Content warning: this episode discusses medical conditions including panic attacks and rare life threatening disease. And with a content warning like that, we probably don't need a description!
✍🏻 View the transcript for this episode
Content warning: this episode discusses medical conditions including panic attacks and rare life threatening disease.
And with a content warninglike that, we probably don't need a description! Jokes. We tell some more serious stories of experiences in the hospital.
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Toast & Roast:
Georgie:
Geoff:
Georgie 0:07
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Toast & Roast. I’m your co host, Georgie and as always, I’m here with Geoff. Extremely tardy Geoff.
Geoff 0:17
Yes, tardy, Geoff. You know, weekends are busy time. And I always forget that we have this podcast on.
Georgie 0:26
How can you forget? We have like a calendar.
Geoff 0:29
Yeah, it’s so the way my brain works is very tricky. Like, I’d get, I will forget things that are fortnightly. And I did this even with like, when I was watching anime, and I was like watching every week, I would still forget, like the days that they’re gonna come out. It was, it’s just impossible for me to remember. But at the same time, I’ll wake up one day and go, huh, I’m pretty sure something was supposed to happen today. I’ll have like this, like, weird feeling that something’s supposed to happen today. Or I’ll recall some random event, I’m lilke, huh, aren’t we supposed to go to this place? And then I’ll be reminded that yeah, that’s like in a month’s time or something like that. So I’ll remember some things that we’re supposed to do, but not necessarily the correct days. And I’ve automated most of my life to have like TV shows just roll in when they come up. And I don’t have to remember dates as much.
Georgie 1:32
The funny thing is like you automated it to just roll in. But it’s not at any kind of specific cadence? Is that—
Geoff 1:40
It is, it’s it’s on, it’s on the day, they like, when it gets released, maybe a day after it’s released. It’ll roll in—
Georgie 1:47
Okay.
Geoff 1:47
And then I’ll be like, oh, now I can watch it. I don’t necessarily have to think about the day it’s gonna come through. It just does.
Georgie 1:54
It’s just so automated that it just happens.
Geoff 1:57
Yeah.
Georgie 1:57
But then I would argue that the recording, like we record in such a route, in such a routine manner that you should kind of remember?
Geoff 2:07
(laughs)
Georgie 2:08
So obviously, my brain works differently. I’m very, like, live and die by my calendar type of person. At the same time, I have giant blocks of nothing, or, you know, do nothing, because I like to specifically shedule like nothing.
Geoff 2:26
The funny thing is also, I’ll rock up to train, like I don’t know, when I started to do this, but I started not giving a shit about train times. I think we’ve talked about this.
Georgie 2:34
Yeah, like, because you kept trying to perfectly time the transfers, right.
Geoff 2:41
Um, back then, if I had to do transfers, yes, I had to do like we, I would perfectly time it. But then I think at some point, I was like, yeah, you know what, not even the transfer thing. I’ll just go rock up at the train station, train will come eventually, because we’re living in a first world. And I don’t have to worry that, you know, I’ll get there and there’ll be no train for half hour. No train for an hour. Some places in Australia and Sydney. Yes, you would have to worry about it, but not where I live.
Georgie 3:10
I was in that situation the other day because I was at Qudos Bank Arena.
Geoff 3:14
Oh, another. Another concert.
Georgie 3:18
No, it was a comedy show, actually, the ones that you prefer to just watch. You prefer to watch?
Geoff 3:22
Haha. Yeah.
Georgie 3:23
Netflix comedy specials.
Geoff 3:24
Yeah.
Georgie 3:25
But we saw Michael McIntyre. And unfortunately, that day, there had been a fatality at Central Station. So the trains were all messed up for the whole afternoon. So going home, we were trying to make this train, I think even going there. We were really really like cutting it cutting it fine. And we had to run at Lidcombe to change to the Olympic Park train. Actually it was quite funny, the, the train, the guy who was—conductor, person doing announcements—
Geoff 3:56
Yes.
Georgie 3:57
Yeah. Doing the announcement said, this is, “this is a Sydney train to Olympic Park. Next up is, you guessed it, Olympic Park”.
Geoff 4:08
The sassy ones.
Georgie 4:09
Yeah. But um, towards the end of the night, like when we wanted to go home. We had to we had to sprint to get the train back towards the city because otherwise we’d be stuck at Lidcombe for like half an hour.
Geoff 4:22
Yeah, it’s, I actually kind of remember that because my partner messaged me and said, people in the office were talking about some ran, something happening at Central so I went in, I went and picked her up instead. Because obviously anything happens in Sydney, the trains go down. Rain, the trains go down. Someone sneezes, the train goes down.
Georgie 4:49
No!
Geoff 4:51
But yeah, oh, did you hear about the tram one? Not the tram. What’s the, light rail?
Georgie 4:57
Did someone get hit?
Geoff 4:58
No, some someone, so a teenager tried to so—
Georgie 5:02
I thought this was—
Geoff 5:03
Tram or light rail—
Georgie 5:04
Someone tried to jump between—
Geoff 5:06
Yeah, jumped between the cars.
Georgie 5:08
Yeah, they weren’t a passenger, right? Or they were just walk—
Geoff 5:09
No, they were just outside. For some reason, they decided to try and jump between the cars. And they tripped on this bracket that connects the cars and the tracks, the light rail took off. And then they got like, dragged underneath.
Georgie 5:28
Yeah, that sucks.
