This Past Weekend - Trick Lung Mickey's One Year Transplantaversary Extravaganza | This Past Weekend #197

Episode Date: May 9, 2019

Today’s episode is exclusively brought to you by Ridge Wallet. Visit https://ridgewallet.com/hitter and use code HITTER for 10% off Trick Lung Mickey is in studio to talk about living most of his life with cystic fibrosis, nearly dying, and where he’s at one year removed from his lung transplant. Find Theo Website: https://theovon.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/theovon Facebook: https://facebook.com/theovon Facebook Group: https://facebook.com/groups/thispastweekend Twitter: https://twitter.com/theovon YouTube: https://youtube.com/theovon Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiEKV_MOhwZ7OEcgFyLKilw Producer Nick https://instagram.com/realnickdavis Music “Shine” - Bishop Gunn http://bit.ly/MakinIt_BishopGunn Gunt Squad www.patreon.com/theovon Name Aaron Jones Aaron Rasche Aaron Stein Aaron Wayne Anselmi Adam Cox Adam White Adriana Hernandez Aidan Duffy Alaskan Rock Vodka Alex Hitchins Alex Person Alex Petralia Alex Sideris Alexa harvey Alexander Contreras Amanda Hosseini Amanda Sherman Amelia Andrea Gagliani Andrew Valish Andy Mac Angel Perez Angelo Raygun Angie Angeles Anna Winther Anthony Schultz Arielle Nicole Ashley Hall Ashley Konicki Audrey Harlan Audrey Hodge Ayako Akiyama Bad Boi Benny Baltimore Ben Beau Adams Yoga Beau Birkholz Ben Deignan Ben in thar.. 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Ganzermiller Michael polcaro Michael Senkpiel Micky Maddux Mike Mikocic Mike montague Mike Nucci Mike Poe Mike Sarno Mike Vo Mitchell Watson Mona McCune Natalie Stanley Ned Arick Nick Butcher Nick Lindenmayer Nick Roma Nick Rosing Niko Ferrandino Nikolas Koob Noah Bissell Nyx Ballaine Alta OK Old McTronald Old Scroat Mccrackin Owen Lide Paddy jay Passenger Shaming Patrick Gries Paul Flores Paul Lococo Peter Craig Peter Shea PF24 Gang Gang Qie Jenkins Quinn Hassan Rachael Edwards Rachel Warburton Randal Ranger Rick Rashelle Raymond Renee Nicol Roar Hanasand Robert Doucette Robert Mitchell Robyn Tatu Rohail Ryan Alves Ryan Crafts Ryan Forrest Ryan Garcia Ryan Hawkins Ryan Jordan Ryan Riley Ryan Walsh Ryan Wolfe Sam Illgen Samantha O'Neil Sarah Anderson Scoot B. Scott Scott Lucy Scott Swain Scott Wilson Sean Frakes Sean Scott Season Vaughan Secka Kauz Shane Pacheco Shannon potts Shannon Schulte Shawn-Leigh henry Shona MacArthur Sonja Prazic Stacy Blessing Stahn Johnson Steez Stefan Borglycke Stepfan Jefferies Steve Corlew Steven Stoody Sungmin Choe Suzanne O'Reilly Taylor Beall thatdudewiththepaperbag The Asian Hamster Thee shitfaced chef TheGremlin Cafe Theo Wren Thomas Hunsell II Tim Bonventre Tim Greener Tim Ozcelik Timothy Eyerman Todd Ekkebus todd vesterse Tom Cook Tom in Rural NC Tom Kostya Tom Reichardt Tommy Frederick Tommy From England Tommy Redditt Travis Simpson Travis Vowell Trevor Fatheree Troy Tugzy Mills Ty Oliver Tyler Harrington (TJ) Tyler Shaver Victor Montano Victor S Johnson II Vince Gonsalves William Morris William Reid Peters xTaCx Stretch Zak Stufflebeam Zech Johnson Zeke HarrisSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today's episode is brought to you by Ridge Wallet. Now Ridge Wallet, it's that front pocket carry. And a while back, you know, they had a man named Mickey and he had cystic fibrosis. And that's when your lungs just, they don't want to be lungs anymore and they start looking for the Lord. But you still need them.

And Mickey got on the transplant list and we became associated with him here at this past weekend and now it has been one year since Trick Lung Mickey got them new body bags, them lungs, you know? And this is the transplant-aversary extravaganza. So Trick Lung Mickey's Uno Año con el aero bolsas airbags. So we're excited he's here today.

Ridge Wallet, they took care of his flight. They put him up here in Los Angeles and they gave him transportation and pocket money for his time here in LA. He was at the comedy store last night, just checking out the vibes and here he is today in studio. Thank you, Ridge Wallet. As always, you can support Ridge Wallet.

They got front pocket carries, they got them bags. They got knives, that knifeery, you know? So in case somebody's coming at you and you can, you know, you can get them. So they got that safety first. And the code there is ridgewallet.com slash hitter. Again, that's ridgewallet.com and use that code hitter. And today's guest, it's been a year

after his lung transplant. We're gonna learn a little bit about his journey with cystic fibrosis and just get to see him here today in the flesh. Ladies and gentlemen, Trick Long Mickey. I've been there, dude, I did probably about, most people did pervity in a couple of months. Eight probably, I bet eight years of pervity, bruh.

Yeah, eight years. Yeah, dude, I was a slow guy. Like you could hear like one hair like on a mustache and then, you know, three weeks later. I get you, man, I feel like I'm still going through. Do you really? Like a second one. So what happened?

So coming to that, we got Trick Long Mickey here right now and man, thanks for being here with us today, man. Of course, man. Thank you very much for having me, man. Appreciate it. Mickey and I have been in communication with each other for maybe I guess probably about 20 months. And you, this is a one year now you have

since you had a lung transplant because you had cystic fibrosis. Yeah, that's right, man. Right, that's right. So you got basically, I mean, it's almost like getting a set of nuts in your chest. Does it feel like that? No, not nuts, but definitely something around.

Like air nuts. Yeah, I would say, I mean, dude, we could get to the whole sexual thing later, but it's definitely something like nuts. I got more testosterone for sure. Really? For sure, yeah. Dude, you seem so different

than the last time I saw you, man. In what way? Because when I saw you in Tacoma, I thought you were gonna, you know, maybe die, you know? You thought you were, I didn't just think you were, you said you might. I mean, I think that people were rumoring in the crowd when we were there, like kind of a little bit nervous.

Yeah. You know, I had a felt that too, like, oh man. Cause I had that. You remember how we would talk about, man? My skin just looked, it looked a little mouth off. Yeah, your little jaundice. Yeah. Little jaundice, man.

Like my eyes were dark and I was just light, light skinned. Yeah. And I mean, I'm half Filipino. So there's something like that that plays into it. But I guess what I'm getting at is I didn't look the best for sure, man. I had the best. Well, yeah.

I mean, you just seemed like you were going through it. I mean, I remember like you couldn't, you know, I didn't ask you too many questions because you get caught up in a long sentence and you just, you know, you had to like take a break. You know, you had to like hold onto somebody's shoulder almost to get through a long sentence. You know, you were limited air.

Yeah, it was tough, man. I mean, limited everything. Yeah. Limited participation in life. Right. Man. Was it really? Absolutely, man.

I remember the first, Theo, I just wanna tell you, man. One of the first things that you said that I knew was really important to me. You know, there's a lot of people I've talked to about this, but I remember you asked specifically, you said, what's the most difficult thing that you deal with assisted fibrosis?

I said the isolation. Yeah. And first of all, man, no one's ever asked me that beforehand. Really? No one had, no, no, man. That's how I knew I was talking to someone who, and I know that you got a sister

who's done a liver transplant, correct? Yeah, she had a liver transplant growing up. And I remember your skin tone. I mean, you guys almost looked a little bit similar then, you know? Because there's just something like, yeah, there's this jaundice kind of thing takes over the body, I guess, or something, you know?

Yeah, man, I think that, you know, your body just attempts to take care of itself in the only way that it knows how to. Yeah. Right, and I guess what I'm trying to say is that, I mean, you don't really focus on your aesthetic, right? You don't really, you're just trying to live. You're just trying to live.

In regard to the participation thing, man, is that, dude, when people are watching the ball game or something like that, and when people talk about issues that they're having in life, are you really thinking about someone with cystic fibrosis at the end stage, and you're thinking about, how do I value the life that I got right now? Right.

With the current physical ability that I have. Yeah. Right, because it's so limited. You can't participate, man. You can't even, and there's things like, for instance, that the drugs, the medicine made me half deaf, for instance. Yeah. My left ear don't work.

Damn. Like, there's certain things that you pay this price for where you can't literally participate as well in life, and you see other people doing it. And there is, man. It's hard to admit this. There's a sense of envy. There's a sense of jealousy there.

So you get jealous at people who are able to live comfortably. Dude, people that would talk about how, oh, you know, man, you know, traffic's associated or whatever, whatever it is. Yeah, I'm too tired. I remember thinking, I'm too tired to finish like a big piece of cake or something.

And you must be like, this guy, that's crazy. Dude, yeah, this guy over here that you would be talking to, he can't eat. Man, dude, it was, and this is real, Theo. This is real, dude. Too cute with the sugar, dude. Dude, what's up? My neck's gonna puff.

Dude, this is super real. You would eat so much that my stomach would push on my diaphragm, and it would become harder to breathe because of eating. And then on top of that, they're also saying, like, hey, to get the transplant, you gotta hit a certain BMI. So it's like, think of it like this, man.

