00:00:00
[Music] [Music] Runners only with dom Harvey and Josh Coleman g'day mate how you going Don
00:00:34
going fantastic it's so good to have you here in my motel room in Christchurch
00:00:38
nice city no nice location to Hagley Park mate but it's something an absolute
00:00:42
privilege to be here today and have a chat is that so yeah thank you very much yeah you've got some wonderful gifts on
00:00:47
your podcast yeah Barry McGee Arts Shelly listen to them fantastic humans yeah the old dogs yeah it's nice to
00:00:52
bring out these stories too and hear what they've got to say yeah and it's
00:00:55
great to have you here because you've got a hell of a story it's my responsibility to be able to share my
00:00:59
story we now so hopefully other people who do go through hard times can have some perseverance or some encouragement
00:01:05
or some inspiration from myself yeah that one go forward yeah yeah first things first mentally and physically how
00:01:11
are you now how are you today oh I mean if you compare me to the runner that I was you know I'm talking about maybe 50
00:01:17
but from where I was being in a hospital hospital bed in a coma I'm fantastic
00:01:22
mate yeah great awesome great I can walk I can talk I can breathe do a bit of running do a bit of sports some things
00:01:29
you know I never thought I'd be able to do and um here I am very grateful oh
00:01:34
that's good oh let's go let's go all the way back so first of all you're um
00:01:37
you're like an 800 meter Runner the fastest in New Zealand yes and um on the
00:01:41
cusp of um like Commonwealth Games yeah oh I mean it's hard to say I mean I had
00:01:46
a fantastic year in 2011 I only had one race but I had a great build up I had two New Zealand silver medal 800 meter
00:01:53
races and I finished second in both of those races and finally in 2011 I had a great off season
00:01:59
um it was fantastic I've got some K's on the leg and 2011 was my year it was the
00:02:03
year that I was going to win this gold medal at a national level and then it was going to be the
00:02:09
um pedestal going forward um who knows what would have happened but unfortunately I didn't get to
00:02:13
compete in that 2011 national champs and I had the fastest time 800 meter time until I got diagnosed so yeah what was
00:02:21
the time what sort of times what was that 151 I mean it's fast it is fast in this in the essence of
00:02:29
someone from the outside but when you're in that competitive realm it's not that
00:02:32
fast and no it is it is by anyone's standards it's bloody quick so what would you do a
00:02:37
kilometer on if you keep going for another 200 meters yeah early twos yeah oh my god mid-220s oh wow that's insane
00:02:46
yeah ridiculous okay so man there's some there's so much ground to cover with you
00:02:51
and so much to unpack first of all you've got a super bottle you're sipping
00:02:55
on that what what's the reason behind that um I don't really produce it um
00:02:59
had a lot of radiation and this um I had a transplant I got the Scarface host disease and it's tacked all the attacked
00:03:05
the endothelial cells in my body like the skin the fascia the ligaments and um inside my arteries as well so I
00:03:11
struggled to produce saliva yeah okay so so you're a coaster you're from
00:03:16
Greymouth Greymouth what's it like there magic place is it yeah Magic Mike we've
00:03:21
got some we've got some amazing people on the coast good hearty Souls soul to
00:03:25
the Earth um a fantastic community and going through what I went through I had fantastic support around there yeah
00:03:31
tough bastard say is that where is that where the grit and determination to be an 800 meter Runner came from do you
00:03:35
think definitely I ran with a guy called Eddie gray on a Sunday he was 65 when I
00:03:40
first met him and he was hard he was a former cross-country New Zealand cross-country champ and a 10K champ
00:03:48
and you got food at the Wilton 1969 at the world cross country yeah and he was hard as Nails mate he would go out
00:03:54
running his pants on a 30 degree day running over the pepperella hills and I really admired him because he was had
00:03:59
