Hi, Piers Grove here and on todays episode of 404: Brain Not Found - an old friend of mine. Joel Deane. There's every chance you've heard of Joel given that he is a well known poet, writer and journalist. What you may not know is that he is also a stroke survivor. Piers: So what I've really been trying to do in this podcast is, Use myself as a bit of a an example of a young person who's had a stroke and kind of what that's Joel: you are the Guinea pig Piers: I'm the Guinea pig, except the Guinea pig bit is done. Now it's time to pick through the the aftermath of the, the thing. Joel: Totally. Piers: And I didn't know anything about strokes. I thought there were things that happened. , old, broken people. And to be honest, when I woke up in the stroke ward at RP A, that was pretty much reinforced to me. I was surrounded by 70, 80, God, 90 year olds, and they were broken humans. And I was like, I, I, I'm not that, I don't want to be that. Joel: I've I've been on that rodeo. Don't worry. Piers: yeah, yeah, yeah. So I've been chatting to clinicians, but like, not only are you someone who, who has kind of been on the same rodeo, you were really generous because, you know, we knew each other. Because we were kind of working or more, more accurately. I was freeloading off the back of you and Rich's work on a daco and you kind of, you just reached out and said, Hey I know the road you're walking sort of thing. And you and I had a conversation that was really important to me in the early days. I think it was like two weeks after the stroke, I think we, we, wound up Joel: Yeah, we, we, I, I remember that. I mean, I mean, I guess, can we, how can I put it? Let me, let me sort of ask you a question then. Why was it helpful? What, what, what was it about that conversation that helped you? Because I just called you in thinking this might be you helpful or it might be a waste of your time. I'll just let you know that was all. Piers: Yeah. Well, I just felt, I felt really isolated. I felt like I was trying to. You know, I was Don Kioti trying to tackle this, and so many of the things that were going on in my brain were about, you know, fuck is this the end of my career? How the hell am I gonna support my kids? I've gotta, I've gotta get back, I've gotta get back, I've gotta get going again. Okay. But I, but I sound a bit like a, I think my. Daughter just said, daddy sounds like a walrus. And I was like you know, there was this mismatch between where my brain was at and what I wanted to be doing and what where I actually was. And I didn't have anyone around me who. , empathize or even sympathize with that situation. And then bang, you popped up and went like, oh, yeah, yeah. I don't, I know that. Yeah. And you kind of, you, you'd done so much more thinking about it and, and they, these were things that were germs to me and to you. There were things that I, you know, it sounded to me like. you, you'd walk the road and And already answered. Joel: well, the thing is, I mean, just to, for, you know, for the background, I'm. Little bit older than you. So I'm 53, had the stroke when I was 43. And when I had the stroke, after I had the stroke, there was no one for me to talk to. I was, there, was I work, you know, again, I got cart off to this hos hospital in In Melbourne, which was a very great clinicians and all the rest, but it was like, it had, it looked like something out of East Berlin and I'm there in the middle of the night, in the middle of winter and there's just all these old people. And And I was, the whole summer I was in there I was trying to put on a front and put on a face about, and I was desperate to get out, you know, and sort of like, and, and put and, and pretend I was all right. And then when I got out, I was desperate to regain what I'd lost. And I knew that, you know, I, I was in, I was, I was, I mean, I was scared. That's the truth. And, and I sort of went back so hard. Like I was back at work within three or four weeks. and my wife at one point I, she was pretty sure I was trying to kill myself and I was, and I was not. I would, I imagine, I know I was pretty unpleasant to be around Piers: When you say kill yourself, just not looking after yourself. You weren't trying to actually kill yourself. You just didn't like, you weren't prioritizing your health at all. Joel: I think that was part of it, but I also think she, I think she thought that there was a part of me that, that either wanted to make it or break it, that I was either gonna get back and be everything I had been on more or I was not gonna be around. And that's, and I think that there's some truth to that. I've always felt like I've got three kids, I mean, I've felt since a stroke and I definitely felt at the time of the stroke that the last thing my wife needed was to be having to drag my ass around for next, however long I was around that I was either gonna be useful, I was not gonna be here. So I put a lot of pressure on myself to be honest. Piers: yeah. Yeah. I, I kind of had this, I don't know