Ep. #1 Double Whammy!!!

Welcome to the very first episode of Heartbreak Warfare. In this episode we get to know Caroline's story of cancer diagnosis, treatments and how it changed her life forever. A survivor looking for meaning. in her new life, Mike entered her life and again changed her forever, also a survivor Mike later fell to the disease after finding the love of his life.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Welcome to Heartbreak Warfare, the podcast about love, loss, and the absolutely unhinged things we do in the name of free. This definitely isn't a self-help show. And we're not here to tell you everything happens for a reason. Because honestly, sometimes it just doesn't.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

What does happen is heartbreak. And when it shows up, it doesn't just knock. It flips your life upside down, messes with your brain chemistry, and convinces you that crying in your car or laughing at the worst possible moment is somehow normal.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Here we talk about the love that mattered, the loss that changed us, and the messy, human, a lot of times questionable coping mechanisms that come with it.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

We're going to laugh and we're gonna get honest and we're gonna say things people usually whisper, if they say them at all. If you're in the middle of heartbreak, coming out of the other side, or pretending you're fine when you absolutely are not. You belong here.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

I'm Caroline Matika.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

And I'm Chase Peckham. This is Heartbreak Warfare, and you're not broken. You're just surviving love and loss the best way you know how. Let's get into it. Oh, you shouldn't be nervous. Episode one, what's to be nervous about? Welcome everybody to Heartbreak Warfare, the number one episode, our pilot episode, so to speak. I'm Chase Peckham here with Caroline Motica, and we are in the heart of it. It is March. It is for those in the colon cancer world, it is colorectal cancer awareness month. And Caroline, I know that it's already been a crazy month for you, and we are barely not even halfway apart.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Insane, but exciting. Like the kickoff to the whole year of awareness was March 1st. And so we've got some amazing momentum going into the whole year of awareness for colorectal cancer. Yeah, but super fun to be in DC with fight colorectal cancer. Um, my job, uh, but also my purpose and passion. Um, fight colorectal cancer hosts um an event called Call on Congress. And that's where we actually go uh to the hill um in Washington, D.C. Um, and alongside of that, we host an event called the United in Blue. And that is where we place 27,000 flags on the National Mall uh in honor of uh of those that are impacted and actually that we will lose to colorectal cancer under the age of 50 uh by 2030. So if you're in Washington, DC, it's really, really moving to go and see the flags. They're right in front of the Capitol. Um, but what we do is beyond the United and Blue and honoring and and remembering those, um, all of the advocates, survivors, those impacted by colorectal cancer, we also have United and we have uh call in Congress. See, I'm gonna, I goofed up there. Call in Congress is 300 people strong, 300 advocates strong. And we come for a weekend um of training, of being together and learning about what policies that we need to work on to help protect um all colorectal cancer survivors, those in treatment. Um, and we had some big important asks this year because as you know, colorectal cancer is now the leading cause of cancer death between men and women under the age of 50. And so we really were able to go to the Hill and ask for some big priorities to change. Um right now, if I can like indulge a little bit if you want me to, like, but love indulgence. Right now, the way it looks, we have something in the government called the CD MRP, and that's primarily how colorectal cancer is funded. Um, research is funded for colorectal cancer. Um, it's the only one of the top five cancer killers that doesn't have its own program. So outside of the CD MRP arm of research, we don't have our own program to fund research and fund opportunities to find new treatments for colorectal cancer patients. And what that looks like to a patient is we're leaving good research on the table to save lives. So they there might be a hundred, a hundred research opportunities that are submitted, and we can't fund them because we only are allowed so much money within the CDMRP, and we don't have any additional monies to support research. On top of that, we don't have any um additional funding to work with screening opportunities. And we made some noise, I think, on Capitol Hill. We asked a lot of questions. We raised our voices to our congressional leaders and said something has to be done, something needs to be changed. We asked them to fund a program, a $20 million program within the CDMRP to designate a prioritized fund for colorectal cancer. And then we also asked them, we also asked our representatives to uh sign on to a caucus to start talking about what we need to do. And then we also started a letter that we asked our senators to sign on to that says we need to prioritize um colorectal cancer because there's this huge risk that exists now. And I think that, you know, interestingly enough, I was really concerned. I think a lot of us were worried as constituents that we were going to get a lot of pushback this year. And interestingly enough, I think we all could say ears are up and um people are listening. I think that with having the um the ACS release the data that said, hey, colorectal cancer is now the leading cause of death. And two years ago we said, oh, it's not going to be until 2030. And it actually happened in 2026, so four years ahead of the plan.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

