[COLD OPEN]

Bob: But if I'd hit my head on that wall instead of my butt, I don't think I would have survived that.

[INTRO]

Drezden: This is The One Percent Heart. This episode brings back a fan favorite, Bob Smith, the man who climbed El Capitan and whatever the hell else he could, all with a mechanical heart valve. Since last time, he's done a lot of sport climbing, done some tough routes, and failed a few times. And got a special helicopter ride out the Grand Canyon, from what I can tell, that's only motivated him more. Enough of the intro, before we get started. Nothing said here is medical advice. These are our stories, trigger warning for medical trauma. Listener discretion is always advised. With that out of the way, Bob, how the hell are you?

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[CONVERSATION]

Bob: I am doing great and I'm excited to be here and chat and give you a quick update on how things have been going.

Drezden: But hopefully not too quick. You've got some good stories. But for anyone new, because it's been a year and a half now since we talked, who are you? What's in your chest and what do you do when you're not climbing things?

Bob: Again, my name's Bob Smith. I am a high school personal finance teacher in you know my normal day-to-day life. And I yeah, you mentioned I climb a bunch also, but I also am living life with a mechanical aortic valve. And I've had that valve now since June of 2016. So I just passed the 10 year mark. For that. Yeah, it was really exciting. And then I'm also, because I'm on the mechanical valve, also living life on warfarin or blood thinners is what most people call them or refer to them as. And so yeah, I live in Denver, Colorado. And I guess when I'm not teaching, I'm yeah. In the mountains as much as possible, climbing and as you said, I was just on the Grand Canyon and that was a a wild trip too. So basically just spending as much time outside as I can when I'm not teaching.

Drezden: And you and you've always been doing that, but you said last year, twenty five, was sport climbing, which I had to Google and I do appreciate your description. But it sounds like it's like bouldering, it's shorter, rougher climbs for you, And what motivated you to do that? 'Cause that sounds like a I mean they're all pretty intense workouts, but instead of going up the rock face you're doing what now?

Bob: Yeah, so I've been doing like long, basically climbing mountains, you know, or big walls for a long time and like going into Yosemite Valley and doing things like that. And I still think that that's maybe my favorite form of climbing is to climb these really long pitches or really long routes, basically. And I have still focused on that a little bit. I've done a couple of really cool climbs in the last few years that were that style, like these long full day type of climbs. But I have in the last year or two been climbing a bit more yeah so sport climbing basically means in general that there are bolts that are already pre-drilled into the wall. So I'm basically going in instead of climbing cracks and different features that I can protect myself, I'm just going in and clipping carabiners into the wall and then clipping my rope into those. So the bolts that I clip into are already there. The reason that that we do that is there's a couple of different parts. One is that you can climb features that don't have cracks in them or that you can't protect yourself. So you don't need to worry about like finding a perfect crack where you can put gear in it to protect yourself. Instead, I'm going up and climbing like faces that otherwise, without the bolts there, you wouldn't be able to clip your rope in at all. So in general, that's sport climbing. The reason that a lot of people get into sport climbing, and one of the reasons I've been really interested in it for the last couple of years is because it really allows you to focus more on the movement and the difficulty and not necessarily figure out how you're going to protect yourself. Instead you're going up and clipping the bolt, putting the rope in, and then trying really hard moves. And it's more I know I fall way more frequently, like, you know, 50 times more frequently when I'm sport climbing because I really trust the gear and it's kind of put in place so that you can like climb hard and just you know rely on that when you when you fall off. The other option is that like when you're climbing big walls, you're often, you know, there's more maybe space in between your gear and the gear stuff that you've put into the rock yourself. So it's just a little bit scarier to do harder climbs.

Drezden: I'm not an expert rock climber, I've done it indoors sometimes, which almost counts, but

Bob: Good. I just got out of the gym like ten minutes ago, yeah. It's like

Drezden: I was mostly joking. When you f when you're clipped in and you go up and you're about to clip in again and you fall, for someone on blood thinners, are you falling hard enough that it's going to I assume it's gonna bruise you with the harness. Are you gonna bounce off the cliff face or anything like that? Is that something you have to think about?

Bob: It's actually there are a couple of different things that prevent that from happening. One is that we are using dynamic ropes. So the ropes don't stretch in the same way that something like elastic would stretch, but they do have a little bit of stretch to them. And it's almost like if you grabbed a rope and you tried to pull on it, you wouldn't notice that it stretches. But over like maybe 50 feet, you could see that the rope has a little bit of stretch to it.

Drezden: Just enough give So over the distance.

Bob: Right. And that that makes is maybe the first thing that you consider when you basically are taking these falls is that the rope is dynamic. If the rope was static, meaning like it didn't have any stretch to it at all, those falls would be way more abrupt and they would hurt. So number one thing is that the rope itself has a little stretch to it. The other really cool thing is that when your belayer is belaying you, so you're climbing up this wall, if you fall, you kind of start coming down and your belayer kind of goes, they get tossed up in the air a little bit. So your momentum kind of on the way down, they kind of counterweight it and slow you down. So it's not necessarily that it's the way you would slow down if you went like bungee jumping or something like that. But the ideally on a like an ideal catch is what we call her like an ideal time that you've fallen off the rock, you don't even feel it. It kind of gets to the point where you're falling and you're falling at a high speed, but it pulls your belayer up a little bit and you kind of just get to the point where you both kind of just settle and it's pretty Easy. It doesn't hurt my legs. I don't really hit the wall. Especially when I'm climbing like with my girlfriend who is maybe, you know, sixty or seventy pounds lighter than me. She just keeps the rope kind of tight and then when we when I fall, I just pull her off the ground and Well, It probably hurts her more than you, huh? And she's really good at it. So like it's n it's not that even necessarily like it doesn't hurt her at all. There's just like the system just like equalizes kind of instead of another thing like if I had like a guy who maybe is 50 pounds heavier than me and when I fall if he like sits down on the rope when I'm falling I could smack into the wall and kind of hit my ankle or leg. And that happens really commonly in sport climbing is like especially in beginning climbers or belayers you get to the point where like maybe we call it maybe getting like spiked into the wall. You're you fall down and there's this abrupt catch. And that abrupt catch just sends you flying in the wall. And that happens a couple of times a year to me. But in general, I don't think I've ever really gotten any well maybe one time I had a weird fall, but in general I haven't had very many falls where it's abrupt or it feels hard on my legs or harness or anything like that.

Drezden: The falls didn't feel hard in your harness, but you were telling me, and that's a perfect intro, you were climbing in Mexico until your legs bled. You kept going and you tried multiple times to do this climb and an unfinished climb was one of your highlights. And I really want to know that story.

Bob: So this and this is silly. It's like I'm getting in I am getting into like the little details of this, which is really kind of funny. Cause some people go up and they try this exact same climb and they do it on the first go. The route that I was trying that we're talking about specifically is this it's in a cave in Mexico in this climbing area called El Salto. And I was there for about like fifteen days last year, just basically going up every day and climbing. And I really started to like this one route. It was called Nosferatus. And basically it's this Yeah.

Drezden: That's a ominous name.