whether. This is at all similar. I mean, I'm not looking to kind of go like this is exactly what it's like for everyone. Cause I think it's the kind of differences, but to me, I sort of saw that I was either gonna be sitting in a nursing home with an blanket over my knees feeding. Ducks being visited on Sunday by children who, and, and family and friends who kind of were increasingly doing it out of obligation. As I slowly became irrelevant in the world or I was gonna get back to where I was, or as you say better, but there was, it was really binary for me. I was either fucked or I was gonna be awesome. Joel: Yeah. And, and I think I had mom, was that probably a little, maybe a, there was a, an in between. I do, I didn't think. that I would get back to what I didn't think I'd be the same again. And I've got a fair bit of experience with disability because of my daughter. And and I'm not scared of disability, but I want to be functional. I want to be useful, which, you know, people with disability I know are and do great stuff. So I wasn't worried about, you know, having been brain damaged and, but I, I wanted to make sure I could do the shit I needed to. . And so I went really, really hard straight outta the gate and ended up getting sent off to a psychologist who basically he was this big Buffy guy, sort of looked like a footballer and was really, you know, how psychologists are meant to be like, you know, tell me how you feel. You know, and just took, this guy was, I think he must have read me cuz he knew exactly what I needed at the time I got down there. I sat down with him and I sort of talked, you know, talked at him for a little while. Must have been 10 or 15 minutes, and then he pretty much just. He just told me off and told me not to be and told me not to get my head outta my ass and think, and not to be such a selfish bastard and think about, and sort of made me sort of say and ask me a few questions. What do you think this is like here? For your kids to see you have a stroke for your wife, for these sorts of, and, and sort of then gave me some peripheral, the beginning of peripheral vision. But I think I said to you, the thing that I found after having a stroke, it was a bit like driving, driving in fog in the high bas, you know, driving in a freeway and the fog with the high beams on. I didn't, I couldn't see. What I, I and I, and I didn't even realize I was driving in fog cause there's so much that I was, blind to you know, so it was a very the whole thing, it was only looking back some, you know, six months later, 12 months later, two years later, that I began to see what, how bad things had been. And, and, but it's amazing how you recover and. I struggled a lot Can I drag you back to the actual stroke? Like how did you figure out you were having a stroke and who was there and kind of how did, because it, like, you know, for me, I went to bed fine and I woke up the next morning as a walrus who couldn't walk. Piers: Like, it was pretty obvious what was, can you, are you, up to sharing that? Joel: Yeah, it was July, so winter in Melbourne, got up one morning, it was a school day. I sort of, and yeah, I usually get the house going, so I was fed, the dog, made, you know, did the usual thing. Went out to get, I'm an ex newspaper journalist, so of course I get the newspapers went out the front to get the, went out the front to get the newspapers and as, and when I'm standing out the front of the house in the newspapers, I fall over and I can't get. And and I crawl back inside the house like as she drag myself back inside the house. And and I'm vomiting and I'm really unwell and my wife sort of yeah, I made a joke of it, but it was, yeah, my wife didn't know what it was and she thought I sort of had some. Flew or something and that, you know, and, and I'm not necessarily the most stoic person. She was like, she was like, oh, fucking man flew again. You know? You know, because we have that sort of relationship. And then my mom, Piers: D don't worry. My partner thought I was just incredibly hungover and was actually pissed off with me. Joel: Exactly. Anyhow, my kids were there, obviously, and, and my mom leaves not too far away. My mom's a nurse or was a nurse. She's retired now. And so my mom, she, Kirsten calls up my mom and my mom comes over and she's like, and I'm in bed at this point and I'm vomiting and I'm really not, not great. And I'm really, and I've got, it's a bit like, it feels, it feels like trying to stand up, feels like I'm standing. Like the world's a skateboard ramp, if you know what I mean. I just cannot, cannot stand up. And and so, and my mum thinks, oh, flu or something, I don't know. I don't think it's, no one thinks it's a stroke. And then I start, and then I start to have real trouble speaking. So then I start to slur and everything and then they call the ambulance, and the ambulance comes and they gave me some stem atol to stop me vomit. And they didn't, they, they, no, they didn't think it was a stroke. and I get bundled up to the