And so I think that when that came out, people started raising their hands and saying, boy, we do need to make this a priority. So hopefully we've ignited some fires that can push forward opportunities to, you know, to do more with our legislative bodies, because we all know that's where it starts, right? We need the money to run the programmings.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Yeah, I mean, research is extraordinarily important. And I know that when Carrie was going through her treatment, it was almost like it wasn't colorectal cancer specific. It was this is how we treat quote unquote cancer in the first steps. And I know that, like with breast cancer, for instance, a friend of mine just got diagnosed, and they got some special chemo that they're doing right now that just goes right to it, that's like really targeted for that cancer. So I'm hopefully that's the way colorectal cancer will will go in that direction.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

Yeah, like so hope that like biomarkers, right? She's probably talking about biomarkers. And like Carrie and Mike, they had drugs that were 50 years old. I had drugs that were 50 years old. They're also repurposing those drugs, and they're, you know, they're not sustainable, you know, for the long term. We're recognizing different biomarkers exist. And um to your point with your friend, you know, like that's a big deal when you can identify a biomarker and then be like able to be responsive to a treatment that's relatively specific to that biomarker. That's um that's a huge, it's a huge win, you know, for anyone that is a late stage, you know, patient, um, to be able to go in and attack those cells right away and and and target those specific biomarkers. I mean, that's huge. And we don't have that opportunity. We're just discovering that.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Exactly. And that that that's the future. That that's what everybody's body is uniquely different and with um all all of the different types of um cancer cells, the the a mutation. Mutation, that's it.

unknown 8:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

Yes. It was her mutation that was very um it was an aggressive mutation and probably something like that. Yeah, uh that's right. So I'm hope hopefully that's the direction we're going in. And there's a reason that we're doing this podcast.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

There is a reason that we are here.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Um and give us a little just you know, you you kind of this this episode's called double whammy because you've been through a double whammy. Um you're a survivor. You you have gone through the gauntlet of being diagnosed, um, going through treatment, going through surgeries. And then you've also gone through the double gauntlet of being married to and then a caretaker to um a patient. Um so give us uh just a little background on your story.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

That's the gauntlet, all right, right? Sure. Yeah. Um my story started in 2016. Um, I literally had nothing wrong with me. I was in the best shape of my life. I was running 5k a day, um, hiking all over. And one day I went on a hike. It was actually the day after Easter, and we went on a hike and we went 20 miles, and I thought that I'd pinched a nerve in my shoulder, and my shoulder just couldn't like it couldn't shake it. And I uh ended up in the emergency room and just like to save, it's it's a very long story, but just to save, I think save space for our uh three-hour podcast.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Um, I thought that my shoulder pain was relative to a pinched nerve and or you know, our gallbladder or something like that. Ended up um ended up really being fortunate because my hospital was a very, very small um rural hospital, but they were diagnostic driven. And so they saw what there was a problem and they continued to investigate. And I left that Sunday. Um, I came in that Sunday with a shoulder pain and I left with a possible cancer diagnosis. I was super privileged though. Um, when they told me I had probably cancer in my liver and in my colon, um, I had a friend who was a GI and I called him immediately and and said, What do I do? And and you know, he said, I'll I'll see you tomorrow for a colonoscopy. And so everything went really quick for me. I was diagnosed the next day, and I was um in a in care um by Friday at the Cleveland Clinic. I was diagnosed with late stage four colorectal rectal cancer. I should be able to pronounce it right, right? Late stage four colorectal cancer.