Cystic fibrosis, in general, I mean, but really so at end stage, you're walking up a mountain, and as you're walking up, just put a half pound on every mile, let's just say. And it gets harder. You know, you're in there, you're thinking you're halfway through,

it's gonna get harder and harder and harder, man. There's no, those weights don't come off, you know what I'm saying? So you're saying, oh, so as the cystic fibrosis goes on, as the time goes on and you have it, it gets, just everything gets tougher. Dude, so degenerative and debilitating. It's degenerative. So for people that don't know,

it's a disease that's in your lungs, right? That's right. Because you got your bags full of water, what happens to them? No, man, so I'll let you know. So it's in the pancreas, as well as your lungs. I mean, you see even in like the vas deferens, man. The nuts, what is that?

Your nut wiring. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, you're right, man. Did you take anatomy? How did you know that? No, but I used to look up pornographic stuff when I didn't have any. I'd look up the charts of penis and vagina and the history and the factual books.

And I remember seeing that vas deferens, dude. We learned in different ways, but I know about that though, what you're talking about. I think I read it in a book, too, but. For different purposes, yeah. But we're here, so you have that disease. And I remember when I saw you last year, we were on the transplant list and you were going through it.

Now, this is the first time I met you right here. And if you're watching on YouTube, you can see, that's over there in Tacoma. And I remember you telling me this, like you had a couple of buddies that came with you. Same jacket that I'm wearing right now, huh? That's cool though. Yeah, dude, I wear this almost every single day.

I don't like wearing a lot of different stuff. It's just too hard to find it, like around your own house or whatever. But then, so you had it there and I thought you look like Ralph Machio a little bit, or Ralph Unmacho, you know, because you couldn't move that good. And, and you said this

about a couple of friends you had there, I remember. You said, man, it's kind of crazy because, you know, it's like, you feel like when you, when people hang out with you, that they, it was hard for them not to treat you different. Oh yeah. Yeah, for sure, man. I mean, especially when you're at an end stage disease, man.

You're living on the cusp of literally dying. Oh, Frank Sayonara, they call you Frank Sayonara. Dude. I mean, you, if you get a cold, right? Like it's literally, you might be on your death. You will might be dead, right? And so, and you have to- Oh, you looked like you weren't gonna live, dude.

When I saw you, I would have bet you weren't gonna live, dude, honestly. And I would never say that. I say that now that you're alive. Can we go into some moments? Let's go into some moments to drop this on everybody, how you and I know each other. Mickey, right here.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. This is from his first voicemail. Hey yo, feel man. This is Mickey calling from Seattle. So here's my situation there. I'm 30 years old and I'm currently at the end stage of a lung disease. Now, my current lungs don't have very long left.

Probably about two and a half years. Hopefully we can stretch them out. But the silver lining is that I'm gonna be soon on the lung transplant list. I'm open. I'm gonna get listed, which will give me a few more years to figure this whole thing out.

That's fuckin' tricky, Mickey, dude. He's got them tricky airbags inside of him. He's got two and a half years left on his lungs. He's got them leased. He's got them leased lungs. And I had a bad lease on a car a couple years back. And it's not the same thing, but I only got so many miles.

I can only drive, I got 4,000 miles a year on a lease. And Jesus, it was miserable. I don't know. I don't know, man. Dude, I was running 300 plus. Were you? Oh, it had to be, man.

We were at the fumes, that point. You had nothing. Yeah, I remember you just kind of giving up during sentences. You had a little guy there. You would almost kind of hit him and he'd finish the sentence for you. What else do we have? Here's another.

So that first call was from February 1st, 2018. And then you guys met in Tacoma, and this was about a month and a half ago. And I was like, I don't know, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know, man. Dude, I was running 300 plus.

Were you? Oh, it had to be, man. And then you guys met in Tacoma, and this was about a month after that. You sound like you got them trumpets rolling, man. Are you feeling okay today? Yeah, absolutely, man. Dude, I'm living life, man.

On a scale of one to 10, man, I'm living at about an 8.5 right now, Theo. Life is good. That's beautiful, man. But now I've seen some stuff on your Instagram and stuff that you've been in the hospital, and I know we kind of texted a little bit about it. The last I saw you, you were in Tacoma,

you were doing good. I know you were on the transplant list. Like, what happened? Man, it's so crazy, Theo, man. I'll try to keep it simple and short, but, you know, man, where I'm at with my lung with cystic fibrosis, the disease I have, at end stage, things can go down very quickly.

And that is exactly what happened, man. I ended up not to get too graphic. I ended up coughing up a lot of blood, man, and what happened was the scare was that I wasn't gonna be able to do it myself and clot up. So basically, I had to get into the ICU, man, and I went through a very life-changing event, man, and if I'm really frank,

and I don't mean to pull on any heart strings here, but yeah, man, I mean, my family, we really didn't know if I was gonna make it or not, man, and I've since been out of the hospital for about a week, and a half now, and it's just changed my perspective, man. I'm really, I'm thankful for it all, and you know what, I'm on the upswing, man, and I am on the transplant list,

and any day now, those lungs will be coming in, man. No way, really? And after this event, you know, dude, I mean, I've never felt so loved. It's so crazy that such a traumatic and tragic experience on the other side of the coin, man, it brings people together. That's what I've learned.

To another level. And for me, even being out of it here for the past 10 days or so, like I said, I guess maybe I'm riding off that high, I don't know, but I have never felt more loved, and I'm physically weaker than I used to be, but I've never been in a better, more clear space mentally and emotionally, man.

Okay, so right there, so at that point, you hear yourself now looking back, and you felt like it really brought people together to another level. Do you still feel that? Like about your family and stuff like that? Dude, that's hard to even see sometimes when I just watch a little bit.

Is it? Why? Yeah, not like hard bad, but it's a, dude, because I think tomorrow, Theo, actually now that I'm even realizing it, because I've known it past a couple months, tomorrow's the anniversary. One year.

The one year, right? Wow. And I think I would actually give, Theo, man, I wanna answer that question, I'll come back to that, because it's impacted greatly, I think, my relationships and family and whatnot, but I mean, I used to share that video with people

that were in the cardiothoracic ICU, like a person who had, I remember a young man, and he was waiting for a heart transplant, and they didn't know if he was gonna get it or not, and I remember he would walk by. So at the rehab facility, we're basically doing laps, man, because we gotta work our cardio. If you don't use it, you lose it type thing,

especially right when it's brand new, you gotta use it. You gotta get this acclimated with this, right? Anyway, so I remember this man, and he might not get a transplant, he might not get his heart, and he would die, and I remember sending him that video and telling him, hey, man, this happened,

that video, man, that happened, my call with you was like one to two weeks before my transplant. I think it was one week before. The day before the transplant, you guys had a text exchange, and you read that on the podcast. Okay, I got a text from him today.

He, and this isn't definite, but I shouldn't share it, but you know what? I'm gonna share it and keep some hope out there. He is on, he is scheduled to get some lungs tomorrow. So how crazy is that, boy? He might get them new ballasts, bruh. He might be running around on them new fricking inner titties. You feel me?

Them air titties, them lungs. And so he said, he'll know definitely in the morning, I'll read you the text that came in. He said, bro, I just read, oh, no, he goes, surgery scheduled for, oh, donor just came in, man, crossing my fingers, new hitters. That's what he said. I said, no way.

He goes, surgery scheduled for tomorrow, barring that they're safe for me, and that no one else may need them more than me. And that shows you what those transplant lists are like. I mean, here he is, goes to bed, and he don't know if when he wakes up in the morning, if somebody else will have come along and something will have happened to them,

and now those hitters won't be there for him. And he guess who it is? It's a man who OD'd, who overdosed. We're living in a wild whirlpool, aren't we? We're living in a wild whirlpool. Yeah. I remember that now, man. Dude, there's so much there.

Yeah, I'm glad I needed to be in some of this room. Yeah, man, there's a lot going on there. Yeah, there's so much to unpack. Yeah, man, so much to unpack. This whole year's been about that, and some very real stuff, man. Well, take me to that. So you're going in with your family,

and before that, you had some really real moments with your family, and it brought you guys closer together, you said? Oh, absolutely, man. So the call before, right, where I was speaking with you, and I was intubated, I had that tube shoved down my throat to be able to breathe, I came out of that. I remember my dad looking at me and telling me, he goes,

you changed, you changed, and not in a negative way, but he was really inspired, I could tell. And what happened was, I mean, I was, I was filled with love. You know, you can't, I believe that I'm in a really unique scenario where I've been on my field, dude, I was on my death bed. Okay. And in three weeks, you got to live life again.

And it's wild, man. It's surreal, it's crazy, it's scary. It's full of anxiety. Do you almost feel like you let some people down a little bit by not dying? Like, not in a messed up way. I know that sounds crazy, man, but is that crazy? No, I don't think it's crazy, but what I'm trying to say is,

do you feel like that you could never, you know, the big finish is to die? Jesus, man. I want to know how, I want to get back to that, because I want to know how you die. So many people want to know that about you. Well, we don't know yet. We're going to get to that later, but.

But what I'm saying is, is there a thing there that like, man, it's like. Yeah, almost, there is, I know for some patients that they have a guilt, guilt. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. You can't, yeah, you can't ever see it all the way through. You know, it's like, yeah, you know. There was one person, it was one person to one only.

And that was my, it sounds, it's funny, you joke around about like this dude, he's, I went in there, I get the call. I say, okay, what do you guys want me to do? They go, A, 1900, 7 p.m., 1900, you come into the hospital. Oh, they're all of a sudden in the military, they try to trick you, they want you to be there late. That's insurance, man.

Dude. You get there two hours late, you don't get the fucking deal, they don't have to pay for it. What is a 1900? Yeah. This is time, not years. So anyway, getting, getting back at it.

