Getting Better: A Doctor’s Journey from Patient to Resilient and Empathetic Healer

0:00 The topics and opinions express in the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests and not those of W FOURCY Radio. It's employees are affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsements for radio show programs, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability explicit or implies shall be extended to W FOURCY Radio or its employees are affiliates. Any questions or comments should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W FOURCY Radio. What's working on Purpose? Anyway? Each week we ponder the answer to this question. People ache for meaning and purpose at work, to contribute their talents passionately and know their lives really matter. They crave being part of an organization that inspires them and helps them grow into realizing their highest potential. Business can be such a force for good in the world, elevating humanity. In our program, we provide guidance and inspiration to help usher in this world we all want working on Purpose. Now here's your host, doctor Elise Cortez.

1:05 Welcome back to the Working and Purpose Program, which has been brought to you with passionate price since February of twenty fifteen. Great to have you back again. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes. If we have not met before and you don't know me, I'm an organizational psychologist and local therapist, speaker and author. My team and I at Gusto Now help companies to enliven and fortify their operations by building a dynamic, high performance culture and inspirational leadership activated by meaning and purpose. You can learn more about us on how we can work together at gustodashnow dot com and my personal site, Eliscortes dot com. Before we get into today's program, I'm thrilled to an ounce that registration is now open for a fabulous new conference for women for which I'll serve as the MBC. It's called Thrive In twenty five and has a jam packed few days in Chicago June twenty fifth through the twenty eighth, twenty twenty five, and it's designed to help develop women as whole selves, from bolstering to your mindset, to your financial documen, to your leadership, to incorporating nature and art into your life to raise consciousness and much more. Visit Thrive dash In twenty five the number twenty five dot com from information and to register. You can use my promo code Gusto all caps to gain access to the free books and programs.

2:11 I'll be also gifting to registrants. See you there now getting in today's program. We have with us today. Doctor Andrew Kadar a physician at Cedars and I Medical Center, a Diplomat of the American Board of Anesthesiology and a Fellow of the American Society of Anesthesiologists. He's the author of Getting Better, a Doctor's Story of Resilience, recovery and Renewal. We'll be talking about his own story of moving from doctor to patient, his own patient experience of being treated in healing, and some of his ideas for improving healthcare delivery and navigating healing for patients. Doctor Kdar, Welcome to Working on Purpose. Thank you very much. Happy to be here. It's really great to have you to get to celebrate this amazing thing you brought into the world.

2:53 This is a. Beautiful book, and as you're welcome. As I told you before we got on are together. I felt like I was sitting right next to you, alongside you in your hospital room, at your bedside there next to your wife, Rachel It was really a really an amazing experience to get this to read this book, So thank you for bringing into the world for us especially. I really feel like you're doing sit a beautiful service from both the vantage point of being a doctor as well as what it is to be a patient. Yes, while I was going through this experience, I realized that I was learning quite a bit from it and that I could explain it from both the point of view of a doctor and a patient, and I thought that that would be helpful for other people as well, and that's why I wrote this book.

3:37 Well, that's fantastic. I definitely want to hear a bit about the story because people haven't read the book like I have. But let's first start with the notion that you are a doctor, doctor Kdar, why not an archaeologist? You know, why aren't you in marketing? Why you know? Why did you pursue mention? You know? When I was in the high school. In college, I envy my colleagues who I knew what they wanted to do. From an early age. I did not. I searched around quite a bit. My undergraduate major was physics, but when I was in the lab in my junior year, I realized that I wasn't happy being all alone by myself in the lab, and I wanted more interaction with people. So I started looking around for other things that I could use my scientific background but would be.

4:31 More people oriented. And that's how I eventually drifted over to first thinking about biophysics and biomedical engineering, and then finally going into medicine. You know, it's quite a niche that you're an ant apysiologist. When I had my daughter twenty one years ago, I'm sure you probably had similar experiences with your patients. But of course I promptly proposed to him once he gave me the medicine. You mappins, I get that a lot. Well. I think our job is twofold one is to make people comfortable. And when people have a procedure or an anesthetic for an operation, naturally you're anxious. And our job is to calm people down to make them more comfortable.

