oh, that's really young because I was 76 at the end. So I'm really your elder here.

Yeah. Well, thank you. So my dad's birthday's tomorrow and that's kind of a fun thing that I've always had. So we always have this tradition where we go to Red Robin and have a meal. Rachel and I and my mom and dad, we go and do a little Red Robin thing and I get my free little thing and he gets his free little thing. It used to be a burger. Now it's, I think it's like ice cream at the end, but inflation, right? It's still cool. Anyway, it's a little tradition we have, but I just can't get myself to ask my mom and dad to go.

They're sitting by my aunt's bedside right now.

But what if they need that break?

Well, it'll, um, like we can do this, you know, really anytime this month and still get our free thing. That's like we're sticking it to the man kind of thing, like for her birthday. So it's not like we're going to miss out on this, but it's just a weird spot where it's like, I really want to like reach out to my mom and dad and be like, So we're going to Red Robin, but no, don't like, no, mom, are you doing okay? Kind of thing. So anyway, you just brought up my mom and made me think of like—

Yeah. I mean, I'm thinking of her during what must be— I can't imagine having a twin and even thinking of losing them, but in honor of your birthday, I am going to go next door to my cousin's ice cream shop and get a free ice cream because it's better when it's free. It really is. You know it is.

Well, when I'm on a cruise ship, they give you that crummy ice cream. But it's so good because it's free. Well, it's free-ish.

Well, hers is really, really good. I was gonna go anyway, but now it's in honor of you.

Yeah, put a couple sprinkles on there for me just to make it a birthday version.

I will.

Well, Melody, it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you today, and I look forward to our next discussion. I do have some stuff I want to talk about with you next time, so can we save that for then and get into it?

Absolutely. Well, thanks, Curt. Have a great happy birthday.

Thank you. I will. You have a good one. Thanks everybody for joining us at the Soul Pride podcast. It has been an absolute pleasure having these discussions with you. If you wouldn't mind taking just a few minutes to rate and review us wherever it is that you listen to podcasts, it would mean so much to us. We really do read each of these reviews, and it gives us the opportunity to get the word out to more people who could benefit from hearing about topics like this and so many others. If you want to engage with us at our website and maybe share some topics.

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