Geoff 5:29
Yeah, pretty brutal.
Georgie 5:31
I think that was pretty recently, right? Like isn’t a couple months ago.
Geoff 5:33
Yeah.
Georgie 5:33
Somebody told me about this, because I didn’t actually hear about it.
Geoff 5:37
Yeah, a couple months ago. But yeah, you said you had a busy week. What’s happening?
Georgie 5:41
Oh my god. So I’m fine now, obviously, but I was in the hospital.
Geoff 5:47
Oh, shit.
Georgie 5:48
And it just so coincidentally, my mum was in an ambulance at the same time, around the time—
Geoff 5:55
What?
Georgie 5:56
That I was in an ambulance for entirely—
Geoff 5:59
What!
Georgie 5:59
...different reasons.
Geoff 6:01
It would be weird if it were the same reason.
Georgie 6:05
So I didn’t tell my parents what happened until after because I didn’t want to freak them out. My mum was simply transported from hospital to a rehab clinic because she had like a knee surgery.
Geoff 6:17
Yeah right.
Georgie 6:17
She couldn’t fully walk yet. So they just moved her in the ambulance. And she was, I remember seeing her messages in the group chat, she had a short little video, took a photo in there, obviously in the somewhat like, excited, or kind of, “this is really novel. I’m in an ambulance for the first time”. For me, ugh, where do I start? It kind of came out of nowhere. So I’ve had some panic attacks before. But something happened, I was literally just sitting at my desk just working. And I remember just feeling a little bit hot. And I thought maybe it’s just like sun coming through, the apartment is hot. And so I opened the windows and the doors, but I closed the blinds so the sun wouldn’t be so bright. And then I just felt like my heart beating really, really fast. And then it became difficult to breathe. And it was kind of like tightness in my chest. And I thought, am I having a panic attack because the—I’ve only had a few in my life. So I thought I’ll wait for this to, what happens is it escalates for me, escalates, and and I’m in a ball on the floor, like crying and shit.
Geoff 7:21
Yeah.
Georgie 7:22
And then it just blows over. But like about 10 minutes pass, and it’s still just this constant, me just kind of struggling to sort of fill my air with fill my lungs with air, and then half an hour pass. And I thought, is this something I should be concerned about? I didn’t want to lie down because I kind of freaked out and was like, well, this could be a panic attack that’s quite a long time. Or I could die.
Geoff 7:48
And you didn’t want to tell your parents? (laughs)
Georgie 7:52
Well, no, I told them after it all like ended and after I’d like come out of the hospital. But I thought okay, this is rather concerning. So after messaging like a couple of people, like someone at work. And Nick. I was like, I’m rather worried. I am all alone as well. So I thought I’m just gonna call triple zero actually, I called the medical centre, the local medical centre to see if someone could see me like, straight away. And they were like, ah nah, we’re like booked out. And I’m like, okay, well, I’m kind of having difficulty breathing. And it’s been like half an hour. They were like—
Geoff 8:24
Shit.
Georgie 8:24
You should call triple zero, which by the way is our emergency.
Geoff 8:29
911.
Georgie 8:30
911. I don’t know what it is in other countries. Is it 411 somewhere? No that’s not.
Geoff 8:35
There’s a joke in a TV show.
Georgie 8:37
It’s The IT Crowd is it?
Geoff 8:40
0118, 999, 88199 0199 7253. I think.
Georgie 8:45
So good.
Geoff 8:47
I had to learn it. It was just the most ridiculous number. And I decided to learn it.
Georgie 8:51
That was a good episode.
Geoff 8:52
Yeah, they’re like, our ambulance drivers are hotter. And our cars are better. That’s the only difference they have. It’s just like they’re better looking. Yeah.
Georgie 9:06
So anyway, I ring them up and I asked for an ambulance. But I asked the person, the responder who answered the phone, I said, hey, look can like, can you just check that actually need an ambulance? Because I’m not sure if this is an emergency. And so they asked me a few questions after getting my address. And they said yeah, based on your answers, we do have to send out an ambulance. So I was like, uh, okay, I wasn’t I didn’t get clarity on whether they were going to take me to the hospital or what was going to happen, but they were just going to send an ambulance. I was like, okay.
Geoff 9:37
Where else is the ambulance gonna go?
Georgie 9:38
I know, right. But you know—
Geoff 9:41
Off a cliff. (laughs)
Georgie 9:40
And now I’m thinking about this, in hindsight, I’m like, maybe it was a panic attack, by the way, just just to whatever, fast forward, they couldn’t find anything suspicious eventually.
Geoff 9:50
Okay, that‘s good.
Georgie 9:51
So now I’m suspecting that was some kind of prolonged panic attack that I’ve literally never experienced before. Anyway, the paramedic’s asking me questions in the ambulance. And like I remember having to just grab my stuff because he was like, are you ready to go? I’m like, no?
Geoff 10:07
What is ready to go? To go hospital?
Georgie 10:09
I’m like, what does that even mean? Anyway. Yeah, they sent me to the hospital and they triage me and they do the ECG and all these other tests.
Geoff 10:16
Yeah.
Georgie 10:16
And then eventually Nick arrives and he was joking that other people in the waiting room clearly had more serious problems than I did.
Geoff 10:27
(laughs)
Georgie 10:28
They were more injured. There was someone coming in, I think coughing up blood.
Geoff 10:32
Oh, shit. Yeah.