5:23 And some of that is how you. Interact with people, and some of it, of course, we get a lot of good help from pharmacology as well. For sure. Okay, so now we really have to open the show by letting our listeners and viewers understand a bit of just what you went through. So we don't want to go into all the details. We wouldn't be able to get through the other questions I had planned for you. But let's help them understand what happened to you, How did you recognize that you needed some treatment, what was going on, and then kind of walk us through the early stages of the everything you went through. It started out typically how cornery disease usually presents. I was working out in the gym and all of a sudden, I felt some burning in the center on my chest, and of course I thought about heart disease. I mean, everybody knows that the most common presentation of heart disease is a pain in the chest. But I know I didn't have heart disease because I had none of the usual risk factors. I did not have high blood pressure, was not overweight, never smoked, I worked out regularly, and I had a great family history. My father lived to be ninety four. He was still hiking with me in the Rockies when he was eighty six, So I know I didn't have heart disease. And so that time I just decided, Okay, I'm not feeling well, I'll knockoff today.

6:53 And now I knew that the most common presentation of heart disease of cornea disease is test pain that comes on with exercise and goes away promptly with rest. So those three things, the location and coming on with exercise and going away with rest. I also knew about denial, which is a tendency for people to ignore symptoms of diseases that they don't want to have. So it's very common with cancer, it's very common with heart disease because people dread those illnesses. And unfortunately I did exactly what a lot of other people do, is just wanted to denial. And I thought, Okay, I don't have heart disease. I'll just ignore this. But three days later I was back in the gym.

7:37 Then again, nine minutes into a fairly intensive workout, I had the burning again. This time I stopped and I thought, okay. I'm going to see what's going on. It went away, and I started pedaling on the elliptical again, and now in about two minutes I had the burning. Now at that point, I got off the exercise and sat. Down and thought to myself, Okay, I don't have heart disease, but what would I tell anybody else who had these symptoms, and then the answer became obvious. And I think that the first lesson to me was how to get away from denial. And the best way I know is take it away from yourself, because we're all too close to our own selves. I I was quite sure I didn't have heart disease, but these symptoms dictated what needed to be done. And once I took it away from myself, I was able to make an appointment with my doctor and eventually get the treatment I needed.

8:40 And it wasn't very much time, right once you determined that you need to get this checked out, it was we're talking about a day or two, right, It was. About four or five days before I had the stress test. But once I had the stress test, it showed obvious signs of coronary ority disease. Next day I had the agigrams, and I thought that there would probably be most one vessel that they could dilay and I could go back to work the following day. But instead it turned out to be a triple vessel disease. So three vessels were involved, including a fairly large occlusion in the largest cordinary artery, which is that occlusion is popularly known as the widow maker for the reasons you'd expected to be called that, And so, yeah, I needed to have surgery the next day, and.

9:38 We'll talk more about that as we go through here, but I just wanted to situate for our listeners and viewers just what we were talking about. It's really quite dramatic what you went through. So then kind of a little bit of fast forward then, and I know this book has come out many years since you went through all that, but was there some part of your journey that made you think I do want to write a book about this. I want to capture this. Yeah. As I was going through I really from an early part I was thinking, you know, this is I'm learning from this experience and I can explain it from both the point of view. Of a patient and doctor. And I thought that this would be helpful for other people, both for patients and their family members, because the person that's most closely affected are your loved ones besides.

10:28 Yourself, and when you have a major. Illness, pretty interesting point of view for sure, which makes me then I have to can't help but ask you this question, and that is you are a doctor who became a patient. How's your view on medicine and how it's practice been informed or altered because of that experience. You know, it's more an issue of experiencing what I already knew about, but it's quite different. It's like, you know, I think about. Reading about a car crash or talking to somebody who's been in a car crash and being in the. Car crash yourself.

11:10 So I treated people in car crashes, but this time I was in the crash myself, and that was a very different experience. There's a lot more vulnerability involved, there are a lot lot more doubts involved, and it's it affects you more viscerally. I think, mm hmmmm hmm. Well, and then there I want to go to the other thing that's really interesting to me a person who really I care about. I'm a systems oriented person, doctor Cator. That's what my PhD is in human development. We did a lot of systems kind of work and I really think about the whole system. And one of the things that I find compelling about what you write about what you share in your book is you talk about the notion of physical recovery that's beyond the physical. It's it's there's emotional, there's spiritual, there's relational. So why was important for you to address all these different dimensions.