Bob: Well it's this really, really steep roof. And you're climbing the underside of this like steep feature. But the really cool thing is that the rock has formed into tufas, which are basically just like piece like you'd see like tufas in caves or things like that. They're just Hard pieces of rock that are like hanging off the actual rock face. So I'm the reason my legs were bleeding is not because I was falling onto them necessarily, but instead I it's really common when you're climbing these tufa features through a roof that you'll also wear these rubber patches on your legs so that you can like really jam your leg into the rock and not get a cut. That's kind of the point of these of these knee pads. So I was wearing

Drezden: Which you need because you're climbing you're climbing an angled roof.

Bob: Mm-hmm. And the really cool thing, and I have some photos and videos of that route, is when you're climbing through this roof, it's is really hard on your core sometimes because you're reaching like behind your head and you're trying to use your core to keep your feet onto the wall. So one really cool trick is that you can maybe put your foot in a good spot and then take your knee that is now have has like a little piece of rubber on it and jam that rubber into the tufa or whatever so that you can kind of almost take your hands off and shake. So you're not actually holding on with your hands anymore. Your foot is on a piece of the rock and your knees jammed into the rock and you can the point is to take weight off your hands. If that makes sense.

Drezden: I can see how your legs would bleed,

Bob: So then the bleeding leg thing came from like the pad was just kind of slid down a little bit. And I got this, you know, this sore on my on my thigh from every day going up and jamming my leg in and hoping to do better. But when you fall off, then it kind of scratches you. And every day I would just kind like climb until either like I was too tired to keep going, or what was happening was like my thigh was kind of like it just had like an open wound. So every day I'm trying to pull that that piece of rubber up over that wound. And then once it I've fallen a couple of times, it's now exposed again and it's bleeding again. And then I'm like, okay, like now I'm just kind of getting blood everywhere. And it wasn't it wasn't too much like blood. It's kind of disgusting, but it was like more like pus and stuff too, because I was just yeah, like trying to Yeah, I was trying to heal every day.

Drezden: 'Cause it was mid-heal.

Bob: And then every day I'm going up and jamming another knee into this rock again and breaking it back open.

Drezden: And when you're doing that as somebody with a mechanical heart valve and on blood thinners. How do I say this nicely? What the hell's going through your head?

Bob: Well, it's a really cool climb. It's beautiful. And it's really it's it's really hard.

Drezden: That's exactly what I thought.

Bob: And I think that the if it was easy, I wouldn't be that interested in it. And I think that because it's the perfect amount of hard, it is just really intriguing. And it's it's good to like push it's kind of like the next level. So like all rock climbs are ranked from, you know, the easiest to the hardest in the world. And this is a level of like ranking a rock climb that's hard for me. And so yeah, it's just like any other sport. You're like, why would you run really fast when you could just go for a walk instead? It's like, well running really fast is like challenging and it's, you know, interesting and it's hard. And that's probably why you do it.

Drezden: So so this is just hard enough. I mean, 'cause you said you didn't make it quite each time. So this is you love this because it's almost attainable. You're going to get it eventually. And it's the f the fact that it'so close. But that does not answer the question about what's going through your head as somebody on these medications. And I'm gonna tie it back to what you said the last episode where you took you took your challenges, your cardiac challenges, and said, Well Who knows what's gonna happen? I guess I better go start living. And that's what took you to Colorado, isn't it?

Bob: It is, yes. I was yeah, it was more like I wanted to be the mountains. I figured at that point I didn't know how long my life would be. So I was like, okay, I gotta go and start doing the things I love to do if I thought my life was going to be shorter, then I wanted to kind of just do the most with it that I could. Now I know that my life won't be shorter. Or like you know, it's not projected to be shorter because of the valve. But same thing, yeah, I just really enjoy doing interesting things. Yeah.

Drezden: I my I get that. I my friends make fun of me because of how often I say things like efficiency. But when you don't know how much time you have, you try to do everything all the time. It's it always amazes me about CHD patients overall because you'd think from a population where everything can be just a bit harder to a lot harder, that it would be kind of But everyone I speak to is I have I have a lot to get done, let's go do it. It's motivation more than compression.

Bob: Right. And I think yeah, it's to say if you were like if you told a kid like you have ten minutes in this in this candy store, they wouldn't be like, darn, that's not enough time. They'd be like, Okay, let's go do it. Let's go start playing. And I think that

Drezden: I've heard life is like a box of chocolates. Life is like a candy store.

Bob: And I think that's always been my mentality in general is like to try to just kind of like enjoy as much of it as I can. And right now I it does it sounds like ominous, but I also know that Ideally, like if everything goes well and continues to go well with my heart, I should have, you know, I should live eighty-seven years or whatever it you know. But yeah, it's still I think it's still a good mentality to have.

Drezden: I think it's also something to be said about it's not only Will I live long enough to be able to do this? It's how long will I be able to do something like this before they tell me to chill out until I get another heart valve. Got you know, hopefully not, but you know, they you never know what's around the next bend where it's like, Okay, you've gotta limit your activity until you get another surgery. At least that's my experience. I don't know if it's the same. I assume it's same for you.

Bob: Yeah. And it's I have had a couple injuries over the years, like knee injuries and things like that, where you were one day just outdoing, you know, this extreme seeming activity. And the next day you're like laid up in a bed and you're like, darn, I wish I had gotten injured, but I also like this c it can switch quickly to be, you know, to go from like full capability to not being able to. And I get yeah, there I mean, something could happen to anybody's heart at any moment, I guess. But I guess it's a little bit more like real when you have had these things your whole life, you know?

Drezden: So I had the open heart, so my chest is a bit concave. And I got into the best shape of my life back in let's say twenty-two. I was working out all the time and I was I got very strong and I was fighting jiu-jitsu in the mornings. And Because my chest was concave, when I was doing the bench press, my triceps were compensating a bit for the chest in certain parts of the movement. And I was doing jiu-jitsu and I didn't want to lose, and this guy was throwing me around, and you're not supposed to stick your arm out. And I stuck my arm out, and instead of hurting my bicep or hurting my other parts of my body that are more typical injuries, I managed to rupture my tricep. Which means the the long head and the short head here. Disconnected fragments of bone and came halfway up my arm.

Bob: Like retracted?

Drezden: Yeah, both the long and the short head retracted halfway up the arm. When I held my arm over my head, I could not raise it manually. I had to move it with the other hand.

Bob: That sounds horrible, yeah.

Drezden: Well, it's swelled up. I went to the hospital, they sent me down for x-rays, and then by the end of the next the next week, I had carbon fiber connecting my tricep to the bone with some screws. And I was in a brace for six months limited activity for nine months. So I went from being able to do anything to not being able to use my right arm. And as somebody who's right handed, who works at a computer all day, who works out, my right arm was pretty important. I'd have to hold my phone at a at a distance. Like I got really good with my left. And that's just a non-heart injury. So when you when you say how quickly it can come to a grinding halt, I mean y so yeah, can't take it for granted. But speaking of the secondary effects, I heard you were in the Grand Canyon and you hurt your glute. So probably as somebody who grew up in Arizona, loves the Grand Canyon, loves flag stuff, is it wrong of me to say that you went so hard that a bruise on your butt made you get into a helicopter?