unknown 11:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:31

Um, I had metastatic disease when I was diagnosed. It was um covered on my liver. Um and I went into acute care. I received chemotherapy through um infusion for 12 treatments to try to reduce the disease. I was not a candidate for surgery at that point. Um, and then I had a good response and I became a candidate for surgery. I had um a three-stage hepectomy, and um, they removed part of my liver, part of my colon, and I was doing well. I had the HAI pump as a as a trial, so I'm a big advocate of trials because the HAI pump got me to um no evidence of disease, which is a status that means that there's in hard tumors, there's no disease present. Um, and then my liver failed, unfortunately. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

There's the acronym. That's the one that every patient is and caretaker is that that's the acronym we're looking forward to.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Yeah, that's the one we like. We like to hear that one. No evidence of disease. And I was that. Like for a month for a year, I was no evidence of disease. Um, and then I started having funky liver numbers, and I ended up in liver failure, had a liver aneurysm. Such a story there, but I'm paraphrasing. I ended up having a liver aneurysm and ultimately had one of the first uh liver transplants through living donor transplantation um at the Cleveland Clinic eight years ago. And so I am almost a 10-year survivor. April 9th, I will be a 10-year uh CRC survivor. Um and I was given six months to live at the very beginning. And so something really important to me is reminding people that you're 1% and listening to those and reading those statistics is so unimportant in your care. Um if I would have listened to them and the statistics, I don't know if I'd be here today. But I found fight and and yeah, that led me into advocacy and meeting Mike.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

And that's so Yeah. I mean, I remember when Carrie got diagnosed and we met with a friend who had been through cancer, and he's like, don't ask. You don't care what the stats are, you don't want to die, you know, that you don't don't tell them, don't find out what they think your long-term progress is. Yeah, you're just just go. You're gonna fight it anyway. Um so we really never knew um an actual number which helped. So when you went through the advocacy, how did you meet Mike in that world?

SPEAKER_01 14:23

Yeah. Well, I, you know, I was in acute care for um from 2016 to 2018, and that's when I had my liver transplant in April, April 23rd. And I didn't realize this, I'm I'm kind of I'm I'm embarrassed to say this, but but I it needs to be said that I really came from a privileged place. I had all the right things. I had all the connections, I had all the best insurance, the best resources, the best support. Um, I had the best research hospital two and a half hours away from me. I didn't realize that everyone that had stage four colorectal cancer didn't qualify for a liver transplant and that that could save their life. I thought that the that was the path. Um, I didn't realize how gravely wrong I was um in and and I'm a teacher too, and so I I'm, you know, it's a bit embarrassing that I didn't realize the, I think, inequities that a lot of people face and this disparities in healthcare um access that people face. And I I realized it. There's a sign on the wall in Cleveland at the clinic that says every patient every single time, which means every patient should have equal and the best care every single time. And I saw that one day and I started reading, and I realized that I was an exception to the rule. And I was looking for people that this that I could make this make sense, you know, that I I had this outcome and that people were dying that were just like me. Um and so I really like dug in. I I started getting involved. I wanted to meet people that that were young and that had survived, and all I were all I were finding were people that had passed away, and and that was gut-wrenching to me.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

And so I was like survivor's guilt.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

Yeah, I mean, certainly at that point it started. I think that was part of my advocacy, was it was like because it was like, gosh, I I've survived. I like I lived. Like nobody thought that was gonna be the case. Um why am I lived? Yeah, and and definitely like carrying the people, and and so and now even more, but just carrying those people and knowing that something needed there needed to be more of me and and not more of people like that, like Mike and Carrie that we were losing, right? And so I dove into advocacy and I I wanted to find community that I could connect with because my life was altered, and I couldn't change the that it had been altered. And I had to discover a new me and how I existed in the world, and a a new trend, you know, a new trajectory for my life, really, and then a new purpose because I wasn't that same person that I was in a good way. Um, and so that's what drove me into advocacy. And I met Mike at Call on Congress, yeah, in 2019.

SPEAKER_00 17:21

And was he diagnosed at that point?