12:04 Because I felt all these things really for the first time. I think as a physician you're somewhat removed from the vulnerability that patients feel. I mean I was aware of that, of course, but I had never felt as vulnerable. I never felt the I think as a young person, you feel immortal, and that feeling didn't go away for me until this happened. I think having this experience where you're really facing the possibility of perhaps not making it through, or at least being aware that this could be a deadly situation, puts it in, puts your life.

12:55 In a different perspective. And I think that there are other people who can perhaps get to that without having this kind of experience. But this is the experience that brought it home for me. Are you able to articulate, like you know, having gone through something like this, I would imagine that it does change people in many many ways. Are you able if that's true for you? Are you able to articulate who is doctor Kidar before and who is after this experience? I think what it did is it made me think a lot more about my impact on other people and what I want to and how I want.

13:36 To affect other people. Now it's not that. I wasn't didn't consider myself a kind of caring person before, but I pay a lot more attention. To how I affect other people. So in practical terms, I think more about complementing the people I work with and showing appreciation for the things that they do for. Me and things that they do for others. So I think it made me, perhaps in some ways, a more empathetic person because this experience brought home the fact that life is finite and I want to leave a positive influence on others in my life.

14:28 Okay, not to at all diminish what you just said there, but now you've given me a remarkable idea, doctor k Dr, because of the results of what happened for you was exactly what I do within my company, which is a human and organizational transformational organization, and we do teach that being able to communicate how help people matter and what their contribution is because that speaks to meaning. So now what I realize is all I have to do to do my work really well is to ensure that everyone has a heart attack. That's it now, one thing I did not have a heart of that right. I got that, I know, But to produce a similar kind of an outcome, I'm thinking, that's what I need to head for. Just kidding on that note, let's take our first break, because I want to come back and talk about the patient experience as well as what you're learning from as a practitioner from what you've gone through.

15:20 I'm your host, Alice Cortez, and we were on the air with doctor Andrew Kidar, a his physician at Cedar Sinai Medical Center, a diplomat of the American Board of Anesesiology and a fellow of the American Society of Anisthesiologist. We've been talking a bit about his own journey of going from a doctor to a patient and what he went through. After the break, we're going to talk a little bit about his patient experience and also the importance of resiliencing recovery. We'll be right back.

16:00 Doctor Elise Cortes is a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfillment, performance, and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite Alease to speak to your organization, please visit her at elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to Elise alisee at eliscortes dot com. Now back to working on Purpose.

16:52 Thanks for stating with us, and welcome back to working on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes, as I am dedicated to help them create a world where people realize their potential at work are led by those inspirational leaders that help them find and contribute their greatness and do business that better is the world. I continue to research and write my own books, so my last one came out in March of twenty twenty three. It's called a Great Revitalization. How activating meaning and purpose can radically in liven your business and I want to help leaders understand the lay of today's land. What does a workforce need and want from their employers? And then I offer twenty two best practices to help equip you to be able to create that in your culture. You can find more about my books on my websites at leastcoretests dot com and also on Amazon if you are just now joining us. My guest is doctor Andrew Kaidar, a physician and the author of Getting Better, a doctor's Story of resilience, recovery, and Renewal. So I want to deal a little bit into the experience that you had of being a patient.

17:45 And I really thought to myself, Cash, that must have been really hard for you, because you knew so much, and you were trying to honor and respect all of your caregivers, and so you're obviously very familiar with a healthcare system. I'm curious to know what might have apprised you by being a patient. I think one lesson to me was to expect the unexpected. Now I knew that that complications occur or set backs occur, but a couple of things One I expect. I expect that to have the smoothest course ever anybody ever. Had after open heart surgery. Part of the reason for that was I was in a gymnast in college and my teammates would routinely get back to the gym and half the time they were predicted to that would take to heal. And so I used to think that doctor's routinely exaggerated the amount of time it took to recuperate. Once I got into medicine, I realized that I was looking at an atypical sample because I was because young athletes who are highly motivated and are in good shape are going to recover somewhat faster.

18:57 There's another thing in medicine is that doctors or nurses make poor patients if they think they know better than their positions and they don't follow directions. And I wanted to shatter all that. I was going to recover more rapidly than anybody possibly could. It didn't work out that way because I had a number of complications, and these are things that are beyond my control. But I ended up staying in the ICU. Longer after surgery, and I ended up staying in the hospital longer after surgery because I had a number of complications, some of which I knew could be expected and some of which I was unfamiliar with. So it's the old case of the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns, and I had some of each. For example, among the unknown unknown to me was that after I woke up from surgery, I had difficulties swallowing, so every meal was an ordeal.