Bob: Yeah, that was I mean i in the just

Drezden: But I mean you're gonna have to start at the beginning, but I really wanted to make that joke.

Bob: Yeah, no the gist of it. I mean that's the perfect way to just it yeah, it I got a bruise and had to leave. I'll tell you tell you more about it, but it was just yeah, that's basically what happened.

Drezden: Okay, what's the non basically version of what happened?

Bob: This trip was meant to end on August ninth and today's the twenty fifth. So it was just, you know, two weeks ago, two and a half weeks ago. I was on the Grand Canyon and it's a sixteen day trip total with like, you know, travel to there and all this stuff. So I was I was going to be rafting basically every day for fourteen full days was the

Drezden: And this is white white water rafting, which means rapids and you're with paddles and just basically holding on for dear life.

Bob: Yeah, and these are like or boats. So basically there's one person rowing on each boat. And we had four boats in our team. So there's one person rowing and everyone else is kind of like holding on during the rapids. And like ideally you just get through the rapids and everything is fine, and everyone goes home happy. And yeah, but it's it is a an amazing experience. And you get to like just basically spend you're out in like really deep wilderness that you got to on a boat. And it's the whole thing is such a really great experience. Like the we had like amazing food every night and like I slept on the boats a lot every night. So I'd basically just like you know sleep on a raft on the river on like a sleeping pad. I would just sleep on the ground too. I had like a whole summer where I was basically just like sleeping outside a lot. So yeah, it was it the whole experience is Amazing. And it's nice to just disconnect. The really cool thing too is I was doing this right up until the like moment I had to go back to work for the school year. So like I flew back to Denver on August 9th, and then I had school on August 10th, or whatever that Monday was. So yeah, it was going really, really well. And then there's one rapid that's a little less. Timing wise, it was exactly halfway down the river for us because we were on day eight out of 14 basically. So like I was just over halfway and mileage-wise, I think it's like around mile and 90 or something like that. The rapids called Horn. I think you know a lot of people would know these rapids really well by their name. But basically, I was like sitting next to my girlfriend, and my friend was rowing. And I was next to another girl who was with us, and I was kind of like, it was the first rapid. This is like a really weird part of the whole story. My girlfriend had just hiked into the canyon that morning to meet us, to do the second half of the trip together. So she this was her very first rapid. So I'm like making sure she knows like what to hold on to. And making sure that the other person next to me, and then up in front of us, one of our rafts flipped, which is like kind of a big deal because it's everybody's gear is now ideally tied to the raft, but like some of it, you know, goes missing when that happens. It's also really hard. The rafts weigh about 2,000 pounds. So flip the raft back over is kind of a big deal. But the real concern is that we now had I think four people. Swimming in this big rapid and trying to hold on to the boat. And so we're like looking up at this like carnage that's like happening in front of us. And I'm telling my friend who's like rowing, I'm like, yeah, like don't worry about that. Like we'll worry about them later. Like let's just get through this thing first. And then we can start worrying about like going to pick people up or whatever. And I was just saying it, I was also kind of like saying it for me. I like to be like, yeah, like we shouldn't be worried. It's gonna be fine. And then I think in all of this, like my mind, I was like making sure that he was comfortable, like he was okay, like he knew it and my girlfriend was okay. And at some point, even before like we got to like maybe the worst part of the rapid, I don't quite know what happened. I don't think I was holding on to the boat at all myself. And I just got kicked out of the boat or just got like like, one moment I'm just in the boat and like looking around, and the next moment I'm just like swimming in the water. So I just got like kind of knocked.

Drezden: But everyone else on your raft was still on the raft. Yeah, they because they were holding on. It was just okay. So it's just one bad one bad bump.

Bob: Yeah. And I wasn't exactly. My friend was rowing perfectly. It's kind of tricky because you have to like go into these rapids and then turn sideways and then back up and then go into the rapid again. Like the only way to steer a boat, like one of these big big boats, you can't really steer it when it's going forward because you can't like move the oars that way. So the way you steer it is by turning the boat sideways and then rowing backwards. So that's how you go like left and right in the river. So he like I think when I got knocked out, it was like we had kind of gotten near this like spot where he had to back up and the just the direction like change of the boat kind of just like kicked me out. And I it was just it's big water. It's I think at that water level, it's maybe the most challenging rapid on the river. But I didn't know that. I and we went into it and we scouted it. So like we looked at it from like above in the river and we were looking and kind of like figuring out what line is the best line to go through the rapid. And we knew that it was rated at an eight, which is like the rapids go up to the a rating of 10, and 10 is basically impassable. Nine is the most challenging rapid on the river, and this was rated at an eight, and we'd already rode an eight the day before. So I was like, this is like no big deal. We've already done an eight. It's not even the hardest rapid on the river. And like, so I wasn't really too focused. The day before I was really focused in the eight, and it just went so smoothly that that morning I was just like, you know, I don't need to pay as close attention. And yeah, I just got knocked out. And I then it just went from me being in the boat to me like swimming in this like really big water pretty quickly.

Drezden: Just focusing on keeping your head above water and letting it move ya down the river.

Bob: Yeah. And the idea is that when you get knocked out, you kind of like keep your feet downstream and you're in your PFD. But I'm being like dropped down like maybe 20 feet and tossed back, like I'm just kind of like flowing through this water. And it's kind of hard because when you get pushed down, I would like go underwater and I'm like, okay, I'm in the water and I can hear the water and like see and my eyes are still open. And then I get like spit back out. And then I can like look and see where I'm at again. And I'm oriented, so my feet are like downstream, which was really good. And I could see at the end of the rapid, like right seriously, as the rapid's just about over, like I kind of swam a lot of that rapid. When I got to the end, there's this big wall in the bottom right hand side. I've actually gone back and watched YouTube videos of this rapid now. But there's this giant wall on the back right side. That's seriously the last part. I was thinking too, like, it's no big deal because water usually when it hits a rock, it kind of pillows up in front of the rock. It just kind of like falls backwards and it creates like a little pillow. But that day at that level at that right spot, I just I just got smashed right into that rock really, really hard. The issue was that instead of hitting with my feet too, well actually, I don't know what would have happened if I hit with my feet. I don't know if I would have like broken a bone. But right when my feet were about to hit the wall, I kind of got kicked up and my butt hit the wall instead. And so I hit my right glute and right away I thought I just like tore my glute muscle. Like it there's just like sharp pain and it hurt a lot. And I didn't quite know what was going on. I also knew that I could just have like a charley horse or something like that, and just that I would be fine.

Drezden: Yeah, no no way to note the severity.