this pure tenacity about him and I adopted that that was my method of running no matter how hard it got I'd
00:04:04
still continue on and um Eddie really um signified that yeah and what was life like growing up what were your parents
00:04:11
like parents were great I had a great mum um my dad we didn't have a great relationship he was hard at work but I
00:04:17
didn't really understand my dad um he had a very very tough childhood and through my diagnosis we actually got
00:04:24
to know each other a lot better but I had a fantastic childhood all in all my mum was a really loving caring mum
00:04:30
yeah but Dad was great he was always working he worked at the coal mine he was trying to provide us kids something
00:04:35
that he didn't have and I really respect that now was he just not um not a great
00:04:40
communicator what do you mean or was he just a hard strict he was tough but he was fear um he was always working and he
00:04:47
was tired and exhausted yeah um and he had strict disciplinary actions with with me being the oldest
00:04:53
but that was that was fine but his background is 10 times tougher than what I had it I'm away in what way that he
00:05:00
come my grandfather come from post-war Holland okay so he set up a farm in wataroa and his mother his wife sorry my
00:05:08
granddad's wife passed away when Dad was two and he get got sent to an orphanage
00:05:11
got physically abused and things like that all right and came back to a dysfunctional household yeah and they
00:05:17
lived in pure poverty back then as well so he had it tough he didn't have the
00:05:20
parenting skills to bring me up at my mom she was soul to the Earth but my dad's an amazing man from what he
00:05:28
knew and what he had he created did a fantastic environment for me to be able to thrive do you think it's just from
00:05:34
that generation where I don't know where it's you know you just didn't show any sort of
00:05:39
vulnerability or yeah absolutely I never saw my dad cry until I was diagnosed so
00:05:45
that's why I got to know one another yeah yeah and I was always seeking for my dad's approval but he was he was
00:05:51
never there and I I got a lot of other Role Models within my community yeah such as a man called Glen Gibb he was a
00:05:56
former International kiwi rugby player he lived next door he'd always take me
00:06:00
running or doing physical activities mountain biking and things like that yeah I love my dad dearly yeah I'm not
00:06:06
not discreeting my dad whatsoever he's a great man yeah we're great mates now we
00:06:10
really are that's good are your parents still together yeah are they yeah yeah
00:06:13
yeah yeah yeah all right Jesus I can't wait to talk about your mum we'll get
00:06:16
into that later because um I've heard you on some other podcasts talk about her and it seems like just a a wonderful
00:06:21
relationship oh mate yeah she's she's my she's my light she's yeah did you always
00:06:28
always have that close connection with her or is that something about strength that strengthened over the years with
00:06:32
the illness uh no no I've always had that close connection my sister teased me a lot that I'm the mummy's boy
00:06:40
so yeah I've been the oldest I mean I think you have that closer connection to
00:06:43
your appearance as well because you've got that time by yourself yeah yeah you've been around longer than the other
00:06:48
yeah so I've always gravitated to mum and and I absolutely love it yeah that's
00:06:52
great yeah okay so um so so you're running you're in the form of your life
00:06:57
um you had a job as well though right yeah IE was a qualified line mechanic so I left school when I was 16 17 become a
00:07:04
line mechanic and it was a hard physical job so I worked physically hard and I trained hard that's all I knew work hard
00:07:10
train hard so that was my kind of philosophy back then and it was great for me to get to where I got to
00:07:17
especially coming from Greymouth and training by myself and the likes of Eddie gray and Ruth Croft but a lot of
00:07:22
that was solo training it gave me that perseverance to kind of be accountable for myself yes but it also
00:07:28
hindered me in the way that I pushed myself far too far far too far where I probably was a