hospital. They go to box cell hospital. And you know, and, and funnily enough, you know, a good friend of ours is a doctor. I've got a couple of friends of doctors and Peter, he sort of and Peter's a, you know, type a personality and bulldoze his way in and sort of like, and call up a friend of his who's , who's , a leading sort of neurologist. And, and I get put through a bar tests at the hospital and it turns out, yeah, I've had a stroke, but it took a while to final that out, so I didn't get any. Busting drugs or all, any of that shit. I just sort of was in there and had the stroke and it was, you know, and so it was just really it's not what you expect to happen, is it? Piers: It's not even on the possibilities list. Like I put a heart attack on the possibility list, but I didn't put a stroke there. Not even slightly. Joel: No. And I had one thing my psychologist said, you know, cause I, you know, when I got set off the psychologist, he sort of said we did a couple things. One is we did a, we we did a, a test in this sort of a stress test, you know, for how stressed your life is. And he sort of said, well, you know, and I think if you had 300 or so, it was a really bad score. Mine was about 700 So I was very strict. Piers: Kind of, I, I get quietly proud of those moments in this sort of per perverse Joel: Very, very stress. Very stressed. So like that there was no, they didn't find a particular reason for the stroke other than stress. And the psychologist also said that all of my reactions he said, showed an overabundance of fight that I'd sort of I to this, you know, the way that we react to trauma, that I'd overreacted with the, the, you know, you know, this furious sort of like reaction to try to get. What I've lost. And and I think that and, and I think that that really, that was, that was the thing that really damaged, I think my relationship with my wife, I would say, because she felt like I was, that I'd sort of, that I was doing it in such a way that I was pushing everyone else away and I was trying to, what I was trying to do was, Was get back so I could be useful and pull my weight. But I did it in such, I was pretty braque in the way I did it. And that was, and it took me a long time to realize how much I think I'd I'd probably, maybe even traumatized my kids, would definitely hurt my wife. You know what I mean? Piers: Yeah. Joel: think, you know, Piers: Do you find like, I don't know, there's sort of this stoicism that is actually, I found in the end incredibly unproductive, but like it was like this you know, Well, I, I, you know, whether I'm right or not right? I should do what I need to do rather than what I feel obliged to do, rather than what's necessarily like, it's, I I love your analogy of high beams in the, in the, the fog cuz it's like, I have no idea what I'm doing, but I know I need to do more of it faster. Joel: Yeah, it's exactly that. I mean, it's a real look. I think it's well, how can I put it? I've always, I mean, I've, I've prided myself on my ability to. be creative and write stuff. I'm a writer, right? That's my life. So the best, the only, like, I'm crap at so much stuff in the wo in my life, but I feel like I'm, I'm pretty confident I've got a good brain, a good head of my shoulders. So this stroke pretty much hit me right where it hurts right where I live. And I reacted to it furiously to try to find out just how bad it was and how much I could. And people have asked me what it's like, cuz most people can't tell I've had a stroke and people ask me what you know, am I different and have things changed? The way I explain it is a little bit like, you know, you're a Sydney soda, so I'll put in rugby terminology. Sam, I'm a rugby player, a league player. I'm a great league player and I do my knee. You know, anyhow. And so the rados send me off to get my reconstruction. I go away, I get my reconstruction, I do all the rehab, right? And I come back and you know, I come back and I look as good as ever. And I can run as fast as ever, but only in a straight line. You know, the side to side movement. And that's the thing, like I was very good at holding. A million things in my head and juggling 'em all and multi and multitasking, all of those sorts of things. I don't do that so well these days. I'm if I was always incredibly single minded, I am much more so now. Very much more so. The other thing is the emotions. I've always been very emotional person, but, and this goes to being a bloke and Irish Catholic shit and all the rest, but I've always sort of contained done my best to contain. and quite often it's been plowed into my writing, but what I've found that it's a little bit like if I was a, if I'm a house, it's a bit like the stroke has taken all the windows and doors off and just shit just goes through the house. It's just really, I really am far, I've, I, it's not that I'm more emotional, but there's just. Nothing. I just, when when I feel shit, it just comes out and I get, and I get upset and I get visibly upset a lot. And people