SPEAKER_01 17:24

He was. We both were stage four thrivers. He was NED and he was doing very, very well, and I was also doing very well. Um Mike and I realized quickly that our advocacy was one thing, but also we had this personal connection that was outside of advocacy that we couldn't give up. We were more than friends, we related on so many levels. He was driven, I was driven in different ways. He was bullheaded, I was bullheaded. But we both came together as as advocates and we left really as partners in life. And we knew, I think, going into our relationship, we both kind of said, no, no, no, this isn't the smartest thing. But then we like we couldn't we couldn't let each other go. We like love was more important to us than our disease. We're just gonna celebrate life and every moment that we get. Um, and we did that. We packed almost three years of love and fun and advocacy too. But we we loved each other and we just did our life. We did life big, we always say that. Um, we always said that, and we always said that love won no matter what, even in loss, that that we won because we got to love fully. And so it was all worth it.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

It's cliche, but it's the most powerful thing in the universe. Yeah. Um, and it it it matters more than anything. I mean, yeah, I mean, Carrie's in my situation was different because we didn't, you know, we had been together 16 years prior to her diagnosis, 17 years prior to her diagnosis. So you know that that was it threw our world completely upside down. Um But yeah, you we didn't know how much time there was. I'm coming up on an anniversary. Uh Carrie's goal was to make it to watch her son graduate from high school, and um she didn't make it to him being able to start his freshman year. But here we are, and he's graduating um in a couple months. And I it's been a kind of a weird month for it's been a weird month for me. Um there's all kinds of emotions that I I didn't I've found have crept up on me that I didn't expect. As you and Mike are going through your romance and this new round love, um at what point does he become sick again and you take on the role of uh caretaker where you had somebody before helping you, holding your hand, getting you through it emotionally. Now the now you're that person, yeah, which is this whole own ordeal. How did you go through that?

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Well, first I want to say relationships are hard. And how cancer without being in there? Yeah, exactly. And I was married for 22 years to a wonderful person, a wonderful human. And let me start by saying when you get cancer, your life turns upside down, and you become something totally different, and a lot of things become clearer, I think, and realities become clearer, and that's like who you are as a human, right? And I had some cleanup to do, like I felt like this was my chance. I was here for something. They I didn't live for nothing, and I needed to like take responsibility for some of my life and some of my actions in a good way and a bad way. I have four beautiful sons, and I was struggling as a human. And for me, it didn't look the same as you. You you know, you guys hung on and held on tight to each other. I felt this big pivot um to not that I that I was for the last you know years of my life. I was creating this picture of this beautiful thing that existed, which in some capacities did. And I'm being super vulnerable here, so this is this is tough.

SPEAKER_00 21:48

But um this is not uncommon, I've found.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

I think the most important thing is that I want people to know that it's okay to have a beautiful existence. Like you and Carrie did and support through through it and during it and after it. And I also think that it's important for us to also say it's also okay for it to not be that way. I think that, and that doesn't mean that either one of those things is wrong or right. It just means that life really throws you a curveball. And sometimes it's not all glamorous and beautiful as we try to make it be, right? And I am like raising my hand and saying it wasn't for me. I recognized, wow, I need to make some changes here. Um, I need to own my shit and then also be accountable for my shit. And then also say I'm unwilling to accept the things that I used to accept, and that's okay on both sides, you know. And I have a wonderful relationship with you know my ex and my children now. And we trudged through some hard things after I um got sick and and then got better because I think the reality of it is nobody thought I was gonna live. Right. And that's a hard thing. Including yourself, yeah, yeah, exactly. The easier, honestly, and this is getting really deep, but the easier thing would have been for me to die. Um, but it didn't happen. Yeah, exactly. And so, like, just I just want to make sure that like this the we're talking about hard things, right? We're talking about uncomfortable spaces, and I think when we unpack uncomfortable things, that's when we learn the most and grow the most and say, hey, there's no book, no manual for this shit that happens like after cancer. And all of it is okay, as long as you're not being destructive and hurting and causing harm, it's all okay to trudge through.