00:07:35
correlating factor to how I got sick really because you think so because you just trained so hard trying so hard but
00:07:42
I I didn't eat well but for me I worked 10 to 12 hours a day sometimes six days
00:07:47
a week after that the boys would drop me off I'd run 20K home you know I had a
00:07:52
good bit of time in the day I go off and get a load of firewood cut it up back in
00:07:56
you know it was ridiculous young what's the saying young dumb and full account
00:08:00
yeah yeah that was me yeah I thought I could do anything and then once I started drinking I'll go crazy because I
00:08:06
couldn't really handle my drink yeah right and I just go crazy you know I got
00:08:10
arrested twice for indecent exposurement did you I did whereabouts what were the
00:08:14
circumstances in Greymouth I am oh I just that was just me I never got angry or anything like that yeah um
00:08:21
like flopping your [ __ ] out oh no I took my clothes off one day and said to the
00:08:25
police give them the burden I said you can't catch me you can't catch me but
00:08:31
the thing was they did because they knew who I was all right right yeah it's a small town it's
00:08:38
a small town I went back to the pub I was with my mates told them the story they're cracking up my mate saw me and
00:08:45
then the bouncer come up put his hand on my shoulder goes oh someone wants to see
00:08:48
you outside cuffs on the back way to go yeah oh that's crazy it's a bit of a
00:08:54
loose cannon especially when I drank yeah and I worked out but I just couldn't handle it was it just yeah just
00:08:58
because you were that physically fat all it took was a couple of beers didn't take much yeah okay so when um
00:09:05
I I I'm quite familiar with your story and it sounds like you were you were very very sick before you even got help
00:09:12
and it sort of reminded me when I heard you a story of um like Lance Armstrong in a way when he got testicular cancer
00:09:16
like he was he was so fat and so used to being in pain um that has his nut was getting gigantic
00:09:22
and he just didn't even do anything about it he just sort of persevered through yeah parallels to you parallels
00:09:27
yeah yeah I can really relate to that I mean I took me probably about a month before I mean I had to collapse at the
00:09:33
sink before I got taken to hospital to the Intensive Care Unit what were the what were the warning signs say oh there
00:09:39
was heaps mate so we're sitting outside Hagley Park I tore my um tore my ligaments there and chipped
00:09:45
the bone in the body wouldn't heal it just wouldn't heal it was unusual for me I'd
00:09:49
normally bounce back from an ankle sprain quite easily um and then I that's for the New Zealand
00:09:55
Champs and I moved home I decided I've got to get get away travel but I got sicker and sicker
00:10:00
um I entered in a bike race around Brunner it's 130k race yep and I collapsed halfway I was up with the
00:10:07
leaders and I collapsed and like what the heck's going on um what do you mean you collapsed I just
00:10:11
fell off my bike yeah really it's got so dizzy and I fell off yeah yeah so I
00:10:17
thought what's going on maybe I'm just low in sugar so I pushed my bike for
00:10:20
half an hour to the lake Runner store I walked in staggered and I need a I need some chocolate I need
00:10:25
I sat there for another two minutes gone finished the [ __ ] race man just finish the race because that was my
00:10:31
mindset coasters mentality get the job done yeah so I picked off little places where I biked through and I was
00:10:38
struggling and struggling and then finally the last person to overtake me was a guy who I knew and he'd he'd had
00:10:43
cancer and about maybe a k 2K away from the Finish Line I said even a [ __ ] cancer patient can overtake you finish
00:10:50
the line collapsed I'm never riding a bloody bike again and I slept for about
00:10:55
maybe a week and really just fatigue just fatigued I was done and I just had low hemoglobin just low red blood cells
00:11:02
oh yeah yeah why why did it take so long for you to seek help you must have not how old were you at the time I was 23.