So I'm like, okay, what do you guys want me to do? And they said, just live your lifestyle normal. It was 10 a.m., man. It was 10 a.m. And I remember, I guess, okay, I guess I'll go get some tacos and go get my haircut. And chill out until 7 p.m. Yeah.

So now do you get the haircut because you are, for what? You're thinking in case you don't make it? You're, that's, damn it. No, I was thinking totally I was going to make it. Oh, sorry.

That would have been smarter though, man. Well, it looks super fresh. Instead of letting some freak who doesn't care about you cut your hair down at the, you know, at the fucking bone bar. Theo, would you die with that haircut? Would you let yourself die with that haircut? Yeah, I probably would.

I mean, I'd have somebody tighten it up a little bit, and maybe put a little bit of maybe thickener in the back. It's funny you say that. Let me, let me, let me get to that real fast. I went there specifically thinking I'm going to be in the hospital for maybe two to three months. So let me get a good haircut first. And I want to get, I want to get something short

cause I had like shaggy hair and I wanted to, to be able to breathe cause you can't shower with all that gear, right? And I was prepared, I was prepping. And I remember the exchange that I had for my, with my barber at the time, the guy who's cutting my hair, I said, hey man, I want it short. I need, I need one of the edges and I want to take it,

take it all off to about like a quarter inch. And he goes, amen. Are you sure about that? I said, yeah, it's fine. Don't worry about it. He goes, what's the occasion? What are you doing? I said, I might be in the hospital here for about two months,

getting a double lung transplant. And he said, oh, okay, word. All right. And I had then realized at that moment I'd go, oh, you know, some people do and don't get it. You know, it, it was very blasé. It was very blasé. It was just kind of like-

What was, what do you mean? His, his reaction more or less kind of like, oh, okay, we're going to draw a double lung transplant. Right. And it's not, don't get me wrong. I don't want to get, there's any expectation on that end, but it's more to say a lot of people don't know, man. A lot of people don't know.

Like someone had to die for me to live. Yeah. Again, like there's so much to unpack, but it's like a lot of people don't realize the intensity of the scenario at all, right? You know, again, whether it's rebirth and living anew or whether it's one person had to die over an overdose, you can't die in any single way, man.

If someone stabbed you in the lungs, we ain't getting those lungs, dude. No one wants those lungs, man. Sorry, dude, we don't want punctured lungs. You have to die very, very circumstantially. Yeah, a lot of motorcycle accidents. Yes. Those guys give them up a lot.

A lot of people, decapitation, stuff like that. Yeah, man, it's really, you know, this guy overdosed his head, he got yours, huh? That's right, that's right. Now, this is all over the place, but let me go back to this where, so I could imagine, say you, you know, you're not sure if you're going to be alive, right?

And I only talk about this candidly with you, because you, you know, and when we've discussed this kind of stuff, you've been pretty candid about most of it, you know? And really insightful in some moments. Let me ask you, dude, don't you think in my opinion, I think you would be, like you have to be, right? What?

I gotta be candid, man. There's no, there's no use for feeling like, Well, I don't know. That's what I'm trying to figure out, like, you know, like, or that's what I'm, you know, like, like whenever you're talking with your family before, it's like, I feel like I would worry that I'd make all these promises with my family.

Man, if I only had an extra week, you know, we would do this and this and this, and I promise I would always be like this. And then you get the transplant, you get the extra weeks, and you're just like, ah, fuck it, we got time to kill now. You know, like, not in a bad way, but just like, you know, that's human nature.

Oh man, but it ain't human nature for me, right? Right. At least, at least in my perspective, because, you know, again, man, it's, it's a perspective thing. You've, I've always been, for lack of better words, held down by health. Man, I would have plans, dude, I've got big plans these days with life.

Right. And the number one thing that always stopped me was health. Right? At 13, 14 years old, I was facing a daily dose of mortality every single day. And now, now I don't, man. And do other people get tired of hearing about that whenever you're young?

Like, take me, what's, what's, what's some of that like? Like, what is that, like, you know, um, what is some of that like? Yeah, cause like, you used to say when your sister was sick, she got all the attention and you were kind of resentful. Yeah. Like, so like, you being the center of attention,

did you ever feel that from anybody? No, man. Yeah, people don't know. It's weird, dude. I mean, Nick, that's a great question. I think that if I'm real with you, man, this is, this is a bit vulnerable, but I actually, it's hard for me to say,

especially on something like this, I actually don't feel like I receive, I receive a ton of love. Right. I don't feel a lot of it. I don't feel a lot of it. And, and I don't think that's necessarily because of the fact that I've taken wrong turns in life,

necessarily, but it's more of a, again, man, I spoke about the whole participating in life aspect of things. There's a depth that I have. And I don't know whether it's CF related or not. Maybe it's just my mind. I don't know. But a lot of people can't level with.

And so when I go out in the world and I see however the world I see, right? Like, I wonder why people, people aren't taking their own face in their own hands, man. Like I, like I said, uniquely enough, I have this at 31 years old, I have this unique experience to live life again

and realize, okay, this is what I'm not gonna do. You know what I'm not gonna do? I ain't gonna work 40 hours a week, dude. I, it's in the sense of like working for someone. I'm trying to get out of that. I'll pay my time, cool, whatever. But you gotta realize fast, man. Like what is important to you

and all these types of things, man? What is important? What do you wanna do in life? I never had a bucket list but I have things that I wanna achieve. And now I feel like I have that ability to do so. Regarding the attention, I don't feel like I receive it

in a way that I can process and feel it, man. It's just, it gets hard. I don't think that they come from a perspective that maybe is relative to mine and it gets hard, it's hard. Why? Because like people just can't understand what it's like to feel like your life might be ending or like why?

Like what do you mean? You know what I mean? It's a hard question to answer when I really think about it, man. I think it's just because the fact that I get a lot of people trying to solve my problems or talk about theirs. And again, being in the perspectives,

I'm like, dude, I can't talk to you about your AT&T bill. Right. You know, I can't talk to you. I can, I'll sit there, I'll, okay. You know, I'll have the small talk. Right. Right, but... But what, there's bigger fish to fry?

It's just that... But people don't realize that. You know what? If I can, can I cuss on this shit, man? Like, dude, who the fuck cares? That's what I'm saying about your AT&T bill or whatever's going on, dude. Like why do you care so much?

Yeah. Because I'm gonna tell you this, man. When you live on the cusp of that, when you face your mortality every single day, oh yeah. You'll start to realize real fast, this shit doesn't matter, dude. You're traffic jam at work.

Man, it's so, this is so cliche and so stupid. I apologize for saying it. You're lucky you could be that traffic jam, dude. There are people in the hospital right now, dude, who are having a hard time. There are people in... Bumper to bumper with between the Lord and the devil. They don't know what's going on.

Right, man. That's a, Jesus. That's a, but, but yes, man. And it's crazy to think of life like that. I know we can't all think like that. But to step out of ourselves, I think that I just have a lot of friends who aren't able to.

Yeah. I have a lot of loved ones. Well, a lot of people probably just can't. It must just be that we're not wired then to do it that way. We're just wired to see it, how we see it in the perception that we're in. And once we get into another position,

then we can see it. It's like, I can only see the earth the way it is, but if I'm an astronaut or something, if I'm out there buzzing or Aldrin or whatever, then you can see, then you get a glimpse of the earth and it gives you a whole different perception of what's going on.

So you get that by being able to, you know, kind of go to those depths of not knowing what your clock is. But a lot of the rest of us, we just don't get that. Sister The DMV is crazy. Like it doesn't matter. You know, like, I mean, is there, is there a tough, is it tough to like re-enter society kind of a little bit?

It's interesting you say that, man. I will never talk about it. Like I know what this is like when I'm about to say, but I can see how it would be relative to someone coming out of the penitentiary for a while. Oh, wow. I mean, again, or maybe coming back from war. Yeah.

You know, maybe not having PTSD in a different way. Man, I've had to let you know a little bit about my story, Theo, man. You know, I've had, like, I grew up with nine other cystic fibrosis patients. You know, I was in and out of Seattle. All siblings? No.

Jesus. Yeah, back in, I mean, you'd call it a little brotherhood. OK, OK, I see, but a club. Right, right, right. We were all sick in that generation in Seattle. Wow. We spent probably about three years in and out of the hospital at Seattle Children's.

And would they date to a lot of the CF kids? It, not, I mean, close, close, man. I mean, my best friend would, you know, use my best friend. But I did have another two that I knew that they wouldn't want to date due to, I mean, we can't, man. We can't commingle too well. If my bacteria learns yours, then our antibiotics kind of cancel each other out.

You can't even have sex with someone because. Oh, hell no, man. If they have your cystic fibrosis, this could meet up and teach each other about the other one's defenses. Yeah, yes, yes, as well as create new defense. It's bad. It's crazy, man. But on that note, they'll feel, man.

Check it, like. It's like Game of Thrones. I'm in Game of Thrones season one right now. Oh, Jesus. So. Yeah, yeah, you got to catch up. It's very similar. Dude, are you ready for that?

We'll talk about this. Are you really ready for that commitment? It's eight seasons, dude. Wait, Game of Thrones? I don't know. OK. I don't think I am actually. That'd be the most commitment Theo's ever had.

Yeah, it's definitely the most commitment. Like, I'm already scared of season four. I'm already wondering how I'm going to get out of season four. Look, can I speak on that real fast, though, on the. Yeah, definitely. So you can't even. So so there's a danger of even mingling. So can you right?