who didn't realize that it was upset before, they know now. And the thing I've had to work hard at was that early, you know, like I've. like any parent, I've got a temper and I found myself immediately after the stroke. I lost my shit with my kids in a way that I'd never done before and that really horrified me. So that was the thing. I probably worked at hardest, more than anything immediately after the stroke was controlling my self so that , cuz my kids were young at the time. and they didn't need that shit, you know? So trying to just Control. Control, yeah. Control my emotions, but the stuff, but I actually don't think it's bad for me to get upset. I actually get ups. I'm happy to get upset. You know what I mean? As long as I'm not yelling at my kids. Piers: Do you have a sense of why, , was it internal frustration and any opportunity to let it out, whether it was your kids or the fucking clothes button on the elevator or anything that was in front of you that you, you just wanted to let it out somehow? Joel: it's like the stroke. It feels like it's it's just removed on my skin. I just feel, it's just, that's, it's just that everything, I feel everything. Piers: Yeah. Joel: it's, that's, and I think that's and I suspect I'd always felt things pretty, I know it'd always felt, was always emotion, very emotional, the rest. But there's just no barrier. It's just removed any of, any of these barriers. So stuff just comes out. So I try to you know, and I think, I think that yeah, I think that I've, having a stroke has changed. Everything. You know, I don't, I, I don't think it's, I'm a different person. I don't think I'm, am I better? Am I worse? I'm just different, you know? I think that the thing, one of the things that I've been trying to find out is, am I a better writer than I was before? You know, like I possibly am a better writer than I was before, which for me is very important because if anything, it slowed me down and made. Like, I used to be one of those people who'd work around the clock. I was a workaholic probably. I spent a bit more time mulling, I'd say, as a consequence of it. I've had to learn, I had to learn a new way of writing, a new way of talking. I have to concentrate really hard and I speak, or I. you know, so I find it. Yeah. If I, and if I had meetings all day, I get really tired, you know, so just stuff like that, you know, my left hand doesn't quite work like it should, you know, I break a lot of sh I break a lot of shit. I can still, if I still bend over the wrong way, I'll fall over, you know? So just stuff that, but yeah, I mask, I can mask all the, I'm, I'm not, I don't care if people know I've got a stroke. I'm not trying to hide anything. It's just, But a lot of people, this, this reflects, I mean, how much do we actually pay attention to each other? People, people quite often don't notice shit. Piers: I, I, I found that I started paying so much attention to my own language, and I became so neurotic about, you know, every little. Mistake. And it actually took my psychologist to go like, I want you to listen to other people and I want you to listen to them going like look maybe oh look, I could try. Like when you actually listen to other people who haven't had a stroke, we all stuff up language and suddenly I put my, this sort of expectation. That I would speak the queen's English perfectly and flawlessly with a full vocabulary without error. And I was like, no one does that. But that became the expectation in the Joel: Yeah. Yeah. I, I think it's really, it's, it is the big thing. It's sort of like what? And again, this is where having, I mean, Sophie who just came in and with a blood nose, having a kid with a intellectual disability is really, she's taught me so many things in my life. And among other things is just, just shit happens, deal with it, get on with it. And I'm not you know, I didn't, when I had the stroke, to be honest, I didn't. Why me? That was one thing I didn't think, I just thought, why not? Because I've seen so much. I, I've seen, I know so many people who've been dealt worse extra cards than me, and it's like, yeah, , you know, shit happens. Get over it. Piers: yeah, I'd, I'd, had a bad year of medicine in the, of medical stuff in the year before the stroke, and I felt like I'd had such a good run for 45 years or 44 years before that. I, I just felt like the whole thing was, Totally earned like Joel: Yeah. Piers: been pouring wine through my body. I'd been not sleeping. I'd been working like an animal. I was running my finances on the edge of a knife because every spare scent I tipped into my next stupid idea. , like the whole thing, I did not feel like a victim at all. I felt. Joel: Hmm. Piers: Come up and said, finally come around. I'd, I'd never spent a night in hospital. I'd never had a broken bone. I'd never had a anything, you know, I hadn't been to a doctor in 15 years because I knew they were gonna find all this shit that was stuffed with me. So I was just gonna run this car into the ground and here