Bob: Yeah, right off the bat. So I'm like laying in the water and everyone's like, Yeah, like we have this like signal where like you tap the top of your head to say like because you can't really hear that well to say like, I'm all right. Like you tap your head to like ask, like, Are you all right? And then you tap your head back to say like, Yeah, I'm fine. So my friends are all screaming, like, Are you okay? Are you okay? And I like, tapping my head, I'm like, Yeah, I'm fine. And they're like, Well, why aren't you why aren't you swimming there? Like, why aren't you moving? And I'm like, I don't know. I'm not really sure if I can move. And they're like, well, then you're not okay. And I was like, yeah, that's probably more accurate. So yeah, we got to the bottom of the rapid and they were all in the boat still. And I like just came up. Usually you just grab on the side of the boat and pull yourself up, which is actually kind of a pretty athletic feat. I struggled every time like getting back into the boat. It's kind of hard. You have to like kick your feet in the water and like push your body up. A really easy like muscle up into the boat. And I like tried to pull myself up and I couldn't really kick my feet that well. And then when I got my hips out of the water, they felt like they just felt really funny. I had like a shooting pain down my left like quad and in my pelvis. And I was like, that's kind of weird. And then so I grabbed on the boat again and tried to pull myself back into the boat. And my friend Ben, he was rowing, he's Yeah, like why aren't you in the boat? And I was like, I don't know. I like don't know if I can get into the boat. So we rode over to the side. I was kind of just holding on. And also felt good being in the cold water. It just it like kind of was like a little bit soothing. I got over to the to the bank and I tried to like stand up on my right leg and I just couldn't stand up and I was like, no, that's not good. And then I tried to like stand up on my left leg. And I'd like the shooting pain down through my like my pelvis and into like the muscle, into your quad. So I said this like shooting pain. I was like, no, maybe I have like a broken bone, or maybe my pelvis is broken. So I just kind of like got back in the water and I was like, man, maybe my and then at that moment too, like my muscles all kind of like started tensing up a little bit and my like lower lumbar spine started hurting too and I was just like laying in the water. I'm like, man, this is like not fun. And basically I was able to, there was like a slanted part of the water. I was able to like push my butt up onto the slanted part of the water till I was high enough. And then they backed the boat in and I just kind of flopped over the side of the boat because we had to paddle like a mile to get to the next camp. So I like flopped over the side of the boat and we like paddled to a camp we also had the boat that had flipped in the rapid in front of us and we had four people swimming. One person was stuck in an eddy or like in still water on the side of the river and like was just stuck there. And we had one woman whose quad muscle was bleeding like pretty bad. She had a big puncture wound, and we had to flip the boat. So like there was just a lot of chaos. All in that one rapid.

Drezden: Yeah. So you're sitting on the boat and you're finally moving down river. What happen like who sees it first, who figures out something's worse than it seems? Or are you just knowing you're just sitting in the boat chatting like, yeah, I can't really move my leg.

Bob: Well, kind of. First thing I was like, we have these drag bags, these like it's a bag that's like full of our all of our beverages and we like it just drags in the river behind us so it doesn't get hot. Like the temperature is like a hundred and fifteen degrees. It was nearly one fifteen when this happened. So the first thing I did was grabbed a beer and I was like, Okay, I'm gonna I might be fine. And I'm just gonna s I and it was like a light beer. I know I'm on warfarin, so I like I had like a one light beer and I was just like, okay, let's figure this thing out. But first I'm just gonna lay here and have a beer and try to relax. And also I didn't want my girlfriend had just seen me get tossed, and I'm like she can see I'm in a lot of pain. And my like one of like my best friends,

Drezden: Yeah, you don't want to ruin her trip.

Bob: Yeah, and I was like, all right, let's just have a beer and we'll be fine. But I just kind of was like laying on the side of the boat because I couldn't really get into the boat. And then I knew like everyone knew something was wrong because I I'm like usually don't struggle with pain that much or like I can be in pain and still function, but I couldn't really function because my legs just I think that there was just so much swelling happening in my glute that it was hard to move at all. So we got to the as soon as I rolled up on the beach, Ben was telling everyone, like, it seems like Bob's injured. And so as soon as I got to the beach, like one of our other friends, Ryan, like he's a they're all EMTs because they're all Seattle firefighters.

Drezden: Convenient.

Bob: Yeah. I think that like maybe five people, four people on that part of the river were all EMTs. One of the EMTs came up and like pressed on my pelvis and did like the standard like pelvis check to see if you have a broken pelvis. And he's like, Yeah, it seems fine. And then I tried to like stand up and I just couldn't walk. And I had like a lot of a lot of pain. But basically it was just my glute was gigantic. It was it almost like it nearly like doubled in size. And it was huge. And I just like and it wasn't bruising at all. It was just filling with blood. Basically, so I had this like hematoma.

Drezden: So so just yeah, swelling. Just incredible swelling.

Bob: Just swelling, yeah. And but yeah, swelling from like blood leaking into my muscle. So it was just it was a lot of pain. I couldn't move and my spine was kinda hurting and

Drezden: My spine was kind of hurting. I feel like a quick disclaimer, if you get injured and you're on blood thinners and have a mechanical valve, we do not condone fixing it with a beer You shouldn't. You shouldn't or just chilling if your spine's kinda hurting. Not back, spine. That's

Bob: Have a beer at all. I should have I should have not had a beer, but I was like, you know what? I don't care. I'm kinda in a lot. I'm just gonna do it anyway. So yeah. We got to the beach and I couldn't walk. I sat down on and It was 115 degrees. And it's the way we stay cold down there is that you wear you basically dress from like head to toe in like even like cotton is really good or like whatever layers you have on and you just get soaking wet and then that keeps you cool for a while. So basically I was just sitting on the beach.

Drezden: And it keeps the keeps the sun off you. Where it's when it's humid, that's the worst idea, but for Arizona heat, keeping the sun off you is half the battle. So instead of having the sun right on you got the wet cloth.

Bob: Yeah, so I exactly. I had a sun hoodie on, which is just like a basically like yeah, a hoodie that's kind of thin. And I had a blanket on or like a sheet on top of me that we just kept soaking so that it would be cold. And I just kind of waited there for a little while and they're like, Well, what do you wanna do? Like, do you wanna raft down to the next camp? Or and I was like, Well, it kinda hurts to get in the boat. And they're like, well, do you want to walk over and we can make camp here? And then we can decide what to do tomorrow morning. And I like tried to stand up and walk a little bit. And like one of the guys who's been on the river like 10 times, he like didn't understand maybe the severity of it. He's like, Bob's hurt he's hurt his leg or something like that. And he like came up and saw me try and stand. And he's like, okay, this like this is actually serious. And We as soon as it happened, one of the EMTs contacted the National Park Service and they were like, Hey, just letting you know we have an injury and it looks kind of bad. And so we waited and maybe like a half an hour into waiting, they were asking me like, what are you what are you hoping to do? Like you can't lay down, you can't sit down, you can't move. It's like, do we want to spend the night here? And I was like, I kind of want to wait. Like I was just hoping that it would just like fade away and I would be fine. And after like maybe a half an hour of sitting there, I was like, okay, this is not gonna fade away. It's getting worse. I can't walk. I can walk less now than I could in the beginning. So they basically just had to radio using a like SPOT device or like a satellite emergency thing to basically call in. Tell the National Park Service that we needed a helicopter evac.

Drezden: No, and who was it that made that call? Was it a joint decision? Was everyone just waiting to see? Or did some did some Like it made the decision.