unknown 23:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:53

I mean, I I watched, I watched Carrie change quite a bit through her. I mean, just the way she looked at the world, the way she looked at things, and a lot of I mean, a lot of things she apologized to me for for the way she had in her mind treated me through the years. And I'm like, I don't what? You know, to me, you were perfect, but you know, if and if she would have come through and miraculously survived that, I don't know if she doesn't go the same route. Like it, you know, she sees the world differently and has a has a a new future for herself. Now we'll never know. And I like to think that she never would have left me, but it did cross my mind, believe it or not. Um my goal, regardless, was for her to live. But um it it just it didn't work out that way. I think you're what you said is really important. What was that something when he really started to get sick, did you guys know that it was probably gonna end? No, the way yours didn't.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

That was a hard one, you know. We always said it didn't matter. Yeah. So he was doing really well for two years and he had a scan, and it just like it was like from one from three months to the next, we waited six months. He really wanted to have a break. Mike, like me, was in the prime of his health too. So, like, let me step back and say like he was a fitness trainer. He was in like two, he was the guy that had 2% body fat, like not even kidding. We had we have a gym in our basement. Like he was a try he trained people, he taught all all the things. Like he was he was a master of anything he set his mind to. You know, he was just a really amazing human. And he he wanted to live life with me. Um, and he wanted to be well, and he, I think, wanted to wait. So he waited for six months, to my chagrin, because I'm a looker, I'm a I want to see, I want to know, and I want to be informed. And he really just wanted to live life. And I realized he didn't do the scan for six months. He waited six months, which was his doctor's, he got his doctor's approval and he waited for six months. Typically it's three months. He was a little bit further out, and so standard of care was six was three or six months, and he chose six months. And I had to really take a backseat. That was important for me, Chase. Like, I didn't realize until then that like I couldn't push my as a survivor, I couldn't push my opinions on him because he got to drive that bus. And it was his choices, and I had to like step back and support. That was one of our biggest uh pieces of argument. It was like us back and forthing about like what he should do, what I should do, like you know, but he ended up reoccurring at that six months. And and you know, bottom line is we don't know he probably would have reoccurred anyways in the liver, colon. It reoccurred in his lungs, okay, in his peritoneal. He had a spot in his kidney. Um, he had some spots on his liver. He really, it was, he says, he'd if you watch video of him, he says, I'm peppered. It's like popcorn everywhere. And we treated it with chemotherapy. At that point, it was everywhere, and we didn't we couldn't get ahead of it, like at that point. It just kept growing, and his body kept growing up.

SPEAKER_00 27:44

Was it a different mutation this time?

SPEAKER_01 27:46

Was it a different no his no? He he didn't have any different um biological differences or and he wasn't a hereditary cancer like me. I'm a hereditary cancer. Um he was a we don't know cancer, which is a lot of cancer pain. I don't know what Carrie is Carrie was at too.

SPEAKER_00 28:07

Yeah. Of unknown origin early. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

He doesn't have child, he didn't have children, but of unknown origin was was his cancer. And so going back to that research piece, there wasn't a lot of options for him. Um so we invested in time and we treated until we couldn't treat anymore.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

I hate asking this, but as you were going through that period, did you guys discuss your future after he was gone? Like, you know, Carrie and I we had to do that eventually. You know, where before when we were going through it, I was always the positive, you're we're gonna get through this, you're strong, you're healthy as can be. I mean, look at you, your your body has got 2% body fat, as you just said. If anything, I should have been the poster child for even though I'm in decent shape. No, I'm in good shape, but not compared to what she was.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

Right. She was she was a fitness queen.

SPEAKER_00 29:20

Yeah. And eventually we had to have the discussion of your life is gonna have to go on. And it, you know, your I don't I think your boys were both when when he died, were both your boys grown at that point? Or all your boys, I should say.