Can you touch each other and stuff? Not supposed to. But we do, right? Right. But but the thing is this, man, you're meeting someone for kind of maybe the first time in your life. It's, oh, my holy shit. This person knows what I deal with.

Oh, it's interesting. And you're like nine years old. Yeah. The subconscious takes a crazy toll, right? We're like, oh, man, I got to do all these treatments. I got to cough up all this stuff. You know, I was at what you cough up bio mucus. Oh, wow.

Mucous in the lungs, right? Damn, sounds like if you don't have cystic fibrosis, I would love that. I love coughing up something spit in it. Oh, yeah, man. Swarzen was talking a lot about bio. Maybe he has cystic fibrosis and we don't know. I could see Nick Swarzen having it.

He's something seems. He looks like he. I mean, something's wrong with him. I don't know. Yeah, I suppose something's wrong with him, but it also makes him very special and sweet. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he looks like he has diarrhea right under his skin.

He's shit in his pants all the time. That's true. As I was growing up with these eight or nine, and I'm glad that we could keep it light, because the bomb drop is this. By 20 years old, by my 20th birthday, all of them were gone. No way. Passed away.

All of them have died. Wow. And you know, I don't like. From the disease or from other stuff randomly? From the disease. Wow. From the disease. And I don't like to say, because it feels weird,

but I'm kind of the one guy who got out, the one kid who survived. And then when my time to go came, for whatever miracle on miracle, it eliminated that. And now here I am, man. Right. Because it's such a. Now were those people kids on the list too, a lot of them?

Transplant these days for longs have advanced greatly within the past 10 years. So I mean, I'm 31 now. Back when I was 20, they were already all gone. And so no, man. I mean, none of them were even maybe even eligible for transplant, dude. It's just it's so it's so harsh to say, man.

That's crazy, man, that so. So those. So did you start to feel like was there a superiority complex that happened to something? Because, you know, the ego is very dangerous. And I even notice sometimes it's like, you know, things will start to make you. It's hard for you not to think, oh, I'm special as well.

You know, in addition to the other feelings you can have, I'm lucky, I'm blessed, I'm fortunate, and I'm staying the action of helping others. But there's also times where you feel like, oh, well. Yeah. I'm the man, you know, I'm the fucking Ralph Machu. It's interesting you say that. I don't I don't look at it as superiority as far as that goes.

But I do say, why me? Oh, why me? Yeah. And not in a guilty way, but like, like quite literally, you know, I why am I what why? Why me? Like, why am I still here out of these eight or nine? Like, what did I do to deserve living continuously? What did I do to deserve going back to our previous

thread of conversation? There was one other person in the transplant, man. Like when I before I got the transplant, there was one other person in the hospital that was contending with me. They sent him home, dude. Wow. And I'm I'm I'm hoping that he got lungs

and he'll cross our fingers or whatever. But damn, there's a why me aspect. And it's like the contender that show the contender. Remember that was of us as to alone. And I love you. You think of that? I'm so good. Sergio Mora, he won Manfredo.

The snake. I didn't like him. I like Manfredo from New Jersey. Rhode Island, baby. Rhode Island. What was his name? Peter Manfredo. Peter Manfredo, junior, right? And then Gary Boleto, junior.

There's two guys from. Peter Manfredo. I watched. Couldn't he? Yeah, he bet Peter Manfredo was like, yeah, but he kept losing. He lost a lot. I cried like every episode of that show. It was incredible.

The fight scenes were like, they did them all cinematic. But just this week, and coincidentally, Daniel Cormier and Sergio Mora got into it on Twitter because of how Sergio Mora was commentating the Canelo fight. They thought they were fanboying out. And they were going back and forth. Wow. Yeah, it was.

It got rough. You should check that out later. So Sergio Mora is a commentator now? Yeah, him and Brian Kenny did the Canelo fight. And they were just like, even when Daniel Jacobs would land a shot, they'd be like, look at the chin on Canelo. Everything was about him. He's the $300 million man.

Did they ever put you guys together? Or did you ever meet him? And or they try and keep you guys? You met him, huh? Oh, this dude? Oh, no, dude. We up, man. Because if we did, we'd try to kill each other.

Would you really think? Sure, absolutely. Dude, I would. Dude, it's let live, dude. I ain't going to let him live. So both of you guys are up for the organs. Yeah. That's why.

Yeah. And it's like, and we're never going to meet. Dude, I never want to meet that guy because he's going to be. Because what if he's, you know, God forbid, what if he's not here? What if he's not here? But I mean, he likely is. Who knows?

But that, yeah, we knock on wood and we cross our fingers and all that, you know. But that, but that being said, man. That's crazy, man. Again, but you sleep in the hospital. You get the call. OK, I come in at 7 PM. I got my fresh haircut, you know,

trying to get at the nurses, too. Right. And so anyway, and that's real. Now, are you real horny before you're going to die like that? Always. Yeah, I could see that. Whether it's before death or after, dude. Nobody's fucked.

I mean, somebody will fuck you after in a hospital, they might. They always keep busting people for, you know, making babies with the dead or whatever over there. Knock, you know, they always bust every now and then. Bust a black janitor from, you know, procreating with a bunch of old senior women. But my first girlfriend. They're not black janitor.

I shouldn't have said a black janitor. Different all types of janitors, black and white and beige. So that's a universal thing. People want to write. But but so anyway, you're in there. Let me get at this. Can I say this real fast? You bring that up, dude.

My first girlfriend was a nurse and I was at the hospital. It dude, I was at Seattle Children's Hospital. She was a CNA and taking care of me. And then we then, you know, started dating. But she got fired promptly after that. Yeah. You can't do that. And did you guys ever like cook up in the hospital or no?

It happened. Wow. Yeah. And is there a lot of sex between in like these transplant wards? Probably probably more than we would like to admit. I kind of mean that. It's like the Olympic Center. It's like Olympic Village or whatever.

You know what I'm saying? I think anyway, if you're there and you got, you know, and you got the death cathalon the next day, baby, I'd be fucking dude. I'd fuck the little guy bringing the Jellica, you know. Dude, we're all looking for some love. And so that and I say that as a joke, but that's very mean. Like, is it hard to have sex when you can't breathe that good?

Oh, dude, but I always found a way, dude. You always find it. You can ask past lovers. You can ask current lovers. I always find a way, dude. Yes. Absolutely. For sure.

Like, he's going longer than Theo. Oh, I can't stand having sex. Dude, it was hard. You know what I would do, Theo? This is a real power play that I would do right before. Right before it was all finished up. Yeah. I'd pull out.

I'd place her hand on my heart. Oh, wow. To show how much dedication I put into it. Because it was so rapid. And but then they like, they knew. They're like, oh, shit, he's he really loves me. This guy did it all. This guy's at 7000 fucking beats a minute.

Wow, bro. It's intense. But it's but it's fun. It's intense. It's fun, though, like it is, because you don't know what's going to happen. Yeah. Do you ever it's exciting?

Is it? Do you ever think your heart could stop and stuff like that? There were times where because if you remember, I was coughing up all that blood. Oh, yeah. There were times where I would I'd be in the middle of making love with a girl and start coughing blood up and thinking, I'm like, OK, I could die from this.

And but I need to I need to finish. I need to have sex first. Finish it up. Yeah, because we got life. We got duality here. Life and death and I will always choose life always. And you also that could be what's that group of kids in high school that go to watch that midnight Rocky Horror Picture Show,

dude, you could have with that. That's you tell that story right there. You could have hooked up with any check that is a big Rocky Horror Picture Show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I don't know if that's my type, but you're right. But I don't know if that's my type. So so so you got the now once you get the transplant, you got a bag.

You got a pair of bags from a let's go here. Let's let's check out another video right here. This is the first first time we talk to Mickey after the transplant. Let's hear it. Yo, feel how they're going there. What up, bro? Dude, new hitters, bro. You got them new fresh air duffels on, baby boy.

Man, God dang, man. Life is so good, brother. It's so good to hear your voice, man. Dude, you too, man. You sound like a day. Honestly, do you sound like an adult now? Dude, you know, it's crazy. You know, real fast, dude, my dire friends

haven't hooked up to my long fly and got a laugh right now. Like literally, it's a silent laugh, but I'm an adult. I'm an adult now, man. I weigh, dude, I weigh 118 pounds, but I'm still an adult. Dang, he's that light adult, but look out. Where were you at before, like out of 10, and where are you at now out of 10? So it's really funny, man.

You know, when we talked, what, like three weeks, you know what I want to say? Four weeks, maybe. You know, I was like, I think I told you, maybe an 8.5 in life, right? Yeah. 8 out of 10. Yeah.

Dude, this is like, you know, not to be all hokey or whatever, man. Yeah, it's like a, it's 10 out of 10. If not 15, dude, every day is, man. You're out there, huh? Every day is beautiful, dude. So dude, let me hear, so you got those new lungs. Now, the person that donated them to you,

this, that person was a, they overdosed. Is that right? That's true, man. Yeah, I said that over text, dude, in the sense that this was what was considered a high risk transplant, meaning that the donor had been using intravenous drugs and also spent a little bit of time in jail. Ooh, boy, you got a real G inside of you now.

Dude, my street credibility went up about 100%. At least double what I normally had, you know? Dude, you got them dirty moist, you got them dirty moist duffels living in your sternum now, dude. This is gangster. They overdosed, right? They tell us about that, man. They don't tell me.

You got a picture of them or not? No, dude, I'll tell you how it is, I'll tell you this, man. There's this thing called HIPAA, which is basically a privacy act, right? And so they tell me what I need to know about the organs. So, which is specifically this, that. Let me know, let me guess. Hold on, let us guess what it sounds like, what year,

how many years old are the bags here? Whistle a little, dude. Dude, I always, okay. 27. Hold on. What about maybe sing a couple of bars? Do a little bit of national anthem. Dude, what if I don't know that song?