Bob: I think in y it's hard. I mean, I think that they did a good job of making it seem like I made the decision. But I think that that's what a good maybe like EMT or you know, person who's in charge of the situation a little bit, like looking and they're like, let's let him decide that he should probably go. So I think it was like you know, it was everyone being like, Well, you know, you can't stay here if you can't get in a boat. And Me at first being like, you know let's just wait a little while and see what happens. And eventually just realizing that like waiting is getting worse and my glutes getting bigger and I'm in more pain. And I think it became like obvious the obvious decision. And once we all like looked at all of the factors of like we're way down the Grand Canyon and we are we need to boat out of here and I can't get onto a boat. Then it's just like an obvious, yeah, it's like super obvious.

Drezden: Makes a decision for ya.

Bob: And then it kind of stings because I felt at for a moment like me pushing off making the decision was just kind of like a little bit prideful and not like wanting to admit that I was injured and that I had to go. And also my girlfriend had just shown up three hours before. And we've been planning this trip for six months, and she had just flown to Arizona and had rented a car and had hiked six hours and had met me at like nine a.m. So she'd been hiking since 3 a.m. To get there. And now I'm like laying on the side and like, I should like do as much as I can to stay here. But eventually like I just had to, yeah, get a helicopter and get out.

Drezden: That sucks. I mean we laughed a lot for such a painful story. What I mean at any point did your heart cross your mind?

Bob: I mean nothing with my heart the only issue, and this is the issue with the mechanical valve, is that you bleed more when you're in warfarin. My INR is usually two and like two point five, something like that. So with a big injury like that, what was happening with my glute, I was worried that it's yeah, that I was just gonna keep bleeding into this. Well ble bleed Or I was Yeah, it I always think of internal bleeding as like your internal organs, but it's just like internally into your muscle, yeah.

Drezden: Bleeding out internally.

Bob: And yeah, so I was worried about that and I told I was in so much pain too. So I was thinking about my heart, and I did tell her, I like reminded everybody. I'm like, I my girlfriend knows, my best friend Ben, he knows as well. But I was just like, hey, I'm on warfarin. And like, remember, I have the mechanical heart valve. What I was wondering is like I was in so much pain, and I was like, I wonder what point people go unconscious from pain. And I was like, Well, I'm thinking that, so I'm probably not there yet. So I was just, you know. Wondering about that and then I also I knew there was about to be like a bunch of stuff happening so I took my warfarin for the day. I usually take it at like 7 or 8 p.m. Something like right before I go to bed while I'm starting to get ready for bed I usually take my warfarin then and it was just like late afternoon at that point. But I was like, I'm gonna take my warfarin now in case I get like separated from my meds or in case something happens. I wanna make sure that at least I my warfarin's up high enough that I don't have any issues with clotting or anything like that. So maybe, I'm bleeding internally. I'm gonna take a blood thinner right now, or I'm gonna take. Mm-hmm. So it's

Drezden: Yeah, I was gonna ask that question, yeah. How long did it take to the helicopter to get there?

Bob: It was so fast. It when we sent the message, I bet you the helicopter was there within twenty minutes. And they gave us like everyone instructions to basically like the the beach that they were gonna land on was all sand. So they gave everyone instructions to like go grab a bunch of water, like buckets of water out of the river and just like throw it onto that sand so that it wouldn't spray sand everywhere. Like is and it still sprayed so much sand everywhere. But they basically w wetted down the whole landing pad. And we like made a landing pad for a helicopter. And yeah, they were there. I mean they did they flew by once, like within 20 minutes, and then they had like come back and figure out like how to land and then they like landed it and turned it off. And yeah, so from the time they called to the time that the EMTs were like with me, the helicopter EMTs, it was probably just like twenty-five minutes or something.

Drezden: And did their reaction help you figure out the severity pretty quickly? Or were you still in the dark about what was happening? Or I mean I assume with the swelling at that point you figured out what was going on.

Bob: Yeah, and I had walked a little bit and I wasn't having like sharp pains. I was just like dull, like really intense kind of but like not shooting pains like a broken bone. And I'd walked maybe 10 feet or no, no, maybe like 50 feet like up this hill. And with the hell I was grabbing on to like two different people and like kind of dragging my leg up there. And so I got I was like, okay, I don't think my bones are broken. I think my skeleton's like intact. And I'm like, that's a good start. And I was like, but something's going on. So like when they got there, I kind of like already figured out like this is musk, you know, only as deep as muscle. It's not my skeleton. I don't feel like my back is broken because I had complete feeling in my I've done a lot of like wilderness medicine stuff. And I was like, okay, my feet aren't tingling, they're not numb. I have like capillary refill. Like if you squeeze your toenail basically and it goes white and then it comes red again. And I'm like, okay, I have capillary refill. I have no pain in like my extremities besides like right where I hit. And I was just like going through this like checklist. I'm like, I think I'm fine. And that's another reason, you know, except for not being able to like walk. I was just like, Yeah, I can't walk.

Drezden: Yeah, I mean I'm fine, I just can't walk. I would be assuming I'm a muscle chair or something. Yeah.

Bob: Yeah, but I was like, I'm this is like way cool, because that my I think if I had hit the wall with like not my butt, but instead with my like skeleton at all, like with my chest or my spine, or if I'd hit with my head, I think it would be a much different story. I don't think I would have survived.

Drezden: Were you wearing a helmet?

Bob: No. And that's an interesting decision. My friend and I were actually on the phone last night talking about the decision to not wear a helmet. And nobody was wearing a helmet. We didn't have them. And I usually wear helmets. When I bike, I wear them. When I rock climb, I wear them in general. But I we the you basically have the choice, do you wanna wear a helmet on the canyon or no? And we decided no because there's this kind of like older school mentality of helmets on the river. And that's that like you now have this object with like this chin strap that's over your head and all of that stuff becomes kind of like an entrapment type hazard. Where if you go underwater, your strap could get like clipped to a carabiner on the boat or your helmet could get like stuck somewhere and you could drown from that. So the idea of wearing it is a conscious decision. And some people would consider it like and maybe this is old school and a lot of people might disagree with this, but like some people would consider it more dangerous to wear a helmet in some aspects. But if I'd hit my head on that wall instead of my butt, I don't think I would have survived that. Yeah, which is It's now looking back, my friend, what we kinda talked about last night is like we should have been wearing helmets on the like sevens, eights, and nines, like those level of rapids, we should probably all throw a helmet on. But and that's like one of our maybe takeaways from the trip is that even though it you know it wasn't my head that got hit in the end, that the danger of that. It's just really high. So I think that next time we'd probably wear helmets.

Drezden: What about that kind of impact on your chest with a mechanical valve?

Bob: Yeah, I don't know. I don't I think that it would be the same as anybody else's. I think that if it hits hard enough

Drezden: I mean 'cause they did they did your sternum ten years ago, right? So it would've been it would have healed by now. Okay. Sorry, for listeners, they cut through your sternum when you have open heart. They saw it open.