Georgie 10:33
There was someone who had been in some kind of work related accident. So his hand was like bloody and he was trying to, I think he was holding it up to stop the, what do you call it, like to, so the blood flow wasn’t still going to his hand.
Geoff 10:44
Yeah.
Georgie 10:44
To, was elevating his hand. Yeah. So, I think, and they sent me a text message with some info. And it said, you can expect to be in the emergency department, ED, for maybe around four hours. And yeah, they started calling in people who had come in after me, but they were probably like more, I mean, like, dude, I’m like, young and healthy. And they said, well, my heart seemed fine from the ECG. So they must have put me further down the list or whatever. Anyway.
Geoff 11:13
Well, if your Apple Watch doesn’t tell you, you’re dying, then why did you even call anybody.
Georgie 11:16
But I have like, the older version, right? So it doesn’t have the ECG.
Geoff 11:19
Oh, doesn’t have ECG.
Georgie 11:20
All I could see was like my heart rate. So my heart rate, like usually is like, I dunno, 50 something or whatever. And at the time, it was like, in the 80s just hanging around there. I was like, this is unusual. So yeah. Anyway, the paramedic did say, you know, it is better that you call.
Geoff 11:38
Yeah. 100%.
Georgie 11:39
Rather than you have many undocumented sort of like episodes that could have been better, like, you know, written down, but they did like blood tests. They did a COVID test, obviously, a chest X ray, urine sample. What’s the one one?
Geoff 11:57
That’s always fun. Yeah, those are always fun. Like if it does, if people don’t know, I don’t know who hasn’t done a urine sample.
Georgie 12:06
Pee into the little cup.
Geoff 12:07
It’s like, they want you to take midstream. Like when I first learned—
Georgie 12:11
Yeah, fuck that.
Geoff 12:13
When I first learned about it, they were like, please give us midstream and I’m like, midstream? So like I obviously tried, I’m like alright, I’ll just pee and then I guess I’ll stop. And it’s like the weirdest feeling to stop mid stream and then pee into the cup. And—
Georgie 12:26
You don’t have to stop. You can just wet the cup. By accident—
Geoff 12:29
You just like splash it. Like just get it all over your hand. It’s fine. But I got really good at it.
Georgie 12:36
(laughs) Wait, that’s just because you were, you were?
Geoff 12:40
Yeah.
Georgie 12:41
Had a lot of time in the...
Geoff 12:43
Time. Yeah, I copped some significant time in the hospital.
Georgie 12:47
Which you just like never talked about?
Geoff 12:49
Have I not spoken about it on the podcast?
Georgie 12:50
Have not talked about it on the pod. But you say sometimes you quote unquote sort of like, you know joke about it—
Geoff 12:55
Oh, joke. Yeah.
Georgie 12:56
Like “I almost died”, and you’re just like, maybe I shouldn’t do that?
Geoff 13:01
Yes.
Georgie 13:01
Because it is quite serious. But it kind of, you said it kind of, made you look, experience things to like, look at things different.
Geoff 13:08
I don’t I don’t know if it did.
Georgie 13:10
(laughs)
Geoff 13:10
But I do do that. Like, I’ll be in conversation. One person I’ve told and like the rest of the group I haven’t. And then and I’m like, yeah, like that time I just almost died. And then everyone went to stops and asks. Okay?
Georgie 13:22
We are all morbidly curious. That’s why they ask.
Geoff 13:25
Yes. Anyways, continue your story. So you were like, what were they saying? They’re not sure what it was.
Georgie 13:33
Yeah. So they they did all the tests. And they said, everything seems fine. Even especially the ECG, which is like the heart. They said, my heart’s good. It was even like low, like low.
Geoff 13:43
Yeah. What’s yours now? I just checked mine.
Georgie 13:46
Oh, are you talking about my heart rate? Well, it’s kinda warm in here. So let’s find out. Let’s get—
Geoff 13:51
Why is mine 91. And my talk, is it because I talked about me dying?
Georgie 13:54
Yeah you were talking about—ooh mine says 71. Five minutes ago, which, OK, now it’s 87. It’s because we’re just talking.
Geoff 14:01
Yeah.
Georgie 14:01
Now we’re paranoid.
Geoff 14:03
Resting is 72 today.
Georgie 14:06
Mine is 60.
Geoff 14:09
Woah.
Georgie 14:09
Resting is 60.
Geoff 14:11
I’ve been cleaning all day. So gonna chalk that up to, I don’t know, actually, would it average my resting heart rate higher if I just kept it high? Most? During the day? I’ve no idea how heart rate works.
Georgie 14:23
Well... Maybe? Yeah, during during one specific day, if you happen to be very active, it will probably be higher. But I actually do get those warnings on my watch that say your heart rate fell below 40 beats per minute—
Geoff 14:36
Woah.
Georgie 14:37
At 5am this morning. So when I’m sleeping, I get the warning sometimes.
Geoff 14:42
Do you have sleep apnea, then? Isn’t that—
Georgie 14:44
Nah.
Geoff 14:45
...what happens when you have sleep apnea is when you—oh that’s stop breathing, not stop beating.
Georgie 14:50
It’s not stop. It’s just they said it’s low, lower than 40 beats. They found it unusual. I think it might be like usually your heart rates lower if you’re very athletic. Like if you’re an ultra runner, you’re heart is boom, boom. But, yeah, so they couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary. I did tell them that actually kind of recently I had. This is funny, I’ll say it in the medical way: epigastric pains, because I had some like digestive problems recently. So I thought that could have contributed. And they were asking me about that as well. And then I had to do the UBT urea breath test from my GP.