We'll just do a couple of bars of it. Oh, see, can you see? Pretty good. Okay, let me think. I would go probably, I'm gonna go 23 year old. I'm gonna go, actually, I'm gonna go with a 31 year old. Gianni? My original guess was 27,

but the national anthem was a little deeper, so I'm gonna go 30. Don't you gotta get clues, man. Yeah, when I heard the national anthem, I was thinking like Pavarotti, I'm thinking like 64, to be honest. Oh wow, so Nick's going with those old bags. That means you gotta get him replaced in 20 years.

Price is right for new organs. Yeah, if it is, I fucked up. This is it. One dollar, Bob. I want that blender. What are we talking here, Nick? Yeah, man, it's, I think that he was 31 to 32 years old. Wow, right.

Gianni, right on the fricking long money. And here's what they tell me, man. They tell me everything that I'm supposed to or need to know, right, and which is this, that this was a high risk transplant, meaning that the patient, or I should say the donor had died and had been using intravenous drugs in the past,

I believe X amount of hours, whatever that is. As well as, and the big thing to take away as the recipient is that there's two different things that I gotta watch out for. The two things were this, hey, he's done IV drugs lately, and also he's also been, had a history of a criminal record. Okay.

And so they say, that means there's high risk for, you could have HIV. Wow. Or you could Hep C or Hep B. And yeah, man. So then they tell you that before and then they say, you still want them? Wow.

Yeah. And you can say yes or no. Yeah. But dude, now if you say no, you're gambling, are you gonna get another pair? You are, I got it. You got it. You got another pair of fucking chess socks.

What do you do? Do you take them? I mean, you gotta, what do you think? What do you do? I don't know. I like to say, don't hit me. It's like price is right again. Bitter pass, bitter pass.

Yeah. That's probably the toughest game of 21 you've ever played. I know, dude. It's ridiculous, man. But my thought, did you think about it at all? Oh, I do. I called my best friend about it. Oh, it's phone or friend.

This is definitely, thank you. Yeah. Oh, for sure, man. This game more complex. I phone a friend. What did he say? I love this. Yeah, she's all like, here's the thing.

Is your friend Amy that we know? No, no, Amy, no, it wasn't Amy. I didn't know Amy until after the show. I've made so many connections after the show, man. But it's my friend Deanna. She's my best friend and she actually was the one who made the GoFundMe page a while back. And so anyway, she just, she's a lawyer.

She's smart, right? And she said, she goes, listen, I'd say take them. I'd say take them because you don't know if you're gonna survive. Yeah. And I, and you know, I go, yeah, you know, I suppose that's true. And even if I get hep C, hep B,

even if I get HIV, it's like, whatever, dude. Yeah. I mean, I kind of mean that, dude. So that's interesting. It's crazy. So at that level, so that's, see this is a really good piece because then at that level, I can,

that's something I can almost kind of grasp my head on too. Like, man, okay, right now, if somebody said, hey, man, do you want HIV? I'd be like, nah, I'm good, you know? But if it was like, hey, do you want to live? But also maybe I have HIV. It would be like, yeah, undeniable. Right, right, gun to your head.

Gun to your head. Yeah, give me it. We'll shoot you in three weeks. You can live your life, but we're coming to get you. Or you can have HIV and just we'll never come again. Yeah. We'll shoot you full of HIV and you'll live. So do you feel any different?

Do you feel like when they put new lungs into you that you develop any of the traits from the other person? If the person was a drug user, do you start to covet dope? Do you start to, you know, do you ever, do you have any dreams? Do you feel like aren't yours? Like, does any of that kind of stuff go on

after you are a transplant recipient? So like I told you, man, I got the call actually on May 6th of last year. And who called a man or a woman? It was a man, a nurse at the hospital. Okay, and how do they phrase that to you? Literally saying, dude, hey, Michael, we have, that's also my name.

We have a, yeah, we have a possible donor for you. And barring, again, like I was saying, barring that you are the recipient that is most ill and most fitting, then we would be performing the transplant on you. And that's that. Getting back to what you were saying, though. What were you saying?

What were you saying? All right, we'll shoot, man. Were you gonna puff on some albuterol? You got some, that's Becklavan. I used to use that, man. Yeah, this is flutacosome, propanate, man. So I do this every now and then. Yeah, man.

Oh, so you got cystic fibrosis from that? What's going on? No, I have my lungs, something happened with my lungs, the doctor said. Okay. But if you developed any of the traits that like someone who got a transplant. Yeah, you feel like you do things differently

that aren't yours now. Like suddenly you wanna swim or suddenly you wanna have an oatmeal. And this is not a joke. So where I was going, thank you. Where I was going with that was that the donor had his thing on Cinco de Mayo, right? So he, I always looked at weekends,

like these are big things. People die during the weekends, dude. We party on Friday and Saturday. You know, we party hard sometimes, we party all the time. But on Friday and Saturday, that's when most people party and that's when most people die. And for him, he got wild on Cinco de Mayo, you know,

and he did his thing. Cinco de muerto, right? Was he Latino? That's what I'm wondering, because I'll tell you this. This is where I was getting that in the post-virus. What I've taken from him, I cannot not date a Latina girl. Really? And I kind of mean that, dude.

That's not really even a joke. I like a lot of Mexican food a lot lately. You have a craving. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's like, if you have a baby and you have a craving for certain food that the baby could be that ethnicity a lot of times. Yeah.

And so I can't imagine that this would be very much different than that. That's amazing. What if your desire for people you are attracted to is in your lungs, you know? It's such a crazy thing when you think of a, I don't need to take it here, but like almost a spiritual sense to him.

I have another person's organs, another person inside of me right now. Yeah. And so there's just no way in my opinion that you can't take on something. This guy's DNA is inside of me. Do you start to feel things more interchangeable? Like, what does that do for you physically

having somebody else's body parts in you? You just realize, at least in my part, man, it's just a wild experience. You know, you realize that first and foremost, we're at a time where medical advances has made this possible, right? Without that, I would not be here for one. I mean, secondly, again, I do really imagine and wonder.

I'm wondering who this man was, who this man was, and what life he lived, because here's the thing, Theo, many people who go through what I've gone through, they die. Yeah. After transplant, they die, man. And...

Because the organs get rejected, right? They do. And you have to take anti-rejection medicine? I do. Yeah. I haven't told you about this much, but my recovery, I was in the hospital, post-transplant dude for 10 days, right?

Which you're supposed to be in there for at least two weeks. Yeah, that seems like way not that much. There you are, Mickey lives, baby, right there. Dang, look at you. You look like Al Pacino a little bit in there, dude. Yeah, I do. You look like Al Pacino, dude. You look much older there.

You look much younger now. Yeah. It's crazy. Thank you. I appreciate that, man. I mean, that has happened. I feel like there's so much emotional stress and physical stress on your body.

I look at pictures from before, and I look aged, right? And not badly, but you can see a pain, I feel. You can see a pain. Look, what do you mean you can see a pain? Do you ever feel like that when you walk around? You see that somebody's just kind of like, can just kind of feel their energy almost?

Oh yeah, definitely. Especially if you've been fasting, I could imagine if you're getting sick, if you're on mushrooms, things like that. I feel like I can definitely immediately tell if someone's what's going on with someone, and sometimes even almost what that specifically is, or you get an insight.

Especially if you're fasting, I feel like, because you're so hungry for anything that even a piece of information from someone is like. Appetize you? It's like a nutrient. Yeah, it's something you get, you know? Yeah, yeah. What are some things that physically happen to you

differently now that happen to your body differently or that are suddenly or different now? The one thing I smile at is. Move this a little closer to you. Can you hear him okay? Yeah, yeah. It's so ridiculous I'd bring this up because it's been such a consistent topic.

Dude, my sex life is way better. Really? Oh, God, I need some fucking lungs then. I need a couple of lungs in my nuts, dude. I need definitely some more, I need some more. I need my dick to breathe harder. So that's a thing immediately that you notice, and are you serious or not?

No, I'm very serious, it's a blood flow thing, I think. I'm oxygenated, right? Yeah, that's huge. I do have like harder erections, man. Yeah. Yeah, and it's like the first thing that I noticed. That's awesome. Other than the fact that yes, then I can breathe,

okay, cool, great, I can breathe, but also, but we breathe to sometimes have sex. Right. It's like, we breathe to do things. Right. That's one of them that we do. What have you learned as a mode, like what are some things that you now,

like an insight you realize about life or about being alive or time or anything? Some insights about existence that you think other people may not have the ability to recognize because they didn't have this experience. And they can be good or bad. Yeah, that's a, man, I mean,

I would have first asked you how much time we got, right? But I'd say the biggest thing. We got time to hear a couple. The biggest thing I would say, man, is that you gotta really look at life and understand, you gotta build an awareness to yourself, to what you want in life. Because it's not gonna be,

it really is not gonna be the status that you may wanna build, whether it's a little empire, whether it's money. I'd say, sure, if you're gonna do that, build it and knowing what you want in life. Because I'll tell you this, on someone who's been after his deathbed and now on a rebirth,

I would say the things that are biggest to me are my relationships in life, the passions that I wanna pursue, as well as the things that fulfill me, right? And I've taken the time to understand these things. And I would say, you learn these things real, it becomes, it taints your experience. You start talking with people,

you're like, oh, he doesn't know himself. She doesn't know, she's lost. She's gonna keep going through this cycle over and over and over again. And you start realizing, okay, these are the big things that are in life right now. And again, people get caught up in their stress. It's too hard to look at.