SPEAKER_01 29:39

All my boys, four of them. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:42

Because I have break warfare, right?

unknown 29:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:45

Like here we are.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

My son was going into his freshman year, and my daughter was going into seventh grade, and so I I had a whole lot of world to I still had to bring up young humans. Yeah. Um, and I was fifty fifty years old when she passed. And uh that there's a lot of life left. You know, and you go through anyway, it's it's a it's a it's a we it's I'm almost I'm almost four years removed. We're three three years and eight months uh since she passed. And you know, you I still go through emotional stuff. I was with my friend Amber yesterday, and I said, good timing here in town, because I'm going through some I don't know why. I just have this gut punch, and I don't know if it's March because it's colorectal cancer month or just you know, my son graduating. Um I think it's all that's I look back at that time, and as I l as I'm talking to you about this, that it it's coming back to me so clearly.

SPEAKER_01 30:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

The discussions that we had as she was getting worse, and we kind of knew that we were on borrowed time, so what do we do? Um and she had to tell me point blank, she was the love of my life, but I want you to fall in love again. And at the time I can't even possibly fathom that. I was like, what? Never again, even though that's not the reality. Um how much have you you has your vantage point changed or evolved, I guess, since his passing?

SPEAKER_01 31:38

Well, I think there's a lot of things to unpack in our future podcast right there. There's kid our kids. Um, my kids were were older when I was diagnosed, like three were in college. Like that's a whole nother story. They handled it differently, and certainly there's a big space for us. It's like let's talk about that. That's some that's some big, that's some big heartbreak warfare there.

SPEAKER_00 31:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:00

Um, you know, I think that, and I think that this isn't just because of being a survivor myself. I think this is just reality of life, is we live in this space where there's hope and then there's reality, and we crisscross and we intersect back and forth. And like to have reality doesn't mean we don't have hope, and to have hope doesn't mean that we don't have reality, right? But sometimes as a society, we like say, well, you can't have hope if you are being realistic, right? But that's I discovered and Mike and I discovered that that was actually really false. And we could have hope by talking about the future. And that's how we like in the midst of our pre-grief, as I call it, we found that that could give us hope. We did crazy zany stuff. Like we planned his funeral. We went to the cemetery and had wine and cheese and picked our plots. Um, but we did all the things.

SPEAKER_00 32:59

That sounds crazy, but that sounds extraordinarily therapeutic to me right now.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

So, so so zany, but like we would tell people and they'd be like, You did what? And we'd be like, Yeah, we picked out our urns, and they'd be like, What? But for us, for sure, right? It's totally a mind game. Um, but for us, that was like where hope and reality were intersecting all the time, but we didn't really know it. And I look back now to four years later, we just crossed four years on March 4th. And I look back now and realize that was so therapeutic for me. And then the other side, just like being in able to like process reality versus hope and not be disappointed that I lost hope because I didn't. Like we were hopeful through the very end, and we found pieces of hope and joy, even in what remained afterwards. And one of those pieces of joy was talking about the next chapters, and Mike Mike was so in love with me, and I'm so proud to say that and honored to say that. And I was so in love with him that towards the end, he didn't he wasn't worried about worldly things, he wasn't worried about anything other than making sure that I was gonna be okay and that I wrote more chapters, and he kept saying that to me. He wanted me to love and feel loved again. And he said a lot of times, I love you. We've had a beautiful chapter, and you need to go write more chapters, and I'll do that for the rest of my life to honor him and to honor myself. So for me, doing our life and this, you know, you and I intersecting and and getting to have our friendship and talk about our experiences is a way of so when you met Carrie in June of that year, that was Mike's death was fresh. Yeah, I um when you met at Colon Camp in Nashville, yeah. I was part of the Colon Club. Mike was actually had had actually filled out an application and applied to be in the Colon Club. And they they did put him in the magazine in Memorial was really beautiful. Yeah. But yes, I was fresh, fresh out of the beginnings of grief. And you know what you said was interesting, it really resonated with me that first there's no, there's no like book to guide us through grief, and like it's so not linear, right? So like all the feels like almost I was terrified of waking up March 4th, and I think you're right, like it's okay to have all the feelings. I sit in all of the spaces, like I sit in the yuck stuff, I sit in the joys. I found recently, and this is probably going sideways, but I've found that like I've started to this is four years later, and I've started to finally be able to place a joy with a grief. So, like if I'm sad about something that I miss, I've got good stories about those things. But I've been able to place a joy alongside a grief. Um, I was left by myself because I, to your point, I didn't have we didn't have like children. We have a dog, Indy, who is a terror, and he is so in love with his father still. But I didn't have anyone. I had my kids who love me and support me and are you know there for me, but they were all grown men, and while they love me, they didn't live with me. And so I was all alone. How did you handle that deafening quiet? Very badly. I mean, let's just talk about that. Let's have a conversation that deafening quiet.