Geoff 15:32
What’s that test?
Georgie 15:33
So you take a pill and you wait, and you have to do it fasted, like you haven’t eaten or drink drunk anything in the morning, take a pill, wait a few minutes, and then take a bit more water to wash it down and then wait like another seven minutes and then you blow into a balloon. Take a big deep breath, and you blow into a balloon and they collect that air that you’ve blown, and they test if you’ve got like, I think it’s like something pylori, some kind of stomach bacteria. And then you just get rid of it with like a course of antibiotics.
Geoff 16:02
Interesting.
Georgie 16:02
It’s like, not contagious, but it can be spread if you kiss people or if you shared utensils.
Geoff 16:09
Poor Nick.
Georgie 16:10
What was that, poor Nick? Yeah, so the doctor said, if it comes back positive, like, we’ll just test him and then we’ll start you on the antibiotics at the same time. But it seems like it’s not something serious anyway. But yeah, like they, at the hospital they wrote me a letter from my GP that outlined what they tested. And they were like, they wrote like, oh, she said, this felt like a panic attack, but just a little bit, like out of the ordinary or whatever. So I’m fine. And I got my tattoo, my tattoo the next day. And my personal trainer was joking. It was like, maybe you were having a panic attack about getting the tattoo.
Geoff 16:48
Yeah, I’d connect those two, definitely.
Georgie 16:53
But it was fine. It was actually a really positive experience. Yeah.
Geoff 16:57
What did you get again?
Georgie 16:59
I got like this, you know, the green plant. The plant I have in my background? Well, not right now. It’s—
Geoff 17:04
Oh okay.
Georgie 17:04
But the leafy one, yes, it’s a Monstera El Salvador, which is a kind of rare species of Monstera. And I got something like that on my upper left thigh.
Geoff 17:15
Okay.
Georgie 17:16
Actually is higher than I thought so you can’t actually see it. Unless I’m like in a bikini or I’m wearing like, really short shorts.
Geoff 17:23
Yeah.
Georgie 17:24
So it’s like easy to hide, which I don’t mind.
Geoff 17:27
It’s a bit of psychology to that. I think.
Georgie 17:29
To what, like having it hidden?
Geoff 17:31
Yeah, I think like, people who put tattoos in places that are easily easily hidden, like does that mean that they would rather people not know they had a tattoo for fear of negative repercussions perhaps?
Georgie 17:50
Well see, I didn’t care about that at all. And I actually originally wanted it to be a little bit seen. But just the way that I asked the artist to kind of make it follow the muscle on my leg, it ended up being just more hidden than I expected. But then I’m like, oh, that doesn’t really bother me. I don’t mind either way, but now it makes me want to just add more and make it bigger so people can see it.
Geoff 18:10
Exactly, right. What’s the point of getting a tattoo? If it’s rarely seen. But I guess you can get it for yourself?
Georgie 18:18
Yeah.
Geoff 18:18
It’s like, only only people people close to me know that I have a tattoo.
Georgie 18:25
Although like, because my tattoo artist, like he does have like an Instagram profile where he’s shares stuff, like, so, he does have some like like videos that he got one of the other artists to take of like him doing the work. So, it’s like some people are just gonna end up seeing my upper thigh on the internet.
Geoff 18:43
Ooh, upper thighs. It’s the new feet.
Georgie 18:45
(laughs) But yeah, I’m really happy with the result. And it wasn’t as like painful as I thought it was gonna be.
Geoff 18:54
So now you’re gonna get a jungle on your entire thigh.
Georgie 18:58
You know you’re absolutely right. I’m already thinking about what else I want.
Geoff 19:02
So this is the gateway. (laughs)
Georgie 19:03
Yeah. Nick got one on the same day as well like—
Geoff 19:06
Oh, that’s fun, you got like couples tattoo.
Georgie 19:09
Well nah, it’s not the same he got one at a different place and he got something totally different, so he thought up you know that cosmic perspective?
Geoff 19:17
No, I was gonna say yes, but no.
Georgie 19:20
(laughs) Yes but no. It’s the like the idea that we are all made of like star stuff because the, what like were made up of like the universes with within, like we are one with the universe and the universe is one with us because like—
Geoff 19:36
Okay.
Georgie 19:36
We are kind of the same as like—
Geoff 19:40
Cosmic...
Georgie 19:40
Scientifically. Like well carbon, carbon and and all of the other elements and stuff, and the stuff in space and in in nature.
Geoff 19:49
Okay, now I’m really curious how you like, how you condense that into a—
Georgie 19:55
Yes...
Geoff 19:56
A tattoo.
Georgie 19:57
That’s what he struggled with, but he found an artist that did similar like sort of visuals to what he might want. But he did have to think about it and sort of flesh out like, okay, what, what does he want visually in it? What does he want it to mean? So, yeah, he wrote a lot like for himself personally to kind of help bring the idea together. So there’s a few different elements to it. Like there’s a there’s a silhouette in the middle with a galaxy in it.
Geoff 20:27
Oh.
Georgie 20:28
It’s like a sun with an atom, there’s a tree or there’s a tree with like a DNA spiral, like as the as the tree trunk.
Geoff 20:34
Geez. So it’s very elaborate.