was the ground. Joel: how long is it now? Since the stroke. Piers: It was election day. I didn't get to vote for Albo. I'm still dirty about that. . Joel: Mm. And that, so, and this is the thing is it's really as you know, it's different for everyone. The brain's a fa Yeah. Is, is its own beast and it's very individual and these things, how long does it take? And all the rest. But if you're like me, it's hard not to be really fucking impatient, Piers: Yeah. Joel: you know? And just like you, I'm always wanting to redline it, you know? And like the thing I. Like I had when I had the stroke, I was in the middle of researching a book called Catch and Kill. It's about, I'd been interviewing people. I had a, I was honed down a job and I was doing all these interviews on the side of this non-fiction book. Then I had the stroke and, and so what I did was I exercised like a maniac for the next 18 months and then I did my best. Then I, then I sort of in. Six or seven weeks. We're at 120,000 words for this book. did my Piers: If only you were paid by the word, this would've been the most profitable chunk of your life. Joel: yeah. And sort of, and by the end of that, you know, having gone in there like probably as fitness as I've ever been, and you know, and therefore I will, my, you know, was quite sharp by the end of it. I was literally walking into doors. I was so. I just obliterated myself again. And at the end of that, my wife was just saying that she's almost physically slapped me around and was like, what the fuck are you doing to yourself? Stop trying to kill yourself. Stop trying to prove something. And I think I was trying to prove that I could still write and but it's that. The redlining, you know, like the, I'm finishing off a novel now. I've been trying to do it in a way where I'm not redlining, I'm trying to do it in a way where I stop before I've got to that point where I'm punchy or where I'm just, where I feel like I'm hurting, where I'm doing such, so much damage today that I'm gonna take, it's gonna take me a week to get over it. And I'm finding that the, that the, the end result is, Or as good as, it's just different. I have to do it differently, but I, I, I never want to do that to myself again. Like I did with when I was riding catch, like, catch and kill nearly killed me. And then when I, after it nearly killed me, I tried to kill myself again riding the fucking thing. You know, it's just such a, like the stupidity, this stupidity is just breathtaking, really is. Piers: You said like, okay. So I, I think there was a bit of commonality around the experience of kind of okay. Right. I've, I've had a stroke and, and I've given it a solid two weeks of attention. So like, let's get back to life. For me, I went back to work within, I think it was 10 or 11 days it happened on the. The Saturday, I, I don't, don't get me wrong, I took the whole week off. And then I went kind of back to work and I had to wrangle my boss who was going like, three months, mate, I don't wanna see you for three months. But I was in a job that I was, I was running a company with 60 odd staff. It was losing. I had psyched myself up that this was the job of my, my lifetime publishing Australian Geographic. So I was back into it and I went and went and went and went and went and then, I stopped August 15 when my business partner basically frog marched me out of the building in the nicest possible way. But frog, frog marched is frog marched. And then that's when you know the world came crashing down and. the anxiety around, you know, am I actually gonna get back? And then the depression about the, the loss and just everything. You sound like, you know, you had a, you, you came out trying to cha charge at the nearest windmill. Was there a moment for you where, okay, you'd written 120,000 words, which I think is probably more than I write in a year. Including emails what, was there a moment or was it a, an adjustment over time? Joel: Oh, well, I think, well what happened then was I then sort of after that turned around and. Because I wonder, like, I wonder like I'm a poet first and foremost. If I can't write poetry, I, you know, I dunno what I am. And so then I was Wrote and rewrote and rewrote and rewrote a whole bunch of poetry that became my next collection of poetry, year of the wasp, which is about, among other things in stroke. So my wife meanwhile was watching me do this and just thinking, what the fuck is wrong with this guy? You know, and Piers: I feel like I should have a chat with your wife separately, Joel: it'd be a, it'd, it'd be , an R-rated convers. You know, so, so then I put out a collection of poetry and, you know, then, my father died in a bad as a, you know, it was good and bad death. It was a bad death. And I sort of re didn't react very well to that. And I sort of went away, the ran away to island for about five weeks on my own. Like, so look, I did a whole bunch of things that are not related to, but are related to over a series of years, the stroke. And I think that