Bob: The bone is now fused and also have a wire in there that holds it together. Five weeks, you can't even drive a car because like the motion of like your le your arms twisting over your chest is just too much for that sternum break. So for the original, you know, right after surgery it's too much. But then now in order for me basically after five weeks the surgeon told me like at this point for you to break your sternum, it would take the same impact that anybody would have in order break their sternum. Like your sternum I'm I don't have like a super sternum now, but I basically don't have a weak one either.

Drezden: But something more fragile behind it.

Bob: Kind of. I don't know. I've never really thought about that. If because it like the valve's part of my organ now. It's like it's in there. So I basically if I hit my organ, yeah, if I hit it so hard that it would impact the like the plastic mechanism that's inside my heart, I think that would be we'd have a lot of issues, not just the valve, you know?

Drezden: N and that's nestled, yeah. So how long were you on the helicopter before they gave you a painkiller for that?

Bob: Hmm. Well, they it's funny. Everyone as soon as I get they're like, yeah, you're injured. It's amazing the amount of medication that started coming out because we have all these EMTs on the river with us. So I think I took one

Drezden: No, what the guy's on the river. Sorry, Yeah,

Bob: They just start giving me and I kept asking them like where did y'all have these drugs the whole time? People like every EMT that I that independently and kind of like came up and was like hey I could I could give

Drezden: Did any of your friends go on the helicopter with you? Was there anybody that could tell so you had to trust them to remember your medical history as you told it to and hope that they mentioned what you were like?

Bob: No.

Drezden: I assume you didn't take any pills your friends were handing out. You just took your wife, your butt there.

Bob: Well, I did take one muscle relaxer, I was in so much pain. And even when the EMTs showed up, I said, Hey, and I told them, I was like, Well, I'm on warfarin, I have a mechanical heart valve. I'm this these are my symptoms right now. I'm like, this is what's going on. And I did take one muscle relaxer, and I think it's just like a low dose, The reason I didn't take a painkiller though, and the EMT from the helicopter also offered me a painkiller. And so basically it was just like medical professionals like offering me stuff that they would offer to anybody who's in a car accident or whatever. And so it wasn't like just recreational, like, we just they have it because they're professionals in the field that have this medicine with them for this specific scenario. Like this is why they have this medicine. And

Drezden: You and you prescribed And yourself a beer, so

Bob: Yeah, I got I had a beer already and I had so I took one muscle relaxer, but I didn't want to take the painkiller. And my thought at the time was I think I'm fine, like it hurt a lot. When I was sitting still, I would say the pain was like a five. It was kind of like radiating through like my whole body. I think I'd just been hit so hard that I kind of jostled everything. And so I was in a lot of pain, but when I tried to move, like a seven or eight at the time, but it was like really bad. It was it was just hard. But I didn't want to mask any big issues. So like if my bone was broken, I don't want to just

Drezden: You wanna be o yeah, you wanna be able to communicate what was going on.

Bob: Communicate and have like a clear mind and also to be able to Like say, my gosh, that was like a really sharp bad pain or I shouldn't move like this because it hurts my spine or whatever. I didn't want to just numb all that away and just help or hope that everything was fine. Cause at that moment I didn't know if I was gonna go into spinal surgery or I didn't know if I was gonna need my pelvis worked on, or I didn't know anything. And I was just like, if I'm going to feel pain, I want to like feel it so that I know that I should probably stop doing whatever emotion that is. I just didn't want to just numb everything away and And hope that it was okay.

Drezden: So you're in the helicopter, they start figuring out what's going on. You're at the hospital. I mean what I want to get to is how you sat there for a week while everyone else finished the trip and you had to recover. You land, they figure out what's going on, the severity of it, and then you have to sit there with it for a week. And knowing how mod motivated you are, that had to be the most brutal torture of it.

Bob: Yeah. Well it was kind of Yeah, when we got off the helicopter, they're like, We're gonna call you an ambulance and take you to the hospital. And I said, And I had friends that had just hiked out that morning and they were on the rim of the canyon. And their dad was still on the river. He texted them and said, like, hey, You know, Bob's gonna need a helicopter evac showing up. Can you are you on the rim still? And they were. So they came to the helicopter pad and picked me up and drove me to Flagstaff, which is like maybe an hour and a half drive. But I my thought was I don't need medical attention on the drive. I need to go get a cat like a scan. I need to go get an x-ray. I need to go get all this stuff. But like in an ambulance, they can, you know, monitor for like big changes. But I was like, I feel pretty stable. I'm only in pain when I move. So

Drezden: And I feel inclined to mention here for the international listeners, otherwise I'll get questions. In the US, you get to pay for air evacs and ambulances, especially if it's a you know, hour and a half ambulance ride. And ever and everything in that ride, the medications are monitored and built to you. So not saying it's right or wrong or that was the case, but that is something to remember here. So you're in your car with your friends in what I assume is a great deal of pain, laying down, hopefully, not sitting down. Yeah, they throw you in a tri

Bob: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I was I was on the front the front seat, but I was I like reclined the seat all the way down. And I was just I spent the first like 45 minutes trying to figure out like all these different positions that I can maybe lay in while also like trying to keep a seatbelt on or like you know and it was it was hard but it was an hour and a half drive and they did an a like such an amazing job. I think I probably fell asleep in the last like the twenty minutes to the hospital 'cause I was just like maybe the muscle relaxer, maybe the like I was just I finally like got comfortable and just like fell asleep for a minute.

Drezden: After an intense potential head injury I feel obligated to mention that you should not take a nap. So you get to the hospital and you explain what's going on with the doctor and you explain your history and they throw you in a C or if it's muscle do they do C I assume they do a C T scan or something like that.

Bob: They did CT. Yeah, with the contrast. So like they pumped the contrast in you And then they basically wanted to see my glute to see how much it was bleeding. Because it was huge. It was actually really funny looking. I have photos that I sent to like my family and friends that of like me, like it's in my bathing suit, but like you can just see my glute is just sticking out like way out. And it was like just the craziest thing. And the doctors could see it and they're like, We need to scan. So the reason they were scanning was to see if

Drezden: All these doctors lined up to check out Bob's fat ass They need to do the scan to see if you're still actively bleeding into your muscle.

Bob: Right. And they start talking about surgery. And the reason they were talking about surgery was they were saying if this like these blood vessels are bleeding into your muscle and they have not stopped yet, then we need to go in and basically like cauterize them, I guess, to like Yeah. And

Drezden: Yeah, cauterized. They actually like they've done that to hearts too in the past, where if you if you have like a weird rhythm and such, they'll do little s surgical burns.

Bob: Yeah, so so they were talking about maybe doing that. And the one thing my warfarin or my INR was at like 3.2 also. So they're like, hey, you're

Drezden: And I and R is like how thin your blood is.

Bob: Exactly or like how long it takes my blood to clot. So my INR was it should be between like two and two point five is where I really like to stay, but it was at 3.2, which is not crazy, but it's not. Like a good level to stay at. So they not only did like the CT scan, we decided that we don't need to do surgery because it's not bleeding that much. And instead they started it just they gave me an IV and then I had they gave me plasma all night, like two bags of plasma. And I've never heard of this before. Like I know vitamin K shuts off your medicine and like that's what they do in an emergency. But for this they didn't they didn't need to shut my medicine off. So they brought in put in two bags of plasma and then in the morning my INR was back to like two point two. And they're like, okay, now you're like in good range. I'd spent the whole night in the emergency room. There was no bed in the hospital until the early morning. So I was just like sitting in the emergency room with like this IV hooked up to me and just like waiting to see what was going on.