Georgie 20:38
Yeah—
Geoff 20:38
I guess.
Georgie 20:39
Yeah, indicate the cosmic perspective.
Geoff 20:42
Yeah, I guess with a concept like cosmic perspective, it’s like, I would like quantum computing. Like, what? What do you do with like, quantum mechanics? How do you put a quantum mechanics on a tattoo?
Georgie 20:56
Yeah.
Geoff 20:56
That’d be pretty difficult. Well, that’s, that’s good. Look for looking forward to the jungle emerging from your upper left thigh.
Georgie 21:05
Yeah that would be weird right. Could also go the other direction, start coming up my rib and arm. I’ve seen some really elaborate like, flower floral tattoos, where people would just get the entirety of their body. And I think that’s cool. But I just don’t know if I would want the same thing completely up my body. I don’t know.
Geoff 21:29
Well.
Georgie 21:30
Stay tuned.
Geoff 21:30
I mean, just take where the addiction takes you.
Georgie 21:35
Yeah.
Geoff 21:37
My brother actually went to the hospital, I think was it last year, the year before, maybe even more than that. And we only found out last year that he, like the family only found out last year that he went to the hospital.
Georgie 21:51
Yeah.
Geoff 21:51
I think only my parents knew. But like, we found out like two three years later. And he was like, yeah, I didn’t want to worry anybody. It’s like, yeah, but at the same time, you could have like, died and none of us would have known. Like, that’s... it’s quite possibility. I guess since we have a bit of time, I will tell my death story.
Georgie 22:18
Oh no!
Geoff 22:18
Nothing too dramatic. Nothing too dramatic. So I don’t—yeah, I don’t see it as too much of a big deal. So anytime something hospital related comes up, I’m like, oh, yeah. I use like something.
Georgie 22:31
By the way...!
Geoff 22:32
Yeah, something like, when people get vaccinations, I’ll just give them like a fun fact that I’ve had five vaccinations all at once. Three on one, arm two on the other. I had—
Georgie 22:46
During, in the same session.
Geoff 22:47
Sitting down I had three people, one, two people one side and one person on the other side, they all injected me simultaneously. This is because I had to reset my immune system. And they had to give me every every hepatitis etc. Like immunisation because I had no immune system, or a fresh one. But they asked me if I want it one at a time or the same time and I was like, oh, yeah, I’ll just take it all at the same time. Because who wants to be stabbed five times, one after the other? Yeah. Anyways, so this is when I was 15. So it was quite a while ago. Won’t doxx my own age, I guess. But... was it 15? 14, 15? 15? Anyways, basically, one one night. Was it nighttime? No, it was during the day. So I came back from school and mum just looked at me and said, hey, you look a bit pale. So we went to our G, our family GP and they took a blood test and like, that night, the the the GP called and said, well, I didn’t hear this, but they but he said you have to bring Geoff straight to the hospital. So we got in the car, I had no idea what was going on. But my mum and dad were just like, we’re going to hospital now. Like okay, so freaking out a little bit. And we get there. And they explained to me that I have something called aplastic anemia. The best short form description I’ve come across is that the bone marrow went a little bit cannibalistic and started like started consuming itself, started to like erode itself. It’s kinda like cancer, but not. They also said that it would be easier to cure leukemia than it would be to cure aplastic anemia. And if you look it up, it’s, I had the severe version. But essentially, they had my, so, like I guess bone marrow produces the platelets that produces the immune system, that fights, fights all the viruses, right? So they basically stopped producing that. So I stopped having an immune system and basically got locked up in a hospital room for two and a half months.
Georgie 25:15
Locked up?
Geoff 25:16
Yep. The they wiped everything down every day, if you thought having to wash your hands before you do anything because of COVID I have experienced the extreme version. So for the first, so I had to do some prep stuff and I had a light light leukemia, not light leukemia, light chemo, right? So I lost all my hair and stuff like that. I also had things like ATGAM, if anybody knows random immuno, immuno—
I don’t know, what’s ATGAM?
I have no idea what it is, some kind of drug. It’s all drugs. Immuno, immune globulin, anti, there, okay, so basically, it, I guess boosts my immune system, from a, from a chemical perspective. So the cure is a bone marrow transplant. So what you need is a donor with a 99.9% match to your genes, or—genes? Blood? I can’t, but I can’t remember what it is, anyways.
Georgie 26:27
Yeah, yeah.
Geoff 26:27
Percent match. Bone marrow for people who don’t know, is actually an organ. So it’s akin to an organ transplant. And I was lucky enough that two people, two, two of my siblings are 99.9% matches. So it was my oldest sister, and my younger brother, they took my younger brothers because A, he’s younger, B, he’s a boy. (laughs)
Georgie 26:54
Yeah.
Geoff 26:55
But the age does does make a difference between because after a certain age, you get a marker in your genes or in your blood, whatever. And that marker could possibly negatively affect a transfer. So younger is better, you know, the whole bathe in virgin’s blood type, thing is totally relevant if this, for some reason. Anyways, so this is why my stay was actually quite short. There were very, there were a lot of children in that children’s hospital who were on the waiting list for donors and couldn’t get one essentially.
Georgie 27:35
Wow.
Geoff 27:35
Because you like the only way to get out of this quickly. Quickly, quote unquote quickly—is to have a relative with a match so so yeah, they, back then the methods for extracting bone marrow was very rudimentary, I guess. They have to drill four holes along the back of your hip bone and literally extract. Like. Nowadays apparently is much more simpler. I think you don’t they don’t even have the drill anymore. I don’t even know how that works. But—
Georgie 28:12
So they just somehow take it out of you.
