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- What's up? Good morning or whatever time you are

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listening to this. What's up? Check.

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You are tuned into the, what's the matter with me podcast.

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What's up? You are tuned into the What's the matter

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with me podcast. My name is John.

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You are tuned into the What's the matter with me podcast.

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My name is John. I'm 44 years old.

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Husband, father of two small business owner,

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radio DJ podcaster.

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I have multiple sclerosis trigeminal neuralgia

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and I made this podcast to share what I'm going through.

1:04

Play the theme song - Hop hot sauce.

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It's the best hot sauce. Hop. Hot sauce.

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It's the best sauce in the world.

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The world. I'm telling you, - You should buy Hopping the hot sauce on Amazon.

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Amazon won't have extra hot in the near

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near term, so buy it now.

1:39

Shout outs to the Sandman who wrote in about kale

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and he knows more about kale than I ever will.

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He works, that's his job. He is a kale person, a

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er shout outs to the Sandman.

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He's listening through shout outs

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to all the people listening to what's the matter with me?

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The people who listen to every episode

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I see you shoutouts to my poetry,

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gay Load Star Joe Instant Noodles published my 50 word story.

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Cyber truck Dental, SRL.

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The link is on my author website.

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jw, what's the matter with me.org.

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So that's it. I'm a published writer, I'm published.

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Check it out gw, what's the matter

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with me.org? And now that I've experienced

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somebody published something, I wrote even

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as small as a 50 word story,

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the feeling you have after publication is the same one you have

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after you have an art opening.

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You're like, my life is the same after you.

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Like you don't turn into a frog

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or any, it's like somehow you expect something to happen.

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But, but in fact, I did accomplish something.

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I was published, it happened.

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And then also this coming week,

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another 50 word story will be published in a

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different online journal

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and I've recorded a video of myself reading it.

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So I'll put all links to this stuff.

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Check out the author page.

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jw do what's the matter with me.org.

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But in fact I accomplished something,

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another story published this week

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and I got a video of myself

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and they're going to send it to their mailing list.

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So I'm like, okay, I'm all ready. I'll send you a link.

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Come on. So what's up with surgery?

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Last week was like surgery, publication, vacation

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this week, no more vacation, no more surgery.

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And I'm coming off of medication.

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So let me give you an update on how it's going.

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So I had surgery on the 28th of March.

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That was a Thursday. So it was like going on a month,

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going on four weeks ago,

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going on four weeks ago I had surgery

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and I haven't had pain since then.

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I've had sens sensations like I wouldn't

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compared to what I've experienced before.

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It's more like, it feels like a cat's tail

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brushing up against my cheek. So it's not like hurting me.

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But I know enough having had five surgery

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that any sensation can turn into a bad sensation

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if things change. But I'm having very limited sensation

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and really ex extremely low.

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And in my teeth, my teeth, it's kind of awe names.

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It can kind ache sometime, but very briefly

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and not so far, not in a way

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that really hurts me. So almost four weeks ago I was on

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10 times as much pain medication.

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That's the other part about having some sensation.

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It might be related to cutting out so far,

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90% of the medication

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and that of one medication, 90%

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and the other medication having cut it out completely.

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So I am really low. I kind of sweat in the morning.

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I get a little bit, um, you know,

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because it's habit forming so it takes some time

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to come off of this. I, in uh, three days

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or so, I'll cut out the medication entirely

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and then I'll be off both pain medications.

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It's really helping me, uh, get through my life.

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So let's see, more updates.

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So it's been four weeks almost.

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It's been four weeks going on four weeks

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since I had surgery. I'm almost totally off medication completely

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and any feeling I'm having is not painful.

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So things are in the right direction.

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We have a new cat. So we got a new cat a few months back

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and it was unfortunately, unfortunately

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struck by a car and passed away.

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We have a new cat. Um, she's like couple months old.

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We think it's a she we're not really sure.

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Uh, part links. It has this kind of like lion like rah

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instead of a nice meow, there's a meowing, there's like rah,

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it's a cute cat like sitting on my lap.

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And that's the, that's what you want out of a cat.

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So far it's been sequestered in the

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laundry room because it can't mix with our other cat

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'cause we don't wanna get our other cat sick

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because the new cat was basically a feral cat

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living outside in a box with ear mites

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and fleas and all the rest.

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Pretty dirty cat.

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So we gave it all the pills and shots, uh, a couple weeks ago

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and it has to remain sequestered

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for like 10 more days. So I try and put the um, old cat outside

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and then have the new cat run around the house.

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'cause the, I feel bad having the cat live in

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the laundry room. The new cat is cool. So things are getting better.

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I'm getting off medication and I barbecued

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for the first time this year and it's already April

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and I live in California. It's not 'cause it's too cold, it's that

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lighting the barbecue. My barbecue is hot.