19:59 I would call and sputtering and just couldn't swallow, particularly solids. And once I got an E and T consult, I found out that this is not a common complication, but something that does happen, and it tends to go away in. Under a month. So once I knew that, I felt considerably better, because at least I knew that this was going to be a short lived thing that I had to deal with. And then there are complications that I knew about that could happen, but of course I didn't know that would happen to me, and I was quite surprised by severity, and one of those was hiccups.

20:43 Now, hit ups are. Usually a minor nuisance, but while in medical school I learned that sometimes the cups go on for months and even years, and some people have even died of hiccups when the diaphragm would get so exhausted they couldn't. Breathe that E quickly. Now, at that. Time, when I was medical school, the killer hiccups were It's laughable to me as an attack of the killer tomatoes, right, it's you know who would have thought. But then once all my drains came out. Now, initially I had a few hiccups, but as my drains came out, I started having more and more, And when the final one came out, I had an attack of hiccups like I'd never experienced before.

21:32 It was really staccato hiccups, one on top of the other hiccups. It just wouldn't quit. And there are several ways of getting rid of hiccups. There are the mechanical ways, which is swallowing like grainy sugar, or reaching up as high as you can and swallowing things to irritate the nurvese that supplied diaphragm, and but I couldn't swallow at least, so that was out. And after heart surgery you're not supposed to reach have your arms eyes above your shoulders, So these mechanical methods were out. So we're left with pharmacologic methods, and there are plenty of those. But the first couple that the most common ones that my doctors tried, didn't do anything. So finally got a g consult, a guess intestinal consult, and I got medication that stopped the hiccups because it relaxed all mood muscle, but also also.

22:36 Made me go to sleep for about a day. We need to tight trate to go back to tight trate the amount of medication that suppressed the hiccups but but didn't didn't have me go to sleep, and then lower it over time. And that's that's that's what we did. So I had these these. Complications, and I had some inflammation in one of my veins and that caused a high white count, which could be a sign of infection, but it can be a sign of other things. So I needed to stay in the hospital essentially longer than the most people well.

23:18 And one of the ways that you coped with that, which showed your precociousness is you you you went out walking quite a bit, even past places you were supposed to go, and you were you were scolded by a nurse for going too far out of out of range for monitoring. So you were doing your best to try to recover quickly by adding the exercise in. And I noted very much your your precocious spirit in that. Yeah, uh, before my surgery, uh my askedesiologists. One of my colleagues told me that it's important to get out of bed as soon as you can then walk around because staying set in harry can lead to cross in your legs and that can cause that clock to travel to the lungs of pulmary embulos, which is which can be uh make it quite sick and be fatal.

24:14 So with my gymnastics background, I was he was speaking to the choir. I was gonna walk and do what I needed to do and and push myself as much as I needed to and and and so yes, right from day one, I got up and started walking and really beyond my comfort limit. Now obviously you can overdo that, but I wanted to push myself to try to get well as quickly as possible. And and that's just I think getting well after an illness is a team sport. You need your your doctors, your nurses, your therapist, your family members, and of course the patient himself for herself is a crucial element. And if you don't push yourself, if you don't help yourself, then it's going to be very difficult for you to recuperate, at least as well as as you would if you if you didn't push yourself. So I was determined to do whatever I needed to do to get well as quickly as possible.

25:28 Mm hmmm. You know. One of the things that we do as management consultants is we it's helpful to chart the process of how an organization serves its customers. And one of the one of my colleagues, has been on this program talking about some work that she did with a health organization where they really literally mapped the care in a hospital system. And they did and so doing they went to the process of being a patient themselves and discovered all of this inefficiency et cetera, et cetera, which they could then remedy. So I'm curious, from now that you have this experience of being a patient, if you could talk a bit to know what do patients need most and recovery that needed a healthcare system doesn't really provide very well right now, or at least then, I.

26:13 Think the most frustrating thing for me and most patients is. The priorities of the patient. The priorities of the healthcare system don't always mesh. Now, in some ways, it's a necessary component because you can't have a nurse assigned to you or a doctor be. With you around the clock. It's just not an efficient way of running things. But there should be an easy way of communicating with the people who can help you, and I think being familiar with the system did allow me at times to do that, to be able to get the care that I wanted by speaking the language of medicine to my nurses and to my doctors.