Geoff 28:14
Yeah, somehow take it out of you. I haven’t looked up recent bone marrow extraction methods. But transference is so much easier. If it was just like a blood. It was like a like you have an IV.
Georgie 28:28
Yeah.
Geoff 28:28
And then they just give it to you like blood, and your body understands where to put that. So it puts it into your, into the bone marrow because they understood, understand that it’s bone marrow, which is really strange. Correct me if I’m wrong, because this was a long time ago.
Georgie 28:44
I am not a doctor.
Geoff 28:45
Yeah, I’m not a doctor either. So oh, so basically, the idea is to kill off the bone, the existing bone marrow a little bit, because it might be cancerous. So you kill off the bad bone marrow. Well, there’s no way to kill off specifically the bad bone marrow, you just kill it all off, really.
Georgie 29:06
Yeah.
Geoff 29:07
That’s why I had light chemo because I think they didn’t want to kill everything. They just wanted to kill it off a bit. And then just replace it with the new one. And you can have rejection. So there’s grass, graft versus host disease that can happen, that can happen, didn’t happen to me. But essentially, at the at the end of it, the doctors are like you’re you are a textbook case of like how this could go. Like you came in. You have a you have a donor from family that’s a younger male, and you didn’t get any complications and then you’re out the door. So yeah, for awhile, I didn’t have an immune system. And then I had to check in every three, then five years or something like that, but I haven’t. I haven’t needed to do anything since I was 20 I guess? Yeah, three and five years. Yeah. So overall, I got a wish, because technically you can die from this. So we have a wish Make A Wish Foundation that gives a wish to all of the people who are terminally ill and could die or are dying. My parents decided to give that wish away. I wanted an Xbox. They wanted to be philanthropic. And they they gave the gave the wish to a teenage shelter, like homeless teenage shelter. They wished for a barbecue.
Georgie 30:34
Yeah.
Geoff 30:35
At the time. I was like, Why did they want to barbecue? They could have gotten an Xbox. (laughs)
Georgie 30:38
(laughs)
Geoff 30:41
They gave me an Xbox whilst I was there. There was no Wi Fi. By the way.
Georgie 30:45
Yeah. Wow. Yes. Whoa.
Geoff 30:49
Yes.
Georgie 30:49
How old am I again?
Geoff 30:52
I mean, the rest of the hospital had Wi Fi. They just hadn’t installed it in this part of the wing. The children’s wing did not have Wi Fi which I guess it makes sense. Because they’re all less than 10 years old. Yeah. Not really into Wi Fi back then. And—
Georgie 31:09
(laughs) Not really into Wi Fi.
Geoff 31:11
Yeah.
Georgie 31:11
No one’s actually into the actual Wi Fi. It’s stuff that the Wi Fi gives you.
Geoff 31:15
I’m super into the waves, man. So yeah. Oh, actually. So things that came out of it. Right? They interviewed me. I didn’t feel like I changed very much. But they wanted to get my like, view. I was I was 15 Like, just get get me out of the hospital and I can like go do other stuff. How do you know you didn’t change much? Yeah, exactly. I don’t know. Because I was 15. And I was like, I don’t know, I I feel same as I did before. But probably things changed. I know that it kicked out in my career though. That was the thing. So without Wi Fi. I had a lap. I got my sister’s laptop or something like that for the time. And I all I had was Photoshop. So did I I did I did so I started playing around with all the default preset like stamps and then stickers and stuff like that and gradients brushes and brushes. Yeah, so made wallpapers and then that has foreign banners. Yeah, all the all the stuff that we talked about in like previous episodes, that’s that’s where I started. And then websites, I started designing those and then I learned how to build them and then now I’m here. So it did change my career perspective. I suppose I spent a lot of time on a laptop with no Wi Fi.
Georgie 32:01
How do you know you didn’t change much?
Geoff 32:04
Yeah, exactly. I don’t know. Because I was 15. And I was like, I don’t know, I I feel same as I did before. But probably things changed. I know that it kickstarted my career though. That was the thing. So without Wi Fi. I had a lap. I got my sister’s laptop or something like that for the time. And I all I had was Photoshop. So—
Georgie 32:04
Did you design banners and stuff?
Geoff 32:06
I did, I did. So I started playing around with all the default preset like stamps and stickers and stuff like that and gradients.
Georgie 32:14
The brushes and things.
Geoff 32:15
The brushes. Yeah, so I made wallpapers and then...
Georgie 32:20
Avatars, forum banners.
Geoff 32:21
Avatars, forum banners. Yeah, all the—
Georgie 32:23
Forum signatures.
Geoff 32:24
All the stuff that we talked about in like previous episodes, that’s that’s where I started. And then websites, I started designing those. And then I learned how to build them and then now I’m here. So it did change my career perspective, I suppose? I spent a lot of time on a laptop with no Wi Fi.
Georgie 32:44
But you were also very young, right. So like, it might not have been, not, maybe not career but it got you interested.
Geoff 32:52
It gave me a skill. Ish. I don’t know if it was a very good skill at the time.
Georgie 32:57
Hey, I did that shit too. It’s like shitty banners was somewhere in existence that I’ve designed.
Geoff 33:03
At some point, I realised my designs weren’t that great. And I could, I have enjoyed coding more than design games.