And so I believe that once you've come back from something like that, that's all I'm gonna pursue. You know, build my little empire to the point where I wanna get the resources to do what I wanna do, right? But if anything, exactly that, do what I'm cliche enough meant,

do what I'm meant to be here for. Right. You know, and maybe that I have a way, somebody told me this recently, they said, you know, maybe you just being you and living your life is a testament of that someone looks at and takes away from it. Yeah.

You know, it inspires them and makes them wanna do something more. Yeah. There's some calls, man. I've run into listeners. Yeah. Last week, I was playing basketball at a gym. I started playing a pickup game with this other dude.

And he came up to me. I introduced myself as Mickey. And he goes, hey man, do you know Theo Vaughn? He knew me right away, man. That's great. It's all about your voice. Really? It's what you call Mickey.

Yeah. No way. Dude, man, I got so many different strings there. And then you gotta have a jumper after that, man. You can't show with some budget. Oh, we won the game. We won the game. And what was great,

and I do wanna make note of this, Theo, is that I texted somebody about that and I said, you know, somebody recognized me from the podcast and she said, how did it feel to be known? I kinda shrugged it aside because what I took from it, I said to her, I said, what was so amazing was his big smile on his face.

Yeah. Because the thing that he said to me was, it was Jordan, by the way. And what he said to me was, man, you just got your transplant about a year ago. You're playing basketball like that. Cause we did, we beat him, not by much, whatever. But he's like, wow, you're playing basketball.

You're out here, you had this big smile, right? It's cool. It is, man. And it's fulfilling. It's gratifying, man. Yeah, that's a way where somebody else hears that and then they, inside of them, it touches a part of them that cares

and they get to see you in real life suddenly playing hoops and they're like, oh, wow, man, that's so cool. Like I remember hearing about that sky. And then here I am, here we are, we get to play together and be around each other. That's cool. And not only that, doing something where you have

to be able to breathe to do it, you know? I mean, if you guys were underwater, something might be like, oh, who gives a fuck, you know? But you're out there in a place where you gotta really be able to, you know, use air. No, it was wild, man. That's cool, man. I mean, even in the rehab, my physical therapist,

unknowingly, you know, again, I go, my Mickey's my middle, my nickname, people know me as Michael. When I was getting rehab at the hospital, this physical therapist comes in my room and it says, prefers to be called by Mickey on my board, right? And he looks over, he goes, he points at me, he goes,

are you listening to Theo Vonundy? I go, yeah, man, why? What's up? He goes, you're trick-lung Mickey, huh? That's funny. He's my physical therapist, man, is a TPW listener. His name is Jason. What up, Jason?

I wanna trust that guy. He's practicing medicine, he listens to Theo. The dark arts, dude. Who knows what he put inside of you. Man, dude. And so there are these occasions, right? And I've connected, man, I've connected with a bunch of people that, and I wanted to really state out, man,

that the listeners have helped immensely. Wow. And I mean, so many people coming out, dude. So many people just giving me their support. I had one dude give me a message and he was like, you know, my son listens to the podcast. We've been listening. When we drive him, I drive him to school

and he listens and I listen and he came in the door and he goes, dad, dad, Mickey got them new hitters. Yeah. And I just was so touched by it because there's this father and son somewhere out there. I don't know, like Kentucky, Alabama, somewhere that are touched by the story, whatever, that Theo, that man, you've given me a platform on, man.

Oh, it's cool, man. I appreciate you saying that. Well, it's just funny, man, because I don't know if I would ever care about transplantation unless my sister would have went through it or I'd have been around it or, you know, I'd have had some experience with it. You know, and then I remember you guys,

the skin tone was very much the same color. It was this kind of yellowish kind of color a little bit. You know, and so, and immediately whenever I saw you, I was like, oh man, that's so crazy. It's like, it just reminds me so much of my sister when she was a kid, you know? Right. And yeah, I don't know, it's just, you know,

what's interesting sometimes how the power of illness, like how it makes other people, it puts this impression on us of like, of living of the value of it. So I can only imagine that being the illness, having the illness and going right there to the edge of like, not existing anymore and then coming back from there. Like, yeah, it seemed like you would have a sixth sense

as to like who's spending their time, you know, well, who's doing things in a correct manner, who's trying to, who's confused, who's not. Like it, I think it's probably why a lot of like, you know, different cultures and stuff over the years have done things to, you know, whether it be fasting or whether it be sweat lodges, like things where they just try to go to the edge of their own mortality

to see what's there, you know, to see what they can actually learn. Because those are things that you used to have a lot more in everyday society before we got so comfortable, you know, especially in the US. I mean, we really have a lot of comfort. Yeah. There's a wisdom there.

Yeah. There's a wisdom that you can't learn just by living life. You get brought to that edge, man. That's the crazy thing to me, man. It's like sometimes I'll be having a time, like, you know, even just this weekend, like, you know, I was just so tired this weekend doing, doing shows. Like I almost didn't want to get on stage.

I couldn't even feel myself talk. I was like talking, but my words weren't connected with my thoughts. I felt like I was just like putting on this monkey thing on stage. And then they had like this father, son that had come down and just like, they were like, man, we're so excited. Like, I've randomly found an email they sent me

and just sent them some tickets, like at the last minute the other day, like it was from like three weeks ago and I just hadn't looked at my emails. And I was like, hey, man, once you guys come through and they were just stoked and it like gave me like a whole different, it just showed me the other side of the coin.

It was like, oh, there's, you know, like, we just don't realize sometimes the places we are or what we're doing, the effect they can have on somebody else who's not even around, you know? Like whether if I'm even just, you know, in the morning I see like a, you know, a mom just give her son a hug, goodbye, or the mom or the kid run back and like, I love you, you know, just the little things we don't see.

You know, you see somebody pick up somebody, something that they dropped that they didn't even see and put it back on their cart. They didn't even know. It's like, just we don't know what, where the role we can play in other people's wellness, you know, or other people's comfort in the world. And, but I constantly get reminded by,

and anyway, I met the father and son after the show and they were so stoked and it just was like, oh, well, this is why you're here today. You're just here to help these guys, you know, get to spend some time together. You know, and then I live vicariously. It's like, I get to be with my dad through that moment, you know, through them.

It's like, it's kind of, I don't know, we're in this little world, in this web. We're all so connected. It's crazy, I feel like. Yeah, I think it's cool that like Mickey got to share his story with all our listeners. Cause like, lots of times when it just happens to you, like that's what you need to like take stock of things

and reevaluate, but these people didn't have to have at first hand, they got to hear Mickey's story and see his new lease on life. And I think it kind of just a reminder to people to live that way. Yeah. Without having to go through the suffering. Yeah, 100% of reminding people to do organ donation,

you know, like just the value of that. It's thinking that their lungs could have a chance to be here on TPW, you know, I'm just joking. But still dude, you're here. We have two guests in studio today. I say we go for heart next. Yeah, talk. You got to fucking start doing drugs or something.

Bore that heart out. Yeah, man, get a kidney. Dude, I might get another arm. Oh, okay. Do something crazy, yeah. Don't get all greedy. Play the violin or something. Yeah, be that juggler who's cheating.

Yeah, dude, come on. But you're listener-based, man. Are the people that support you, Theo. I mean, there's a special, I know you know this. Yeah. It's a specialness, too. Yeah, we got a special group, man. There is.

There's a core principle set, man. I do think that it, anybody that I've met previously that knows me from the show, so to speak. Yeah. Dude, I've had people from my past. Like an old high school friend. Just reach out to me. Hey, I heard you want Theo's thing, man.

Yeah. People that I've met. People ask about you all the time. You and Riff Raff are probably two people that people ask me about the most. You know, Riff Raff and fucking Breathe Ruff. That's what I called you. And here we are having them back to back weeks.

Yeah, here we are, back to back weeks. This past weekend. We actually have some Patreon questions for Mickey. Good. Thank you, man, too. You want to? That's awesome. Johnny's going to start handling our Patreon questions

a little bit more. What do we got, G? Okay, so we have, our first question is from Jacob Wells. Now that he's got these new hitters, is he considering any other upgrades? Maybe calf implants, so we just, yeah. Calf implants. Oh man, dude.

I would think that I would go for, go for some. If you could pick one thing. Dude, no, I know it'd be some new testicles. Really? Yeah. Do your testicles get smaller when your lungs get smaller? Like too big.

Too big. Are you a big testicle? Oh, they get bigger. Yeah. Why? Again, man, I think that vasculation, it just happens, man. Really? I mean, you know, and that's a ridiculous notion.

I think that I'm good with the organs that I have, but definitely if I were to switch one out, it'd be testicles. You want bigger ones? No, I want smaller testicles. Testicles are a little too big, I think, overall. So that's Jacob Wells right there. Boy, I know him over in Oklahoma City, man, I've met him at a couple of comedy shows.