Drezden: Like in the waiting room?

Bob: Kind of. I spent maybe four or five hours in the waiting room and then they wheeled me back to this other part of the ER that had a curtain. So I had like a privacy curtain and like a bed. But before that I was just in a chair and they tried to sit me in like a wheelchair, they tried to sit me in a regular chair and I couldn't sit because I couldn't like put my weight on my glute. So I eventually just asked them if I could get onto like a rec a recliner basically. And then so I spent like four hours in that recliner and then I spent maybe I was in the hospital till like maybe eleven AM the next day. And I was laying in the bed for most of that time. And yeah, it was the scariest part though, like the people that took me there, they were so kind and so good and like took got me dinner, which I couldn't end up I didn't end up being able to eat until midnight. And they brought me breakfast in the morning and all that stuff, but they had to leave. Because they had flights home. And after that, I was just like by myself. And at that point, though, I knew that nothing was severely wrong. But I knew that I would have to start recovering on my own. So I basically got in, got out of the hospital, got into a Lyft, went to a hotel that I had just booked, and just kind of like laid there for well, I had to go to Goodwill first because I had no clothes.

Drezden: 'Cause you left everything on the boat.

Bob: Yeah. So I had no clothes. I knew I had my heart medicine because that was like the most important thing. I kept telling everyone, like, do not let me get on that. Cause they like I was kind of separate from my bag. And I was like, I need to make sure that my warfarin is in my bag. And they like double checked and triple checked. Before we took off, I was like, is my warfarin in my bag? And they're like, yes, it's here and it's in between the pilots. And I was like, okay, cool. Let's go. So then they basically I got dropped off and I was in Flagstaff for a week. I had a hotel room. I spent a lot of that week basically going on short walks to like a coffee shop and like sitting down, like writing and like reading and hanging out, and then I'd come back to the hotel and like get in the jacuzzi to like loosen my muscle up a little bit. And then I got an a membership to a cold plunge sauna infrared. Red light therapy place. And so I basically just like went to that twice a day. And I was using the cold plunge to just kind of like ice my butt. So it's not exactly like the cold plunge therapy you think of, but I was just I was like hanging off the edge of the cold plunge with just my like lower half in. And then I would go do the like

Drezden: Try trying to reduce the swelling and get back to functional.

Bob: Yeah, and it was amazing. Like I would I didn't even know they're like, do you want a membership here? And I was like, Yeah, but I don't even know if I can get into the tub or not. So I figured out like how to get into the tub and then they gave me a membership. So I had like my own passcode into the place. And I would just go twice a day and just like kind of get over the side of the it's like a big Yeti cooler basically that can fit a human in it. And I just yeah, basically would jump in there and hang out in as long as I could in the cold water.

Drezden: So this was three weeks ago. Are you walking okay now? Like is is it back to normal?

Bob: Yeah, I'm great. I just went and climbed tonight and I've this is my this is indoor

Drezden: My god. Indoor in indoor rock climbing,

Bob: Rock climbing. I am meeting my friend tomorrow after work to climb in a park like 25 minutes from my house. But I feel good. My leg hurt a little bit this weekend. I tried to climb in Wyoming and it kind of hurt a little bit, but it wasn't like it hurt. Like an injury. It was more just like I haven't moved in this way. Like a I like went to stab my foot out to like hold myself onto the rock and I just hadn't moved that quickly yet. And it just kinda was like uncomfortable. But yeah, so I'm

Drezden: You had told me, yeah. You had told me the ER doctor called you brave. And you thought it meant stupid.

Bob: Yeah, that was the first yeah.

Drezden: And I thought that that was just maybe your own read into it. But when you explained to him everything that was going on and how you're gonna go right back out, like what was the context of that one? Because I feel like I was missing some.

Bob: It was kind of funny. And in the ER, there you don't get like assigned a doctor. There's just like doctors around. I had like three or four doctors and they went through a couple of different shifts. So like they were all like coming in every once in a while and they're like, I'm this doctor, I'm taking care of you, and blah. Then they would just be gone and then another doctor would come in. So one doctor that came in, like just kind of like looked at me funny. He's like, You why were you rafting on the Grand Canyon? And I'm like, I don't know, because it's fun. And my friends were there and It's like a cool adventure. And he's like, Yeah, but like you're on warfarin. And I said, Yeah, I know. And he's like, Well, that's like a really brave thing to do. And I was like, he thinks I'm like really dumb. Or he thinks I'm like, and it was just funny because like no one had you can see he's like dancing around and kind of like looking at his chart and like looking at me, and I'm like, Yeah, I don't I don't know, like

Drezden: He there's no way he was talking about the warfarin. He just wanted to bring up the heart thing and he didn't you know, they talk around it when they don't know.

Bob: Yeah, and it's funny because so many doctors came in with so many different ideas of what they thought should happen to me. And this doctor, his idea was like, you're on warfarin and you shouldn't be rafting on the Grand Canyon. It is like, you know, ideally not a dangerous thing at all. Like out of our like 19 people that were on that trip, I was the only one who got like severely injured. So like it's not and it doesn't happen very often. But a doctor looking at it is like, yeah, like we get we're in the emergency room. So we don't think of it as like, four, you know, 500 people went down the river and they were fine and one got injured. They think of like, we're getting a call like once a week for people in the hospital because of this. So they're just like, yeah, people are in here all of the time be off of the Grand Canyon. Why would you do this? And I'm like, well, it's I don't know. It's they're seeing it from the perspective of being in traumatic medicine, like where they're getting those patients who are coming to them.

Drezden: You're giving them a lot more grace than I was, and I have to apologize for that. I'm I've as you can tell I'm bit jaded from how many non-specialists have reacted to me saying I have this or that heart issue at different times.

Bob: No.

Drezden: But you know, we're coming up on time here and there is something I I desperately need to know. And hopefully this one this'll be this will be funny. I'm so glad your heart's okay because your story is giving me chest pains. Anyway. So But I'm a worrier, Yeah. Yeah, you're worried. Yeah. It's what I do. I want to protect everyone from everything all the time. We talked last time and you had somebody reaching out because of your blog in Greece, Mm-hmm. Yeah. In the middle of the night your time, the middle of the night his time, coming to you for advice and turning into support.

Bob: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Drezden: Any more from him, any more from people like that? I'm assuming that when you start talking about this story, people are going to do this. Like how do you do this when you've got mechanical valve when you're when you're on these blood thinners? I mean, more or less the same thing the doctor asked you, but instead of fear, it's like hope. How many up you keep you still giving people hope up?