00:11:10
you did you have like a gut instinct that something was wrong I think you were just ignoring it or what no I put
00:11:16
it down to the fact that I couldn't compete at the um New Zealand Champs that year and that was my year to show
00:11:21
everyone what I was capable of and I was in denial I didn't want to be sick I
00:11:26
knew I was sick but I didn't want to be sick and that's the big thing I wouldn't
00:11:30
I wouldn't reach out for help because I didn't know how to yeah it was obviously
00:11:33
my own man I knew how to I knew how to control my own environment I could do it all by myself I was about to learn I
00:11:39
couldn't and I was soon going to learn I had to reach out for help so it took me
00:11:43
to the point of death to basically collapse at the sink my brother picked me up none took me to hospital and then
00:11:50
the next day I got diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia right how did you look at that stage like had the weight been
00:11:56
dropping off you did you look ill I looked ill yeah people people so I looked a bit different but no one really
00:12:02
said anything too much um but it just comes back to being young dong I just keep pushing I I didn't want
00:12:08
to know about it I didn't want to be sick yeah I was I had a trip planned overseas and I wanted to go over to
00:12:15
Southeast Asia experience a bit and come back and give the running a go again yeah yeah so that was a plan I just
00:12:20
wanted to go overseas and just reset yeah because not competing at the New Zealand Champs out here just just
00:12:25
devastated me yeah yeah of course yeah of course and also listen no no judgment from me I had a mess of tumor growing in
00:12:31
my gut for like 10 years and I ignored all the warning signs as well yeah I ended up collapsing during the Auckland
00:12:38
Marathon so no no my my health Journeys but it doesn't have anything on yours
00:12:42
but same sort of thing just just dumb not listening to your body yeah why why didn't you listen
00:12:48
oh no I just thought I thought I don't know I thought I was just getting older
00:12:52
and I don't know I started running again I felt a little when I when I'd run and
00:12:55
I thought it must just be because I'm old and I was like 30 at the time it was
00:12:58
just dumb yeah it's dumb dumb yeah yeah okay so you're in you're in the hospital
00:13:03
uh what do they say when you go in there they like how do they break the news to
00:13:07
you oh it was it's probably not most professional way that day it was it was
00:13:12
a day like this it was dark and gloomy clouds out and I woke up in the morning feeling a bitter I had a blood
00:13:17
transfusion and I was on an IV my mum and parents my mum and dad no my mum and uncle walk in with this
00:13:24
concerned look on their face and then the doctor come in and he just said you've got cancer
00:13:30
and my mum just burst out crying and I was just so confused and then there was this old guy in the bed across from me
00:13:36
and he said my brother-in-law died from can't you know talent and I was like
00:13:41
what the heck is going on so the doctor pulled your curtain it should have done it should have been done a lot more
00:13:46
proficiently in an office somewhere Friday and then my mum was crying my uncle threw his arms up in the air said
00:13:52
no no no and I was like what the heck's going on why am I causing so much pain
00:13:56
in my family yeah and that was just and then I couldn't fly overseas had my first series of blood
00:14:04
transfusions at Greymouth hospital then I got sent over to Christchurch to the South Island bone marrow unit where I
00:14:09
was about to understand my diagnosis understand my cancer and understand the treatment protocol
00:14:16
when you think back now um about how you were told and stuff does it does it make you angry or no no
00:14:23
no no no I'm not angry about that I was I was just so caught up and being diagnosed with cancer and not being able
00:14:32
to fulfill my dream of representing New Zealand yeah I had been completely taken
00:14:36
away and I became so angry how could I get cancer I I was one of the fittest fastest in New Zealand and then it was
00:14:42
like how how the heck did I get this and I got so angry real Angry really angry at what just just your circumstances
00:14:51
you put all this hard work into something you work 10 to 12 hours a day you save your money you go away to races
00:14:58
you're training you have this goal sitting on it and my my vision was so narrow because I only had that gold
00:15:04
medal in sight and I wasn't really appreciating what was around me that the ability to be able to run yeah yeah yeah
00:15:10
and I didn't see that I just thought my life was completely taken away because
00:15:14
that's all I knew working running it's all I knew and um at that time did they
00:15:19
say it was a terminal or did they what was the chance of survival that was given to you
00:15:24
um so I I went to the Christchurch bone marrow unit and it took a few days to understand my prognosis and where I was
00:15:31