I don't know, trying to, maybe it's about growing up, just trying to figure out, trying to sort of, it's almost like the, the, the stroke began this series of, of, of events that led me to the point where , having broken my health, I then tried to break everything else. And, and I think that since then I've been putting 'em back together, if that makes sense. And trying to be, trying to be a better person, better husband, better. Better rhino. Better, yeah. Just not such a, just not such a self-centered prick basically, if that Piers: You, I mean, you touched on the, the, the Buffy psychologist who told you to pull your head out of your ass. Were there other. People, were they good friends? Was, you know, did you form a relationship with your neurologist, God forbid, or like who was in The in the foxhole with you? Joel: No one. No one, Piers: Because it, because you wouldn't let them in or because they weren't there? Joel: I think it's because , the way that I figure stuff out is, this goes back to being a writer. When I'm, when I dunno what, when I'm, when something's upset me and I dunno what I write poetry. . So I sort of went away and wrote poetry to try to figure it out and that actually, you know, and this sounds incredibly wonky, but that was how I sorted that out. But then but then funnily enough, you know, it, that doesn't, what I found more recently is that that doesn't fix everything. And I had to go back to another psychologist, because of that, Piers: So it was like the trip to Ireland, sort of like a a, a Yates esque, you know, pilgrimage and, you know, notebook and pen and sitting ply on a rock Joel: it was, it was about as winky as you could imagine. Yeah. Look, I, And so I took off to Ireland on my own without money and went around driving around in bitter cold and snow, doing poetry readings, meeting poets, and I spent a lot of time by myself. and it was and it was sort of recovering, you know, sort of after the death of my dad and the death of another friend who's a writer who'd drunk himself death. And just in my, sort of the, the new me, sort of the way that I sort of with, you know, everyth. all my emotions sitting right there in the driver's seat with me. It was, it was a very I'm not gonna say cathartic. I'm not sure if it was healthy or unhealthy, but it was just one of these it sort of, it, it, it was the, the worst of a series of events that made my family wonder what the fuck I was. And what I was in and wonder, you know Yeah. Where, where my priorities were, I would say. And I think that you know, I, I still think it was a trip I had to make for a variety of reasons. I don't think it was necessarily a bad thing, but it was a hard thing. And coming, one of the good things about it was I, you know, you know, I remember. You know, being in a place called Lara Peninsula, which is really wild, wooly part of Ireland in the west coast. Piers: Yeah, I love that spot. Joel: and it was so, and it was like, it was blizzard conditions. I was there and it was, and I was really, and it felt right, but I was there. But yeah, it sort of made me appreciate what I had. Like I've sort of, I do have good friends that I can talk to. I do have and I think, yeah, my best friend's, my wife, and I think that, and I just sort of so I had a good conversation with her about stuff. And I sort of came back and I tried to sort of, I guess, tried to put other people before me a little bit. That was all, you know that that's, I've always tried to do, pull my weight, but I think I need to be a little bit more, yeah, be a bit more in the service of others, if that makes sense. Piers: So that island trip sounds like, you know, you kind of like in, in the same way as I'm, I'm sitting in a hotel room in Singapore for no apparent reason. About to go to Amsterdam for some very obvious reasons. But it's like I'm just self indulgently. , Clearing out all the stuff like I've sold. My house is on the market. I'm sort of just spring cleaning my entire life Joel: clearing the decks. yeah, Piers: yeah, I, I kind. Uses L lingo, and I could have stolen it from you, but this idea of a third act that there was my childhood, that then there was the, the go getting, hustling, pleasing, you know, meeting expectations, driving the right car, doing all the shit that I was meant to do, to, to, to signal that I was a winner and. It's all kind of going in the bin and being rebuilt much simpler. And I guess this trip is about to use your analogy, ripping the windows and doors off the joint and seeing what blows through. And so is that am am I doing island, do you reckon? Joel: I think it sounds like you're doing a version of it. Yeah, and I mean, the thing was that one of the things that I've really felt deeply when I was away and when I came back and, but even before I left, but it really, it really. it brought home that I'm so grateful for what I've got and I realize how femoral this life is, let alone good health, and having all your marbles. And I just need to make the most of it while I