SPEAKER_00 37:08

If I didn't have my kids to put all my energy towards, I'd have been a catastrophe. I would have been a puddle of mess.

SPEAKER_01 37:20

I was. Um and like a blubbering fool sometimes, um, not proud of some of the embarrassing things, which we'll get to later, of course. Art Bike Warfare.

SPEAKER_00 37:32

That's what this is about. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:33

That's what it's about. But no shame. Like, it sucks. Like a lot of us, whether it's death, whether it's cancer, whether it's losing a spouse, like whatever it is in the capacity of a loss, it's hard to like. I didn't have, and I know that I don't want it to sound like it's easier for you because you had kids, but but there's this space where like you literally have to like figure out. I had just started to discover who I was after cancer. And then I had to discover who I was alone without Mike as a survivor. And that was a lot of space on my plate to figure out how if to fill it. And I went back to colon camp. I went back to yeah, I went back to the community that I loved so passionately and who passionately loved me back, and that was you know, fight CRC in the colon club. I found comfort and hope. And that's when I met Carrie actually. I met her it in June of 2022, right after my. She was a hot dog, she was a superstar. She and Mike would have been, she and Mike would have been hot competition. I mean, they would have been the most fierce competitors. Mike, I I, you know, only was able to know Carrie for you know this small amount of existence. But in that time, I learned very quickly how passionate she was about life. She was a fighter in a good way, and she was like determined, just like Mike, like any competition, she's winning. Like, there's no second place. So they would have been immensely competitive and they would have been like to the type A. Oh my god. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:23

That's why she and I worked. I'm more down closer to the Z level. So if I would have been anywhere close to A like she was, we never would have worked.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

That's exactly why Mike and I worked, is because, you know, as similar as we were, like I we had those, we were able to love was more important to us and compromise was easy, you know, because he was the competitive one. I was the goofy one that was like, okay, I give up, you know. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:51

100%.

SPEAKER_01 39:52

Love it.

SPEAKER_00 39:52

100%.

SPEAKER_01 39:54

They would have loved each other.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

They they would have. And and that's this this podcast, this convening that we're gonna be doing weekly is, you know, you can tell a few times we've laughed and I've teared up a few times just thinking about certain things and listening to you talk that bring back such, I mean, vivid memories of of what we were going through from the her diagnosis. But not only that, all all the life we lived prior to her diagnosis and and how much a cancer diagnosis or an illness of some kind can just completely turn your entire world as you knew it upside down.

SPEAKER_01 40:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:39

And you the world keeps turning, life goes on, um, it doesn't stop for us because it's been rough. And you learn that the people around you, the relationships that Carrie and I cultivated through our time together was irreplaceable. It was it kept me going. It kept the that group of people, my community was everything. And we Carrie and I knew we were truly loved. When she passed away, she knew that I was going to be taken care of with the family and friends that we have.

SPEAKER_01 41:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:16

Um But so it this whole thing is so messy. So messy. The things we do and or say that people would find so crazily offensive and backwards. And are you fucking around?

SPEAKER_01 41:30

I would agree with you 100%. Mike charged the same thing. He always would tell people, now take care of Caroline, okay? And I'm like, seriously, like I I have two feet, I have a head, but he was like, This is gonna be bad, like this is gonna go south.

SPEAKER_00 41:44

Um Carrie used to tell her friend, she's like, do not let him fall in love with the first woman he sleeps with because he's so horny all the time. So like the reality of all of her girlfriends have been so protective of me.

SPEAKER_01 42:02

Um they're like the little bees. I didn't want to do it.