27:08 So in that sense that was that was helpful. But I think others can do that. As well, very effectively by speaking the proper language of medicine and basically one of besides all the sophisticated tests we do, what the information that you get from the patient is crucial. And there's a thing called the chief complaint. And throughout my recuperation I realized there was always a chief complaint, something that was bothering me the most. So it initially was well pain on awakening, but by day two it was really swallowing, and so I needed to be able to communicate that to my doctors. Is it's one thing for them to write down, okay, patient complains of difficulty swallowing and then walk away. I needed to be able to emphasize to them how important this was to me and how much it was, how distressing it was, and that helped get the ball rolling in terms of getting the proper diagnosis for that. So communication in both directions I think is very crucial. But any patient knows what's bothering them the most, and by clearly saying that, you're more likely to get help and help sooner than

28:38 if you can't express. That and just sit there frustrated. That is great advice for patients. Great advice. So let's just while we're kind of on this general subject of what you've learned that could maybe help the system. I have to imagine that beyond this book, you probably have also spoken to audiences other medical professionals. Have you been counseling or sharing with them from your experience of being a patient that could actually help them better serve their patients. I think it's it's basically what i'd learned was the things that I learned.

29:19 Doctors have read about, but they haven't necessarily experienced. And I try to emphasize that experiencing it is a different. Thing than just knowing about it. And I think that. For me it increased. There's an increasing empathy when you've been there and experienced it, and it's difficult to do that secondhand. But I think if doctors and nurses keep that in mind and have that in the forefront of their minds, they'll be able to empathize better and try to see things from the patient point of view better.

30:04 But I have to say that there's a flip side to that in that patients also need to be aware of their care takers' needs because it's it's a. It's a two way street. And for example, the first night that I was out of the intensive care unit, my wife stayed with me overnight. That at theaters you can patient family member. One family member can stay and because of constraints of space, it's a small cot that's fairly uncomfortable. Discomforted the cod and the noises at the hospital and people coming in to take blood samples and vital signs.

30:51 My wife got no sleep at all. So the next day we decided that she should go home and try to get some rest because it would be better for her. She wouldn't be so exhausted. And there is a thing called caretaker exhaustion syndrome which happens when people take care of a loved one in a prolonged period of time, and it would be better for her, but it would also be better for me, because having an exhausted and perhaps resentful caretaker is worse than having somebody who's who's refreshed and ready to help you. So for and of course also your doctors and nurses need some consideration too. It's a nurse can't always materialize instantly for a non emergency need, and I think that when you're a patient sometimes you forget that and you're under some stress. And there's one episode that I write about that I'm not too proud out of.

32:01 But I woke up one morning. And I had uh a band band uh huh. Yellow band that said uh a fall risk? Yes, now I was. I was a gymnast. I pride myself in having good balance. So it's kind of like think of having a band uh on a musician saying he's their tone deaf. So I was very upset by that. And then I and my nurses came and I said, look, I'm not a fall risk. I can stand on my toes, I can stand on one leg, and I demonstrated, and.

32:41 They were they were not happy with me. Doing that, so you all, I said. No, I won't, and and I made a bigger fuss over something that was really inconsequential than than in retrospect made any sense. It was, you know, your pride maybe at work there, So that that much fantastic advice. Let's grab our last break. I'm your host, doctor Release Cortes. We're in the area with doctor Andrew Kadar, a physician at Cedar Sinai Medical Center, the Diplomat of the American Board of Fantasyesiology, and a Fellow of the American Society of Vantayesiologists. We've been talking a bit about his patient experience and what he's now learned to help medical professionals do their work better. After break, we're going to finish the conversation talking a bit about the importance of resilience and recovery, and also the emotional and spiritual aspects of healing. We'll be right back.

33:45 Doctor Elise Courts has as a management consultant specializing in meaning and purpose. An inspirational speaker and author, she helps companies visioneer for greater purpose among stakeholders and develop purpose inspired leadership and meaning infused cultures that elevate fulfilled performance and commitment within the workforce. To learn more or to invite Alease to speak to your organization, please visit her at elisecortes dot com. Let's talk about how to get your employees working on purpose. This is working on Purpose with doctor Elise Cortes. To reach our program today or to open a conversation with Elise, send an email to Alise A Lisee at eliscortes dot com. Now back to working on Purpose.