have it. I've got, you know, kids who talk to me, who, who, who are happy to talk to me, who seem to like me. You know I've got a, I've got a wife who seems to like me. I've got friends who seem like I've got, I've got much to be grateful for and much that I'm responsible. And also I, I'm, you know, there's people that I am responsible to and for, you know, and I mean, the thing I've sort of said to my kids is that, you know, my ambition for them, for them in their lives is that I hope that,, find themselves with people who they love, who love them. That's as simple as that. That's my ambition for them in life. And I think that I'm, I have there are people who I love, who love me. And I don't mean, you know, just the romantic way, which is such a narrow cast version, but in, in the truest sense of the word love. And that's, that's about as much as I could possibly hope for in life. Grateful for what I've got and I'm trying to make the most of what I've got while I've got it. Piers: Yeah, I, I wrote a lot of stuff in, which was half in decipher un indecipherable looking back on it. But there was one thing that was like I'm on borrowed time, like every minute from here is a bonus. , I, I could, you know, I could just have easily, like I've, I, I. Yeah, I had mine during Covid and you only have to spend five minutes on Google and you look at the numbers and you go from feeling like a victim to feeling like the winner of the, the lottery because you still hear and you can still, you know, I could still look after my kids and cook a spaghetti bologne and drive and all this stuff like so, but everything feels like. A bonus to me now, this whole third chapter, like, I don't care if I don't get anything out of it. If I give everything to everyone else, then well, that's great. That's true. Joel: And, and that's, and, and I think that that's, I think that's very similar to how I look at it. Piers: So much of what you say is like articulating things that I'm still trying to find for myself, and it's not. It's not just, you know, stealing your words and making them my words, but it's, it's a way of hearing how someone, and I think, you know, apart from the, the beard and the glasses, I think you and I have actually got a little bit in common in that we're a little bit, you know you know, we like to think about these things. You know, we embrace that side of it. and I'm still on that trip. Joel: the other thing is that, you know, just to, to finish up your thought, cuz. One of the lessons I've learned is I can't rush it, it, this, this stuff takes as long as it takes. And you know, it's a bit like I remember, you know, several years after the stroke, you know, I'm sitting down with my wife, I know we're on the couch doing something, and I sort of say to her out the blue light. So what was it like for you when I had the. Piers: Mm Joel: And she looked, she gave me, she got green eyes and she gave me one of her green eyed, looks like she was about to, she, and she smiled, like one of those smiles. It's almost like I'm not sure if she's about to bite me or smile at me. And she sort of said, I was wondering how long it would take you to ask me that question. It had taken me years. I had my head at my ass to that. Piers: Yeah. Joel: took me several years to ask my wife. What was it like for you when your, your partner, a person, like she's known me since I was 17. Right. We've, we've known each other and loved each other all our adult days. So the person that you've had, you've traveled the world with and had three kids with and all the rest, when they sort of like basically have a stroke and go gaga on you, what was that like for you? and I didn't, and I was such a selfish bastard I didn't even think to ask her. And it's quite a shameful thing, to be honest. Really. There's, you know, there's, if, if there are things I could change, it would be not for me, but for my family, you know, the, you know, particularly, life. I think that, you know, yeah, yeah. I think that they, they, they put up with a fair bit and I think that, but yeah, that's also, it maybe just took me that long to get to recover to that point where I could have that conversation. Some shit you just can't rush some shit. I wish I had rushed, Piers: you know, these things have got massive implications on others. Not just because of the way we respond and treat them, but because someone that they love has driven their car into a brick wall and you know, that's it. That I could start to get a little bit of like, oh shit, this isn't all about me. This is, this is actually this is a wound to a tribe and the wound may have been inflicted on me, but the, the repair and the implications are actually on the whole bloody tribe, and it's not Yeah, that. It, it sounds so, so obvious, but it just wasn't Joel: you're getting, there sooner than I did Piers: no Joel: that. Piers: Well, it's cuz I've still got the high be beams on and I've got my foot to the floor. Joel: Good. Keep driving hard. Good. No, seriously don't do that.