He has like nine brothers and sisters. None of them can chop wood, which was a shock to me. Usually somebody can if you have that many. And in Oklahoma. Oh, dude, definitely. All right, we got our second one, Tommy Frederick. And he says, tell Mickey congrats on the double lung hitters. Does he have any plans for gnarly tattoo

on that horizontal chest scar? Oh, yeah. Yes, dude, shout out to my boy Billy Mair. And he died, actually, he had a bunch of pills, and I think died in a Jeep Grand Cherokee, which I love those cars. But he got, one of his lungs gave out once, and he got a shark, like on the water,

coming up out of his own chest. It looked like a shark, like, breaching out of him into the universe, pretty fucking dope. And I think he had, like, a strip on its back. This is down here like Florida, you know, with Pensacola. So that kind of stuff is popular. The tattoo idea, I've thought about a lot of things. This is such a lame answer to say,

but you're not supposed to get tattoos after you're transplanting, man. What? Specifically because- Are you Jewish all of a sudden? There's a lot of, there's a lot of issues that come with it, man, do certain things that I can't do. And it's the idea that there's ink poisoning

within the blood. I see. So the idea, and if I were to get anything, it sounds super cheesy, and I would keep it real in this, and I'd be stupid and silly, but I would get a rose on my wrist, or something on my finger, or a rose. The rose represents six cystic fibrosis. It's also known as, I guess, a lot of,

there's a story with it, but it's also called 65 roses. So the rose is kind of a symbol to CF, you know. And how many, have we cured it yet, or who's fighting it right now, cystic fibrosis? How are we doing against it, do you know? It's a great question, man. We're doing pretty well. We're doing pretty well, man.

I know that there's always new medicines that are coming out right now, as we talked about, man. We've got an acquaintance named, my friend Amy, and she's doing amazing. Dude, she's 38. Oh, wow, really? Yeah, I've met her at a couple of comedy shows. She has CF, I know, and she, you know,

she's obviously been a big supporter of yours, and she reached out a couple times to, and she said, hey, I was thinking about getting Mickey out. One year transplant gift, she said, and maybe haven't come to your shows in New York, and I was like, well, you know, I know Ridge, actually. Ridge had talked about, you know, the front pocket carries, dude, you know,

and there's no bigger front pocket carries than your damn lungs. And so we all discussed it, and emailed back and forth, and then here you are. Yeah, Ridge made this happen today. It flew Mickey out first class, him and his buddy from Detroit came out, put him up in an Airbnb.

Gang gang, man, you know what, and you know what's so funny is, myself and the guy from Ridge talked about that, probably it must've been 50 weeks ago. Right after you got the transplant, we talked about it, and we wanted to go skydiving, and you and I talked about that, did you can't do it yet, or you have to wait?

Oh, dude, we can, let's go, dude. You could do it now? You could do it at night? Well, what's up? You can't do it at night. Okay, well, let's do it tomorrow morning, before I fly out. Bro, look, you're the lucky one,

you can do it whenever you want. You know what I'm saying, bro? Death's probably fucking waiting for me. No, man, yeah, I'd love to, but I wanted to talk about that real fast. Dude, Ridge hooked it up, man. Did they? Oh, Ridge is great.

That's cool, man. Dude, I mean, people, I told friends about it, they're like, Ridge wallets for the holidays. And they're thinking, that's seven months out, man. But I mean, if you really think, no, they did, man, they flew me out here, they held up for lodging, and dude, he even came and asked me for some spending money, man.

Every, yeah, man, Ridge did me so well, and I mean, I'm so thankful for the opportunity. No, it's cool, man, and well, they just kept their word, it was funny, because he and I were talking about it, and this was, you know, they were one of our early sponsors, we even were so supportive from the beginning, and we just reached out to him randomly,

when it kind of, it thought when, you know, a couple of weeks ago, and next thing you know, they supported, they were like, yeah, 100%, they didn't think twice, pretty cool. Yeah, yeah. You know, a lot of people, you know, all of us, we just, we get nervous, we second guess, we don't know, but they didn't do that at all.

Yeah, we got one more Patreon question. Okay. So, Megan Daly asked, what did he figure out that he wishes somebody had told him about the whole process, that he would want people who are maybe going to have a transplant like he did to know in advance? That's a great question.

It really is? Oh man, could you repeat it one more time? Yeah, of course. So she said, what did he figure out that he wishes somebody had told him about the whole process, that he would want people who are maybe going to have a transplant like he did to know in advance? I would say that,

that it's not, it's, I'd say about like 20% physical and maybe the rest, 80% mental. Wow. In the sense that, regarding recovery, right? And I'm speaking of recovery, right? And what I mean by that is- Recovery from the long transplant. From the transplant, right?

Man, because like I said, a lot of people don't make it, man. It's hard, it's hard on your body. What I've been told by the nurses, it's probably the hardest thing you can go through. Wow. Like you'd think like an amputee or something like that, but once that's gone, it's gone, you cauterize, it's tragic, but something like,

okay, let's suture up these new lungs that are in you. Now you got to acclimate, again, your neuro's got to attach to this. It doesn't know what it's like. Getting back to it, it's completely mental, right? The hardest thing I've ever done in my life was the first walk with those new lungs. It's excruciating, man, because you're

relearning not just how to breathe, but man, you got all sorts of scars, man. I got like six different chest tubes coming out. I've got an epidural, I've got multiple IVs. I got a catheter and everything, man. And you say, let's take a walk. Because why and why is that? Because we need this to get with this as soon as possible.

You need to work this. If you don't work this, it'll be just as good as the ones you had taken out. And so again, it gets back to to realize, okay, that you can, I know this about you, man. You said it before. Sometimes you just need to be there mentally more than you need to be there physically, right?

I mean that in the sense of, man, I wanted to get up and go, but it was my friends and my support that was able to say, okay, we'll step along with you. We'll do this with you, right? As in to say, I didn't want to start, but you get me out the door and I'm out running. Right.

Yeah, just sometimes, yeah. You got to get your feet moving and your thoughts will follow. That's right. Wow, okay. That's so interesting. It was 80% mental. So you think that for some people is just too much?

That some people, it's hard. It's hard, man. You know, one of my best friends is, you know, my best friend, he's, he actually took care of me. He worked on the cardiothoracic ICU and he's the one, he can't take care of me because I've known him for 10 years.

His name is Troy. And he selected, hand selected, the nurses that would take care of me, right? And getting back to this, man, he's talked to me a lot about patients that he's seen. And, you know, everyone has their own experience, man, but a lot of it is just, again, getting that wherewithal,

getting that fortitude, just be like, I'm gonna do this. Instead of saying, you kind of got to go through the perspective of saying this, right? Well, man, you know, I hate this going on in my life. I hate that, in this case, man, I hate that I have to get this transplant for a week. And instead you say like, how am I gonna get this transplant done?

Yeah. You know, instead of, get this victimhood mentality out. As fast as you can do that. You know, ooh, this is so hard. How am I, you know, what can I do? I don't know, I don't know if I can to, how can I? I see, yeah. You know what I'm saying?

And that walk was so hard, man. Now, what about this? You get a new piece of, you know, you get a new interior of these lungs, right? And you realize that these are interchangeable almost between humans, right? Not very easily because you got to have the drugs and all of that.

And you got to have them, you know, them training wheel pills. But did it give you a different perception of like your mother, your parents that you're part of like a higher, that there's a higher power that's really our parent? Or did you, does that make any sense kind of? Yeah, absolutely.

Like when, you know what I'm saying? Does it or no? For real, yes, absolutely, man. When you're like, oh, my parents gave me life, but there's, any of us could have any part of each other's life and still be, like, did you have any, did you have any philosophical or faith issues or faith stuff that popped into you?

I guess the issue was that, and you and I've talked about this about a year ago, about the spirituality aspect, man, what came up to me, now again, I still lie on the fact that I'm not very dogmatic, but I've had personally, I've had, maybe you could say the same for yourself, dude. I've had some too many coincidences in my life

for me to be here currently, especially in the condition that I'm in now. Dude, the year, a one year out, and again, I don't, I try not to say this from an egotistical standpoint, but one year out and having something like what I'm looking like or what I'm doing in life, man, I got a day job, I was like, dude,

like fuck that thing, but whatever, you know? Yeah, but that's a means to an end, man. And it's not just that, but I'm out there doing it. We paid Jihani an underwear, so, okay. But we're all doing things, and he's in a new movie that's gonna be in theaters in two weeks, so. But so, that's how we do it, too.

Me undies, actually. Yeah, man. That's for life, probably, right? No, this is a week to week basis. I still haven't got my underwear for May yet. Yeah, we need to look into that, Nick. Okay, sorry. But yes, man, again, getting back to it,

I just think that for everything to be in place for me to be in life personally, again, subjective experience, it's just too close to comfort to say there's something out there that's gotta have me going on. Because again, man, there's just so many people that die so fast after transplant, and then there's some rare crazy thing like me

where it's all 10 days and he's better. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Wow. Yeah, does it feel like there's any real reason to it, or do you feel like it's like, is it an added responsibility? Yeah, I used to struggle with it.

Do you ever wish, like, man, it would have been, if I would have just passed away, it would have just been, you know, it would have been like, you know, like sometimes movies, it's like the person survives, and sometimes they don't, and sometimes the movie, the movie's good either way, but it's a different type of good.

You know, it's a different type of special, it's a different type of value. Did that ever pop in your head? No, man, I, you know. Like not in an ungrateful way. I get what you're saying, man. I think that if anything, the big responsibility that I have personally

that I do undertake is to make the best out of these lungs. And not just that, man, but dude, even from me to you, whether it's Nick who I just met a couple hours ago, anyone that I've ever really come into contact with, that there's some sort of responsibility that I take within myself to say, okay, this person is rooting for me in some form or fashion, and I got this second chance,

and not only that, somebody died, and maybe he didn't die for me to live, but he died and he granted me that way to live. Right, he'd made that choice that he wanted to give his lungs up. Right, right, and now with that said, man, and I could do this later, I want to reach out to the family,

but I've got to say, I'm like, okay, I have to make the best of it. And not just in a way of like, oh, let's party and can't coon all week or nothing, but it's more of, okay, you know what? I use it as an inspiration, as fuel, as to say, okay, you got to do your best now, man, because this is not just your life at some point,

somebody else is in you. Do you do enough Google researching to kind of put the piece together and know who it is? No, that would be great. No, I didn't, I didn't kind of want to know yet. Yeah. Because there is a little bit of that, right? I kind of, I want to be able to reach out

to the family one day because I just like to show that. And have them be proud of their son kind of? Yeah, yeah, man. So you almost want to get to a certain place in your own life where you can be like, hey, four years ago I got to see your son, it really, yeah, that'll happen, I guess, maybe I guess obviously it'll just happen

when it's supposed to. Do you remember when you and I talked on the phone that was like that? And I was like, dude, one of the reasons why I haven't reached out to you yet is because I don't feel like I'm at where I want to be yet. Yeah, and that's so crazy that you thought like if we wanted or that there was some expectation.