so it started off as a good prognosis and then by the end of the week I was about I got given 10 to 30 odds of my
00:15:37
cancer I had so I got put in the poor prognosis bracket it was never terminal yeah yeah yeah 10 to 30 is not great
00:15:44
though not great but um I thought I'll Trust the doctors don't know what
00:15:49
they're doing I've got no idea so I said I'll just sit here and take what I've
00:15:52
got it's a bit of chemo maybe it's just like an ice pack on my ankle it'll heal
00:15:56
that's my mentality but I didn't understand what chemotherapy was going to do to me yeah what does it do to you
00:16:01
I Strip Me Apart first round of chemo obviously I was about to understand what real pain was first round my stomach
00:16:07
lining got Stripped Away and just shrunk to the size of a walnut and I was in hysteric pain that first week and the
00:16:14
nurse on she was an older nurse she was about to retire and she was coming in with big bolus as a morphine injecting
00:16:19
me into the stomach it always just started school I don't want your [ __ ] morphing just you know it was not me I
00:16:25
don't swear it is just not me and I'm having all these things coming out and I
00:16:29
actually wrote her apology letter and she actually came up to me the next day and she goes don't worry love I've had
00:16:33
way worse than that some stuff goes on in here yeah yeah yeah that's probably
00:16:39
worth um highlighting at this point um so you're an 800 meter Runner so you're used to putting yourself in
00:16:44
uncomfortable situation so I'm guessing you've got quite a high pain tolerance
00:16:47
so when you say it's [ __ ] painful it's it's [ __ ] painful it was terrible yeah I I hadn't I hadn't
00:16:54
physically experienced that bad pain yeah I love that good pain you know going out getting a load of firewood
00:17:00
lifting it on sweet running down my face you know that that um feeling of it's
00:17:04
like a meditative Freedom running pushing myself I loved it because I knew it would in some stage I didn't know
00:17:10
when this pain would end I had no idea um so was it just continuous yeah it just it just landed so I knew I was that
00:17:18
was my first round of chemo and then I'd have to have five more rounds that's just Relentless and then I had I
00:17:25
had the leukemic cells in my central nervous system so I had to have these lumbar punches and through the equal
00:17:30
chemo into my central nervous system what's that like lumbar patches that's
00:17:33
like a big needle in your bed yeah so it's a big needle into my um spinal cord
00:17:37
and they inject it in there to um mop up their leukemic cells within my central nervous system and then I also had to
00:17:42
have these bone marrow aspirins once a month to understand what the cancer was doing because the cancer was derived
00:17:48
from a hemopoietic stem cells these stem cells that live in our bone marrow that
00:17:51
basically create your immune system yeah so they had to suck out a bit of bone in
00:17:56
my hip through this big needle and it was it was just painful I was on the nitrous oxide gas oh the noise yeah how
00:18:03
good I loved it mate doing it for pass out I'll just be sucking hard on it and
00:18:07
like just set this needle in but I had this really bad experience with it it didn't work and the doctor just mucked
00:18:12
it up it took them four goes to get it to suck this bit of bone out so it was just this continuous cascading of
00:18:17
physical demeaning pain for how long does that last for so the treatment protocol for that first eight
00:18:25
months was a month in isolation locked in isolation I'd have a week to 10 days
00:18:31
of chemo depending on what was the dose was when you say in isolation what is what does that mean exactly so basically
00:18:35
a little room maybe quarter the size of this with a little kitchenette okay and there's a double ventricle door air
00:18:40
pressure door so only the nurses and family were allowed in and some friends now and then so it's a very small room
00:18:46
with the bed you drop your line and a little kitchenette where you could um cook some toast or get a bottle of water
00:18:53
and it's literally isolation yeah yeah visitors real loud in yeah we had visitors but um you're locked in a room
00:19:00
by yourself but I had a beautiful view of the park heavy Park next door which um kept me saying right yeah because I'm
00:19:07
guessing for a like a fit active dude in his 20s that must have just been like mentally like torturous it wasn't that
00:19:15
was the hardest part about it and when I talk about real pain that was the compounding pain with that physical pain
00:19:21
and then I had that mental pain my whole life got taken away and I basically was
00:19:27
in despair I disconnected myself from everyone because I thought my diagnosis was killing everyone around me because
00:19:32
everyone was so sad and I thought I've done something bad to everybody else um why did you think that
00:19:39
everyone was so sad Dom I thought yeah that's not it's it's like you know you
00:19:44
can't you can't hold any uh like guilt or Shame about that like at the time I