34:37 Thanks for staying with us, and welcome back to working on Purpose. I'm your host, doctor Elise Cortes. I mentioned in the last break that my lead's book came out to the rate revitalization. What I did for you is I created a simple three page assessment you can download from my website at gustodeshnow dot com. And now we'll help you understand the extent to which your current organization is actually meeting the needs of today's discerning workforce. If you are just now joining us, my guest is doctor Andrew Ca. You are a physician and author of Getting Better, a doctor's story of resilience, recovery and Renewal. So, speaking of that title, I do want I want to talk about resilience and really what that word means to you, why it's so central to your journey and to your book.

35:19 I think one of the things that's really important is to have goals. And while I was going through this difficult experience, I wanted to become a better person in the long run, not only to recover fully to where I had been and be able to go back to work, which I was able to eventually, but. Also to be a better person in. The process, and to be a more contributing person to others in my circle of friends and to society at large. And I think that having a purpose a goal is crucial to a full recovery. And I'm sorry not alone and thinking that. I think Victor Fromer, the psychiatrists who survived Constitution Camps, noted that people who had a purpose, people who had a goal for their lives, were the ones who are like to survive, to continue to go on despite far more difficult situation that I was in.

36:25 Yeah, as you're talking about under Victor Frankel, I know he's worked very well. In fact that under a Gurdas one of my master's degrees in logo philosophy, and that's what I practice as an organizational logo therapist, helping people to access that kind of meaning structure because they's so vitalizing. So that's fascinating to me. Of course, I'm quite aligned with all of that, and I am really interested in your The mindset that you used to cultivate the goals are very important, but you also really had a very strong mindset that governed you throughout this whole process of recovering and healing. Yeah, I wanted to. Do at every stage everything that I could do to get well as quickly as possible. So I was willing to push myself for that because I felt I had a good life before and I wanted to have an equally good life, maybe a better life in the future.

37:20 And I think that in some ways. It was it did work out that way. I think my wife and I actually grew closer together during this experience because we had more time to spend together, more time to interact, and I saw things in her strength and her support that I admired and appreciated, and I think she saw in me the effort that I was making to get back to the type of. Person that she knew before. So the experience, I think reveals I think adversity reveals character to some extent for sure.

38:07 For sure, I want to talk now about the really the emotional and spiritual aspects of healing that you discovered and went through, and you do emphasize, of course, the emotional spiritual sides of healing. Can you share any practices or tools that either were useful to you or that you've come to find sense that can help people navigate emotionally and spiritually as they heal. You know, there are lots of different things that people use. Meditation, the religion, of course, is helpful for some people. In my case, I was very much just co oriented. What do I have to do today to get better as quickly as possible. That was my north star throughout the whole experience, And in the interim I've done some gotten more into self hypnosis and some.

39:07 Of the techniques like that. I think. The experience kind of motivated me to explore a little further. But during the time that I was recuperating, I just had one goal goals set in mind throughout the whole time. What do I need to do today to be stronger tomorrow and to be closer to where I want to be. Yeah. Reading your book, doctor Kator, I was very very present that you were fairly newly married and you were really focused on getting well and again for your wife too, for the luck which you were trying to make together with your wife. Is that right? Yes, let's talk about that.

39:52 So now, how long had you been married when you went through the surgery? First? Three months? Three months? I thought it was something really early, okay, okay? And then now how many years has this been since you've gone through all this, because you now have two children? Fourteen years now? I did have. I have one child with my wife, and I have an older son from a previous marriage. Okay, Okay, of course you know I'm going to ask you this question because I can't help it. I'm an organizational psychologist, just interested if the way you were related to Rachel was different or the way maybe you might relate to your children now, especially since you've had the son before, it sounds like, and then afterwards, did this experience change how you related to your loved ones?

40:46 Well, I think it brought home more the finiteness of life and that I need to spend as much time as I can to help them. Grow up and live a full life. Now my son is an adult, my daughter is twelve, and so I spend more much more time with my daughter at this point. But my son has done very well. He's grown up and as successful business of his own, so I'm very happy for him.

41:26 And he's married and has a couple of kids of his own. That's so beautiful. Well, now you are very uniquely positioned now to give some advice, I think to families and patients who are really struggling with the longer road to recovery. Like you really had to navigate everything physically, financially, emotionally, spiritually, everything. What kind of advice do you offer to those patients to try to help them navigate more aduptly than maybe they would without it. Well, I think the lessons that I learned had to do. One of the first things was, of course, when you have a problem, a good way to think about it is, what would I advise somebody else who has this problem?