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It's a powerful barbecue and I could barely stand up.

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I had no balance. And so I felt really unsafe barbecuing,

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like if it's gonna trip and fall face down on the barbecue, uh, you know,

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like I just did not feel safe.

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So, but now I'm off. I was on two medication, thousands of milligrams

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of these medication and now I'm off one entirely

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and the other one I'm 90% down on.

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So I'm, I'm standing and moving better than a half in months.

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So I lit the barbecue for the first time this year

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and I made skirt, steak and eggplant.

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The way I do eggplant is I just kind of,

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I preheat the barbecue with the eggplant on it

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with the heat at, you know, all the way hot

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and it kind of turned the eggplant when I, when I

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opened the barbecue. I'll open it one time to turn it

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and then open it to clean the grate.

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So kind of move the eggplant up onto the rack

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above the grate, clean the grate,

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put the eggplant back on the grate.

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Sh shut the barbecue. This is all preheating

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and so you're kind of like charring the eggplant

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incinerating it. It'll have like a great crack

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and it'll begin kind of steaming out of the crack.

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And then uh, you put it in a bowl

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and it'll kind of leach this black, uh,

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coffee looking liquid.

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And that is like burnt eggplant char taste.

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So you can kind of scoop out the cooked eggplant

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with a spoon, use a sieve

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and strain the burnt eggplant liquid

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and then combine that with what you spooned out man

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a clove garlic or grate it on the micro planter

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and add like a lot of olive oil

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and add salt to taste

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and then you can serve that. So we serve that alongside the skirt steak

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and the skirt steak had a compound butter, a blue cheese

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and butter and my son hated that,

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which was too bad. It was really good.

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So la that was a few nights ago last week

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with the skirt steak Last night I grilled a pork tender

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loin, a pork tender loin with

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whole grain mustard, brown sugar and shing wine.

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And then we ate that cut into medallions

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with carrots and potatoes and salad.

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So cooking is going well. I don't feel like I'm gonna die.

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Something that did die is our juniper tree.

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We had a jour juniper tree in front of the house that died

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and it was probably 70 years old

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or some, not a super huge one.

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Not much taller than the house.

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Maybe as tall as our single story home.

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Anyhow, I'm gonna replace it. We will replace it with a Hollywood

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juniper Junis.

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Chines is variant zuka.

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It kind of has sweeping arms.

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So we'll see how that comes in.

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I'm also looking to get some hummingbird sage.

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My birthday is on Friday. A lot of things going on here.

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I'm remaking the, what's the matter

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with me.org website.

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It's, uh, that'll launch pretty soon.

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Gary Canone, the artist, Gary Canone, uh,

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that I interviewed on this very podcast

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a a year ago about, um, just had a great writeup

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in a hyper allergic Laurie Waxman wrote

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a survey of some Chicago shows

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and one of them was Gary's

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and Gary is an artist with ms, so I'm always interested

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in those people. So it's cool. He got a cool writeup.

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I'll, I'll put a link to it in the description.

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I can get up from the couch by myself.

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Uh, I did it twice yesterday

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and that's been a big change. I, I used to have to have my wife help me get in a chair

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and sometimes I still do like, kind

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of help get up into a chair and then I can stand up from the chair.

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But yesterday and it's, I'm still getting, I'm like regaining an ability

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that I lost because I had no balance in my right leg.

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So it became really hard to get up from the couch

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with one leg. I basically had to like lift my entire body on one leg

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and balance like that. It just didn't work.

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So yesterday afternoon at a part

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of the day when I'm usually don't have a lot of energy

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and power, the afternoon I got up from the couch

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by myself with no one around twice.

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And in a kinda short, not, not like a set,

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but you know, I got up and I went to the bathroom.

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This is like, you wanna be able to do this when you sit on the couch.

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I've been avoiding the couch, but I can, I'm starting to be able

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to get up from it by myself.

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So things are like on the good side.

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Thanks for tuning into the watch The,

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the Matter With Me podcast, probably the sort

16:39

of podcast with a lot of naval gazing.

16:44

Shout out to Gary Kone. Thank you for tuning in.

16:49

Shout out to the Sandman Hopping to Hot Sauce

16:54

Instant Noodles published Cyber Truck, dental

16:59

Esee RL New story coming next week.

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There's a new cat, a barbecuing, not the cat.

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There's a new juniper tree

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and hopefully we'll get that in a few weeks

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'cause we've already removed the Old Dead one

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and so it's like we need a new one there.

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Gary Canone and Hyper Allergic by Lori Waxman.

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I'll get that link up on what's the matter with me dot OR

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Thank you for tuning into what's the matter with me podcast

17:41

and me email [email protected].

17:46

JOHN at H-O-P-B-I-N-W-O-R

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ld.com and I'll give you a shout out.

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That's the system. Thank you for tuning in.

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Catch you next time.