Bob: I love it. Yeah. I actually I was just driving home from work today and texted this guy, Joe, who lives in California, and he saw my Instagram and was like, my gosh, I have to have the exact same surgery as you. And I'm scared. And I've talked to him now maybe four times on the phone, and we just spoke two weeks ago, for like an hour. And he I texted him today 'cause I knew he has heart surgery on Thursday. And he's he had like tests done today. Anyway, so I really love this part, like this reaching out to people and I Again, it's never medical advice. It's more like, you know, stuff like he's like, Hey, what, you know, should I get a recliner for my house if I'm gonna have heart surgery? And I'm like, that would be like cool, but like it'd be hard to like move the lever. And he's like, it's electric now. And I'm like, yeah, then you should definitely do that. So like just talking to people, never about medical advice, but always just about like what was it like and what can I do after surgery?

Drezden: But that's yeah, and the point is the fact that's not medical advice, it's the things that no one thinks about until it comes up.

Bob: Mm-hmm. And yeah, there'so much like you are restricted from after surgery. Like, so I've written like a little thing on like how should you prepare your house for after surgery? Or like what can your spouse do or your, you know, whoever your caregiver is, what can they do to prepare themselves for your surgery? Because I've just been through it and I've been through like people that like cared about me, but they we didn't know what to do when I got home, you know? So I love having those conversations. It's really cool. I really like it. It's really cool because without having people that like kind of told me That you can live a pretty normal life after this. I would have thought that I was gonna either die during surgery or that I was going to just have like a really restricted life. And because like I heard other people's stories, I was like, this is actually going to be fine. The doctor always told me that, but I didn't quite believe him because I didn't hear see any patients coming out of it, you know.

Drezden: You didn't you didn't see examples.

Bob: Yeah. So I yeah, if anything, I just like to do that everyone as much as possible because I know how scary it is. Like this guy has a family and kids and a career and he's got a mom, you know, with it's just like there'so much going on and he just wants to know that he's gonna be okay. And a doctor can tell you that, but like, you know, it's different to have I think a patient tell you that.

Drezden: Someone who's been in your shoes, who's gone through these it's from an episode I did with two peer mentors. Like, what is the value of peer mentorship? And it was Rick Puder who said it beautifully, and I'm gonna screw it up here, but it's good to have someone who gets it. Someone who's been in your shoes, who's been in those waiting rooms, who's had those surgeries, telling you this is what it looks like on the other side. You can still go down the Colorado River cutting through the Grand Canyon and smack your ass on the rock wall and get a couple good stories out of it. But it's I'm a I'm a big proponent of exactly what you're doing. But using your story and your life I mean, I have a po a podcast that's dedicated to making people tell their stories about it. So as you can tell, I'm a I'm a big fan of that approach. But the question I need to ask you. And I've asked you it before, so I'm gonna try and tie it all together here. But you told me the canyon made you realize some risk, but it's not gonna slow you down. And we've all I mean, anyone who's listened to this the whole way through knows that nothing slows you down, man. I'm I'm sitting here, I can feel my hair going grayer, but I am so damn happy to see it. I'm proud to know you, man.

Bob: Good. Good. Yeah, thank you.

Drezden: But now with everything you do. Everyone you talk to. What does CHD mean to you? The last time your answer was that you were you were lucky because it forced you to act, like we talked about with moving to Colorado. But what does your heart mean to you a couple years on?

Bob: Yeah, I still think that it even though I've had like an injury and I've had whatever and I'm worried about the warfarin levels and all that kind of stuff, like, you know, I still think that it encourages me to Basically, yeah, not to just sit around and say, one day I wanna I always I think I've said that before, like I hate the idea of like a bucket list. Like I'm gonna put all these things on a list where like I'm gonna do before I die. And I'm like, no, if I think of something that I wanna do, I'll probably go do it. And I think that that mentality is still like something the when you're bringing up the like community too, I've really liked It feels weird for me to like be posting stuff about myself to like strangers on Instagram or whatever, or like blogging. It'so uncomfortable. Yeah, but I s I

Drezden: It is so uncomfortable to do it.

Bob: Don't necessarily like that much that like that that much. But I think another cool part about having like a congenital heart disease is that I get to meet like all these people who are like going through a similar thing. And it's really cool to talk to people who are going through it and they feel scared or alone and they're like, I get to hear this story or connect with this person. And it makes me feel less scared and not alone anymore. And that's like one other really cool thing that's come out of this is like being able to just like have this like little, these little communities of people yeah, that that are all kind of going through a similar experience.

Drezden: Yeah, that that one hit me hard. It was it was that same episode with Rick where it was called Not Alone Anymore, The Power of Peer Mentors and how finding this community. I mean, as people with heart defects know, I mean before the eighties you either didn't know you had one or you took you out before you had a chance to start. And now we are everywhere. And it's such

Bob: Yeah. Or living long lives, yeah.

Drezden: And it's and it'so hidden. I mean you I've had two friends I knew for a couple of years before either the three of us realized that we even all had one. I mean that one of them didn't know what a CHD was, and I didn't know what a CHD was until I was in my twenties, like in general heart defect. But you did mention that you like people reaching out to you. And you mentioned all those great resources you post. So do me a favor. Okay.

Bob: Well, yeah, so it's huh.

Drezden: Yeah, I'm just I'm basically trying to trick you into plugging your blog and your Instagram so that people will go talk to you and find everything you're talking about.

Bob: Yeah, the Instagram is just aortic underscore adventure, which I thought was well I love alliterations too.

Drezden: Love that one.

Bob: I don't know, I was an English teacher for a long time. So yeah, aortic adventure. I'm usually posting on there. Like I don't know. I there was like a year where I didn't post anything, but I'm doing a little bit more now. And then from there's a link to like the blog too. It's just like a blog spot. It's you know, just like some free thing, but there's maybe

Drezden: Don't I've I I throw them all in the show notes too, but I'm just making sure that people know exactly where to go get myaorticadventure dot blogspot, right?

Bob: Yeah, good. Mm-hmm. Cool. Yeah, yeah, that sounds right. But the big the big thing is the Instagram is like the really the way that I've connected with a lot of people and I've like just, you know, called and talked to people and it's really cool.

Drezden: Ha. Well, I'm I really appreciate you being here. I mean it's amazing what you do and I was giving you a hard time, but going out there and being the guy that does it.

Bob: Yes, it's fun.

Drezden: Lets people know that even if they don't want to go white water rafting or climb the ceiling of caves, that they have options and potential and heart defects don't have to hold you back anymore. That's not medical advice.

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[OUTRO]

Drezden: All right, my close. And that was Bob Smith still climbing. If you haven't seen his first step is my first interview with him, the first episode, the El Capitan story, it's worth the listen. I'm He's just as great. I'm younger, greener and prettier. But it's I led that episode okay, but Bob Smith really sealed the deal for us. But Remember, if you have questions or comments on the episode, or you just want to say nice things, you can reach out through the website, onepercentheart.com, email support@onepercentheart.com, message us on Instagram, and by us I mean me, because I don't have anyone else. On Instagram at theCHDpodcast, comment on the YouTube video, I'll find it. Reach out however you want, I'll find it. And I'm going to put Bob's information in the show notes so you can find his blog spot and his Instagram. He has great stories and he's used to teaching. All right everybody, I'll talk to you soon.