You know, you're kind of just like the mascot in a way or not just like the mascot, but I think you kind of took on that role. Yeah. It was like, you know, and it's all, I mean, and in a lot of ways it's, you know, this hearing this today and hearing you talk about just life and everything, it kind of like slows

everything down a little bit and just kind of, you know, it's a breath of fresh air as gay as that sounds and not gay and like a gay where if you're sleeping with someone who has the same sex as you, it's okay. I have one last question for Mickey. Okay. So do you ever like... Like worse allergies right now is just for allergies.

Dude, no dude, that's, that's something else. I didn't even see and squirted in though, you know, that's what you just... This is a, I'm supposed to be honest. Okay, I'm supposed to be honest, okay. I think you just missed that heavy snort, just... No, I definitely missed that part of it, you know. Back in your Coke days, you know.

I think people got that from what I said, Gianni. Look, if Nick wanted to, you know, if Gianni wanted to keep his fucking, his job, he fucking... Yeah, you've been watching, dude, the grease are coming off real fast. Oh no, no, but my question was, like, do you ever feel like, now obviously you feel like you have a new lease on life

and things are awesome. Do you ever feel like sometimes that you, like, a random day that you fall into, like, not so much a depression, but, like, kind of like a negative state of mind or, like, you wake up and you don't want to get out of bed? Like, do you still fall into that and be like, fuck, like, I just don't want to do it today?

And you, and like, or, or same thing with, like, the AT&T bill, like, do you think sometimes fall into, like, fuck, I gotta pay this bill? Like, do you fall into that mindset sometimes? There's a couple of things on that, man. Yes, yes, I do. I would do so many on and off depressions before the transplant that what I realized, man,

was that this, that my, my sadness and my distress came from a circumstance, man. I didn't realize, now being out of it, I realize how jovial, how excited I am to live life, not because of the fact maybe that, yes, I get a second chance, but I think this is always who I was. And to realize, oh, the reason why you felt that isolation,

the sadness and always looking back and never forward is because of a specific circumstance, which is my health for one. And, you know, and secondly, there was months, man, there were months when I couldn't show up. I had a hard time, man. I almost went to, like, a teenage state. I played a bunch of video games.

Yeah. You know, and I think what was happening is, as I was telling you, Theo, man, it happened so fast in two to three weeks time. It's like a five week period, you're on your death bed and then go relive life. There's too much emotion that happens at one time. I think that that time where I reverted back

to this status of, you know, when I was in early high school or something. And there was a second thing you noted there, too, that was really specific to me, man. I just feel as if, again, the big thing that gets me out of the door is, man, there's someone died out there and I gotta make them proud.

Yeah. And I try, again, I try to use that as an inspiration. There are times where I falter, man. I think we all do, but it's still like, I hold it for a second, let it go, and then like, let's get better at it. Yeah. Yeah.

That's awesome. Trick long, man. Michael, I didn't even know it was Michael. I was doing trick long Mickey, man. Yeah, I tried to keep that one in the back pocket, man. That one's like, because Mickey's got that like that. Well, Mickey's got some pizzazz. Yeah, it's got a flex to it, right?

It's got a little kick ass. Mickey, yeah. Yeah, and I talked about it too. How what? Look, Italian, dude, so you might as well. Oh yeah, you look way more Italian than I thought you were going to look when I met you. I was like, oh, it could be anything.

This guy could be Slavic, you know, whatever. Anything could pop out of this guy, you know? You have that Burt, like kind of Burt from Burt and Ernie, like could be a friend, a cousin. But you know what I'm saying? He's a handsome guy. Ernie look like shit from Ernie. Burt, dude, Burt was not that much better.

What are you talking about? I think he was. You bring up Burt for his real quick. He was the handsome of the two by far, dude. Well, they're both ventriloquism, dude, right? No, they are not ventriloquism, man. Let's just, yeah, man. He's got a full on unibrow compared to Ernie.

He does, dude, look. Are you, do you have, look at Ernie. I mean, if you have a look at Ernie, he has a no brow. Dude, you know what I'm talking about? Ernie can't even close his mouth, dude. So he's going to need new lungs soon probably just because of the bad areas ingested. Yeah, man, Bernie's got that.

I look like Ernie a little bit hard, actually, not that I mentioned it. I'm trying to come out like British shop. Mickey, that new lease on life, man, it's inspiring, dude. And I'm excited to see what you do in the next year. Yeah, well, thank you, man. Yeah, nah, it's just so awesome. Thank Rich for bringing you here.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And they didn't even call and say that. They didn't even call and say, you got to thank us or anything like that. Oh, we had some gifts for, we had that? Yeah, yeah. All right. Oh, great, man.

You got to get that stuff, Gianni. You got to be able to defend yourself right here. Yeah, man, I might put two of them on my lungs just to keep it. Oh, yeah, that's a great idea. So there's two bags right there. You got a duffel, you got a backpack, we got a couple of wallets where you can give

your buddy Sammy one of those. And of course, a knife in case you need to perform any of your own transplants. Rich does knives? They do knives, dude. Look in there, sharp, bro. So don't pierce one of your new sacks, dude. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, dude. So you got that Ridge for, yeah, man. A couple front pocket carries there. Dude, they got some good stuff, man. I still use my Ridge wallet. I still have it. It's in my bag, but. Yeah, well, they did so well, man.

This place that we're staying at has been great. Oh, nice. Just the flight, everything. They've just been so accommodating for real. Well, it was cool. They gave us the word and they honored it, man. That's pretty remarkable these days. Oh, man.

Thank you, bro. Dude, thank you. I just needed to see it. I didn't even realize that I just needed to see you and just kind of like, just have a bit of a reconnection to what's going on just with the podcast and just like on a lot of levels, man. Let me, if I can, what do you get from it?

I'm curious. Get from what? Just whatever I have to offer and the way that I say things. Man, you said, you mentioned this, right? Where you're like, man, I'd love to connect in this way. What do you receive from me and my story or whatever and what I'm talking about? What do you get from that?

Well, I think it makes me think, it's a good question. It makes me think about just being alive and stuff like that and reminds me of just to have value. It reminds me to think like a little bit more in the space of gratitude and that, to see someone else and hear about their struggle and their journey, it reminds me of my sister some. It makes me think about, just recognizing

that she goes through more than I realize probably a lot of times and she still does a great job as a parent and a nurse. And I don't think about that a lot of times. She's a nurse? Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah, cause she spent so much time around him.

She just, there was nothing else to be really, you know? And what else, man? It just makes me think about the community that's part of this past weekend. I mean, so many times people will be like, how's Mickey doing? How's Mickey doing? And I'll be like, oh, you know, I'll text it with them

or we've kept in touch some or I haven't talked to them in a few months. I don't know. We were thinking about, you know, trying to get them down for the podcast and we talked about going skydiving a while back, but the bags weren't ready, you know? But now, you know, they're ready.

I don't know. It's just, it's cool, man. And it makes me think, okay, good. Like, you know, we see you now at a year and then what will your life be like at two years, you know? When you have this, you know, little bachelor reincarnation going on, you know? It's like a mascot, I guess.

It just, I think you kind of stand for kind of some of the stuff that, you know, we think about and feel about in here. Yeah, wow. You know? I'm happy to be a part of it, man. Yeah, so go put some pressure on yourself and fucking get it done.

Damn, he's fast hands, huh? Yeah. Dude, you just fucking do jits who are slap people, bro. You could slap people good because nobody would see it coming, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Silent now with the breathing too. Are you really?

Yeah. Can you breathe silently? I don't need to breathe sometimes. Man, I'm talking kind of real. Oh my God. He's saving those lungs. Do you ever hold your breath? Oh, like often.

Wow, what a psychopath. Other people with cystic fibrosis must think you are a psychopath. No, dude, they're wanting to do what I'm doing. They are? Oh, for sure. They're like, dude, I breathe so hard all the time. Oh, breathe so hard, motherfucker.

I'm trying to find it. Maybe let's not breathe. That's you. Yeah, dude, that's crazy. Yeah, man. No, I mean, I do. I do. I just kind of like, sometimes I'll just say,

let me just try to hold my breath for as long as possible. I'll just do that for hours, dude. Oh, that's a dark arts, man. Hang out, just like clock watch and everything, you know? Do it. That's a dark arts, dude. You're here, bro. The Larry Bird of fucking Airbags right here, dude.

Don't give up on it. Michael Jordan joining the Wizards. Trick along Mickey, man. Thanks for being here, bud. Thanks, man. Thank you guys. I'm Danny, premature Nick. We'll see you guys next time.

Now, I'm just floating on the breeze, and I feel I'm falling like these leaves. I must be cornerstone. Oh, but when I reach that ground, I'll share this peace of mind. I found I can feel it in my bones. But it's going to take a little time for me to set that parking brake and let myself unwind.

Shine that light on me, I'll sit and tell you my stories. Shine on me, and I will find a song, I will sing it just for you.