SPEAKER_00 42:06

Carrie had this thing that I would be married or or or in a relationship within months of her passing. And I it I didn't even it didn't even cross my mind for over two years. Uh it just there was no way. Um but and here we are in almost year four, and so much has changed. There's so much to talk about, there's so much to learn. Um, and and we're gonna talk with some incredible people in the in the cancer world, uh uh colon cancer and otherwise, um girlfriends and boyfriends that we have now, fiancés, where we're at. I mean, there's there's just so much to talk about, and I'm so thankful that I met you at the Cola Guard Classic, which we will be seeing each other next week. I know. So we will probably do an episode from there. Yeah. Um, and uh I love you. I'm so happy that we're here doing this. There's so much for us to learn.

SPEAKER_01 43:01

So much love to you, Chase. I think that's the trade-off of cancer and of any like loss that we experience is man, it's a per it's about perspective. You just said it. Like it's about perspective. And it's taken a long time to like find that perspective. But the reality that I recognized is you just mentioned it was about people that are there for you and the community that you learn is there for you. And that's a trade-off that I don't know if I'm willing to trade. Like having cancer has first taught me so much about myself, and it has made me understand how it feels to really be loved by a human deeply. And it has taught me that this beautiful community of humanity exists in the worst set of circumstances. And how lucky am I to be privileged enough to have met people and to continue to develop these beautiful relationships that otherwise I wouldn't have. I don't know that I. I would ever know Chase Peckman or Carrie Peckman. Who knows if I would ever have encountered you in life? And so that's a hard thing for me to like think through is like, what would it be otherwise? And I think that drives me into things like this and you know, meeting you and doing these new things and talking about all that because all of it's okay. And I don't want to ever like I want people to be comfortable with, you know, doing it their way, you know, and and figuring it out. If it takes 10 years, like you said, Chase, if it takes five years, I'm you know, I'm lucky. We can talk, you know, we got lots to talk about, but you know, I've I've got a a great partner now. Um, but it's taken time and sometimes it sometimes it's less time, sometimes it's more time. And all of those things are okay. All relationships, you know, it doesn't you get to write the chapters. And I think that we're gonna unpack that's exciting to me what we're doing in this podcast is that we get to like encourage people to do it their way and you know, write the chapters the way they want to write them, even the ugly parts.

SPEAKER_00 45:04

Especially the ugly parts.

SPEAKER_01 45:06

Especially the ugly parts.

SPEAKER_00 45:08

We are well, it's our first episode, so we need people to subscribe. We need people to follow us and share us and all the time.

SPEAKER_01 45:17

At least like Chase.

SPEAKER_00 45:19

No, we need all we need all of them, everything we can get. We're look, this is um this is there's there's not a lot of space for this, uh, or or there isn't a lot of podcasts in this vein. Um, but there is such a large community of people who have been affected by cancer, by illness, um, by death of loved ones, and those of us that were left uh on this rock to carry on. Um and you know, I believe that I will see Carrie again. Um I believe that that uh she's looking down. I think Mike and she are probably sitting in these rooms with us as we're doing this, going, no, no, no, you got it all wrong. Um look, we're gonna laugh, we're gonna cry, we're gonna have some fun, um, and we're gonna have some really, really um inspiring guests. And I'd I'd be remiss if I didn't say, you know, we lost um somebody that was very special to us, um, especially you. But I got to m meet Liz Healy last year at the Colegard Classic, and I got to meet her husband, um, who I was so extraordinarily in. I get to see him again this week, but this time um without Liz. And uh, you know, I've been I've been excited and dreading this weekend for a while. So I can't wait to see you. And until next week, um we'll see you in another episode of Heartbreak Warfare.

SPEAKER_01 46:53

See you later.

SPEAKER_00 46:56

Heartbreak Warfare was produced and edited by Chase Peckham, co-produced by Caroline Motica. Please subscribe, like us, and share the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Heartbreak Warfare is also not intended to replace therapy. This is subject matter that covers great loss and tragedy. It is meant to be therapeutic and bring together those who have suffered great loss and tragedy, but it is also for those to help heal.