Georgie 33:09
Yeah, this happened to me too. I was like, man, they look kind of shitty aye.
Geoff 33:15
Yeah, that’s what you get for messing around with no educational material in a Faraday cage. I watched a lot of SpongeBob because they had Nickelodeon, but they didn’t have anything else. Like, I could have done with some Cartoon Network. But they just had Nickelodeon. So I woke up shockingly early in the morning. And then I just have the TV. It just plays non stop. SpongeBob SquarePants. And yeah, so that was about it. It’s only lasted two and a half months. I took a lot of pills, so I can swallow pills very well if that’s a skill that people.
Georgie 33:56
Some people struggle. I don’t know if it’s a skill. I think some people will actually just have trouble swallowing pills.
Geoff 34:02
Yeah, it’s not natural. And yeah.
Georgie 34:04
Yeah, I’ve heard of like a, I don’t know if it’s like a condition or something where your windpipe esophagus something is actually like, quite small.
Geoff 34:16
Oh that’s a good point.
Georgie 34:17
So you have trouble like doing something like swallowing pills and I think there’s an operation you can do, I think—
Geoff 34:23
(laughs) You go to get an operation just to swallow pills.
Georgie 34:27
No, oh sorry. (laughs) Like to to kind of make it so that area is not too narrow or something like that.
Geoff 34:35
Yeah, I can imagine that might have some like medical problems.
Georgie 34:41
Yeah. Like—
Geoff 34:42
If your thing’s too small.
Georgie 34:43
I think also like eating, can, more a choking like a risk of choking as well. So yeah, I don’t know what it’s called. Or if it’s like a condition but I think yeah, you can get an operation for it because we had like a family friend go through something like this.
Geoff 35:00
Yeah, that’s, that’s gnarly. Oh, yeah. So like, throughout the entire time I’ve, I had I had to get a blood test every week, maybe every three, every two to three days maybe every week. So I am very adept at getting blood taken from me.
Georgie 35:18
You know when I was a kid, I did not realise that when you get blood taken the blood regenerates.
Geoff 35:26
Ah, I suppose.
Georgie 35:28
I didn’t, I just didn’t know this. So I thought every time I get a blood test, I’m losing blood.
Geoff 35:32
Oh, I never thought about that.
Georgie 35:34
It just did not occur to me because like when I was diagnosed with high cholesterol I was like 10 years old. So I was pretty young. And then they were getting me to do like a blood test every like three to six months. And I was like, if they keep doing this to me so frequently, like it’s the blood the blood can’t come back, like I probably can’t do this forever. Right? It’s just one of those kid things that you just don’t think about.
Geoff 35:55
Yeah, yeah, I suppose I understood the human body enough at 15. So I guess I’d never questioned it. But yeah, 10?
Georgie 36:03
Yeah, I mean, the other thing is like, as a woman I’m just like, am I losing blood when I’m a period as well. It’s just... (laughs)
Geoff 36:10
Yeah, it’s just like wait, I’m losing blood all the way, like when am I gonna get this back?
Georgie 36:15
And then like, I just had this image in my mind of like having a limited supply of blood in your body, and you know how, maybe I was also thinking about, you know if you’re in an accident and you lose a lot of blood, you could die instantly and it was just maybe that was like, knowing that that could be a thing that happened maybe got into my mind, that there’s like a limited amount. And then it’s like, oh, yeah—I mean, yes, you can put it back through like a blood transfusion, but I didn’t think that the body like—
Geoff 36:42
Generates it.
Georgie 36:43
Yeah, yeah.
Geoff 36:45
Funny thing about blood blood transfusions. The first time they gave me a blood transfusion I passed out. I did.
Georgie 36:53
Oof.
Geoff 36:53
I did one of those things where, oh, they just gave me a blood transfusion, sweet. I’m gonna go to the bathroom. So I take my walking stick thing and I’m like, rolling it down the down the hallway, and then I get woozy. And then like, I collapse on one of the side, or one of the cots that are that are nearby. And then I like wake up and I’m in my bed. And I’m like, woah, I had never experienced like, absolutely passing out.
Georgie 37:20
So wait, how come that happens? So you got the—
Geoff 37:22
I’m allergic to blood transfusions?
Georgie 37:26
Woah.
Geoff 37:27
Yeah, of all allergies. I’m allergic to blood transfusions.
Georgie 37:30
How?
Geoff 37:32
I don’t know. They didn’t really explain it.
Georgie 37:35
OK.
Geoff 37:35
But basically, I have to have Benadryl which basically, which knocks me out before every transfusion. I had to go to sleep before every transfusion to avoid—
Georgie 37:46
Otherwise that would happen again.
Geoff 37:47
Yeah, yeah. So I took an anti histamine.
Georgie 37:50
So like, if you were in an accident, and they had to give you one.
Geoff 37:53
Yeah.
Georgie 37:53
Like, they’d have to know—oh well if you already passed out, then...
Geoff 37:58
Oh, yeah.
Georgie 37:58
Would that be OK? But what if you were like—
Geoff 38:00
I guess so.
Georgie 38:00
...like being rushed to hospital in an ambulance after an accident and they’re like, we need to give you a blood transfusion, do you need to be in a state, like a state where you can tell them—
Geoff 38:07
I guess so. Yeah.
Georgie 38:09
“I, I’m allergic!”