42:15 Because because you want to take it away from yourself. There's an old saying in medicine that a doctor who treats himself has a fool for a patient and a fool for a doctor. But by taking it away from yourself, you can be more objective, So I think that's one thing. And then if you have an illness expecting the unexpected, I think that's it's just life is unpredictable and recovery can often be unpredictable. And then it's it's very important to have a goal in mind, what do you want to gain from this? And I think if you have a negative experience, it's a good idea to try to come back and not just get back to your previous normal, but to get back to a better normal. And that was my goal and I think that helped me achieve that.

43:19 So mindset is a big part of what I do. It to help the leaders that I work with in organizations. Arter KDR And one of the things I was actually very kind of struck by in your book is you talk about how if a patient before they go into surgery, if they say anything about not expecting to live through the surgery or they expect they're probably going to die, that the doctor will often not do surgery. That was very interesting to me. Yeah, I think there's some debate about that, but yes, I think expectations are are very important, and people who expect to do poorly tend to do poorly, and people who expect to do well have a better chance of doing well.

44:06 No guarantees in life, but you want to do everything to help yourself and having a positive mindset is definitely helpful for healing. And there's there's data on that. And that's really what I wanted you wanted you to get to is just the importance of you know, like you were bringing up doctor Victor Frankel before, having a will to meaning having a will to live is so so important, and having something to live for. In your case, you know, your new wife was really an important part of your focus. So what do you hope that people get from your book? What? How do you hope that it serves.

44:46 I hope that that well, first of all, after my illness, I was able to go back to work full time and have a life that has meaning for me. So one thing is can provide hope, because no matter how ill you are, there's hope. And then I want to be able to provide some pointers on what can happen and how to. Deal with it, and so the things. That I talk about how to get away from denial, how to expect the unexpected, and to have a positive mindset and to keep an eye on what's bothering you the most and deal with that, and then take problems one at a time till till all the problems are gone and you're back to your normal health.

45:43 Mm. I just just one of the things I love asking people in general is what are you proud of in yourself? And having gone through that whole process. I think being able to recuperate fully and live a good life afterwards is probably the best best thing. I have been able to go back to work. I've been able to travel. Last year, I was. Hiking at seven thousand feet in Rwanda to see mountain gorillas. So been able to do things.

46:23 I've also had a daughter in the interim who's twelve years old and thriving. Although she gives us a lot of grief at times. I think I saw her pop in earlier. Yes, but I think all those things are something to keep in mind. Well, this is very inspiring. Ard to Kadar, thank you very much for writing the book, taking the time to writ the book, and I did know, by the way, which I also think is wonderful, that part of your journey was to give yourself over to some of your more creative writing endeavors, and through this process you allowed yourself to do that. And now we are the better forward because you have read this book. So I want to say thank you for coming into my onto my radar, and into my into my studio. It has really been remarkable to read your whole experience and have you here on working in a purpose to share your experience. Thank you for being here.

47:18 And thank you for letting me be here. Very very welcome listeners and viewers. If you want to learn more about doctor Andrew Kdar his work or his book, Getting Better, he's got a website for that. It's it's getting better doc dot com. Let me spell that for you. So getting g e t t I n G better b E t t e R doc d o C getting better doc dot com. Last week, give you missed the Life Show, you can always catch it be a recorded podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. We were on airw with Fabree Demasquerro talking about his work and his book called the Art of Retreats. At Leader's Journey Towards Clarity, Balance and Purpose. We talked about the importance of leaders taking time to go within to be an inquiry and decouple themselves from their work on a regular basis to be their most effective. Next week will be on the air with Richard Barrett, well known for his work on elevating consciousness, honoring our soul as our being, and living and leading from values. He will be your early Christmas gift on Christmas Eve or whatever you actually observe your holiday and the gift cap your year. See you there, and remember work is one of the best adventures and means of realizer our potential and making the impact we crave. So let's work on Purpose.

48:31 We hope you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure to tune into Working on Purpose featuring your host, doctor Elise Cortes, each week on W four C. Why Together We'll create a world where business operates conscientiously, Leadership inspires and passion performance and employees are fulfilled in work that provides the meaning and purpose they crave. See you there, Let's work on Purpose.