Geoff 38:10
That, the, so whenever someone asks, like a doctor asks me, “Are you allergic to anything?” I’m like, does blood transfusions count? And they’re like, oh that’s not relevant to this but I’m like—
Georgie 38:19
What!
Geoff 38:19
I just have to tell them.
Georgie 38:21
But, but, but that’s... is it allergic? Or is it—because when I think of an allergic reaction, your body like gives you hives or something like that?
Geoff 38:32
Yeah.
Georgie 38:32
You you start your body rejects it somehow but then if you just pass out, that doesn’t seem like it’s in line with an allergy, I guess.
Geoff 38:40
Yeah, I don’t know. But that’s the way it goes.
Georgie 38:43
Maybe there’s another term for it. That’s not “allergy”.
Geoff 38:46
Yeah, allergic to blood transfusions... Yeah, “some people have allergic reactions to blood received during a transfusion, even when given the right blood type. In these cases, symptoms include, hives itching, like most allergic reactions, this can be treated with antihistamines”. Okay, yeah. Hives and itching. Well, I get, I pass out.
Georgie 39:10
That maybe isn’t allergic then, maybe it’s something else.
Geoff 39:14
I mean, I don’t know. Anyways, so that’s the story. I can swallow nine pills, at a time, and I can grade people’s performance on blood extraction. Fun fact, I just learned recently that the person taking blood from you is called a phlebotomist.
Georgie 39:38
Phlebotomist. Yeah.
Geoff 39:40
Yeah.
Georgie 39:41
I’ve heard this before.
Geoff 39:43
I don’t know why they’re called phlebotomists, like it sounds... It sounds. flamboyant.
Georgie 39:49
Phlebotomy means something right. What does phlebotomy mean?
Geoff 39:53
Oh, it’s phlebotom...
Georgie 39:54
Yeah.
Geoff 39:54
“The process of making a puncture in a vein”. Oh. (laughs)
Georgie 39:57
You know, I call them nurses. I just call them—
Geoff 40:01
Yeah.
Georgie 40:01
Like, like what I call the person who I saw who took the urea breath test and had me breathe into a balloon? I just called them a nurse.
Geoff 40:09
Yeah. And I think that, well, it’s actually kind of makes sense. Because there’s, like, when you go get your... I can’t remember what it’s called. Blood transaction.
Georgie 40:23
Transaction? Transfusion. Wait... extracted?
Geoff 40:25
Extraction. Is it something else that it’s called?
Georgie 40:30
When you give a sample of blood.
Geoff 40:31
Yeah, when you give a blood sample. I found that like, there’s this is one person sitting in a room, right? And that’s the person that takes it from you. I was kind of like, now that I’m thinking about it. It makes sense. Like, oh, they’re, they’re a specialty. So not every not any nurse can take can take blood from you. Maybe it’s part of the nursing, like, course that you have to be like a phlebotomist as well. But yeah, it may. It’s kind of interesting.
Georgie 41:00
But you could also maybe call them a clinician. I don’t know. Because like, obviously, the person I saw didn’t just do my—
Geoff 41:08
Oh. Yeah.
Georgie 41:09
But they had, they did do like the—
Geoff 41:11
The whole works.
Georgie 41:13
And yeah, what’s the other thing like taking your, I mean, not taking the urine sample but collecting sample—
Geoff 41:19
Just taking it from you.
Georgie 41:20
Or, what, yeah, but I think most of the time I go there for a blood test if I just call them a nurse.
Geoff 41:25
What’s that one way you’re like, oh, lo... lobotomy. Lobotomy. Yeah, it’s a type of brain surgery where they they use it to “treat mental health conditions such as schizophrenia”.
Georgie 41:39
Well that’s some old shit, right.
Geoff 41:41
Yeah, it’s bad. 1930s. “Severing the connection between the frontal lobe and other parts of the brain”. So yeah, when you can you can get lobotomised. I think that’s the joke that people usually say in, in TV shows. I don’t know what kind of joke it is, but yeah, lobotomy. That’s fun. So yeah, that’s the story. And that’s all we got time for.
Georgie 42:05
Haha.
Geoff 42:06
Stay frosty. So fricking cold.
Georgie 42:11
Stay well. Stay well.
Geoff 42:12
Stay well. Stay well. Do not take ambulances for fun. They’re expensive.
Georgie 42:20
But better safe than sorry.
Geoff 42:22
True.
Georgie 42:23
I don’t know when I’m going to be charged for that shit. Doesn’t matter.
Geoff 42:26
Points, just put it on credit card.
Georgie 42:28
Woo.
Geoff 42:32
So you can follow us on @toastroastpod on Twitter.
Georgie 42:38
Oh, you can also email us.
Geoff 42:40
Yes.
Georgie 42:41
Yes.
Geoff 42:41
toastroastpod@gmail.com.
Georgie 42:44
Yes, sorry. We don’t have a website, but email us questions because we have a 100th episode coming soon. And we want to have your questions, or your roasts. We’ll read out the hate mail too. So.
Geoff 42:56
Yeah.
Georgie 42:56
Send us your roasts.
Geoff 42:58
Can send us, send us one word, 20 words, however many. What else have we got? Uh, yeah. Listening?
Georgie 43:07
Yes, yes. You can find us on Apple podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to your podcasts, and the big blood transfusion.
Geoff 43:16
Yes. And new episodes every week, so.
Georgie 43:22
See you next week.
Geoff 43:24
Bye.