00:19:48
did though yeah because I was a man I was supposed to be helping other people and that's what I thought because I
00:19:53
always helped out other people that's who I was and I just didn't I just
00:19:57
didn't like seeing my mum in such distraught seeing me and I didn't know
00:20:02
how to handle it and I looked at myself once you see your physical change in the
00:20:06
mirror and you saw yourself from hey from who you used to be yeah you know you fit strong and healthy that's what
00:20:16
you love working outside all the time and you're locked in an isolation room
00:20:20
with your own thoughts I didn't know how to control it I just didn't know how to
00:20:23
control it I really didn't I didn't even know how to talk to people I didn't want
00:20:26
to talk to people I didn't even know the words to say hey can you help me so what
00:20:31
did I did I thought gee because when I was out sorry mate I thought I can't control these thoughts I can't
00:20:41
control this cancer the only way I can in this is taking my life so I really thought about it
00:20:47
and I was up on this balcony and so I'll get through this that's all right take your time and
00:20:58
I just couldn't contain a Dom and I put a league over and I thought all right
00:21:03
this would be a good way to go because I couldn't control anything maybe I could
00:21:06
control my situation by making a choice and in that moment as I was thinking about it this bit of wind tap the right
00:21:13
hand side of my face and I still feel it vividly and I turned around and I saw my
00:21:16
mother's cup of tea foreign cup of tea it just hit me in the heart you know it hit me there
00:21:30
and I said to myself I can't put the pain I'm feeling inside my mum I just
00:21:34
can't do that it would be worse it'll be worse for her than for me what I'm going
00:21:39
through right now so I I stood away I said I've got to get some help mate yeah desperate man
00:21:46
this was using my strength mate this was me using my strength now so luckily in New Zealand we have amazing
00:21:53
foundations and there was a canteen her name was Sarah and I said listen I need to get some real help can you give me a
00:22:00
psychologist and she got a psychologist on board and I managed to be able to have some bit of
00:22:04
an outlet someone to talk to we offered a therapist um earlier than that like getting diagnosed I had to collapse at
00:22:10
the sink before I could give treatment yeah I was on the edge I had my foot you know
00:22:17
how high I would have it was four stories up I was on the fourth okay right yeah I would have done 15 meters
00:22:24
maybe geez what awful way to go yeah I it's tough to think about now and I think holy heck what were you thinking
00:22:30
was it just to was it you you I mean you didn't want to die did you just want to
00:22:34
escape the pain is that what it was I just wanted to escape the pain in my mind because I didn't know how to
00:22:38
control it I wanted to escape the physical pain and I didn't think there was a life ahead of me I couldn't see it
00:22:44
I was so blind because I was focused on this pain that I was in right now I was just blind I was like in this closed
00:22:49
closet and I hated being in isolation I hated being sick I hated having cancer and I perceived myself as this weak
00:22:56
loser pathetic man that had no control of his life I really did and it was silly it was just really we were like
00:23:02
embarrassed I was I was yeah that is so [ __ ] up and from with the benefit of hindsight now from where you are now you
00:23:09
can you can see that can't you yeah it's just a silly mindset that I had it was
00:23:14
ridiculous because I thought it was a man I can control everything but it wasn't
00:23:20
until I got real help I managed to talk to someone and understand that this was okay
00:23:25
that these thoughts are normal that I finally got out of that dark hole yeah yeah and I also from that it was a
00:23:32
real pivotal point I got help and he basically told me it's not you Josh Coleman that wants to die it's just the
00:23:39
pain in the situation you know and he assured me this which this will soon pass so I went back into the hospital I
00:23:46
got given this book it's called man's foot search for Mania I know that Victor
00:23:49
Frankel yeah concentration camper incredible my favorite book in the world yeah and I read read a passage in there
00:23:56
and Victor Frankel went through a whole heap and suffered horrendously you know he made a choice to stay with his family
00:24:02
in Austria and he got captured by the Nazis and put in Auschwitz he said in there the last of the human freedoms you
00:24:09
know when everything gets taken away the last of the human freedoms is to choose
00:24:13
to make a choice to choose One's Own Way yeah so in that moment I made a choice I
00:24:17
made a choice to myself and I made a choice to God and I said no matter how hard life gets or not choose to do what
00:24:25
I've decided what I thought I would do to take in my life no matter how do we I
00:24:28
would put the pain inside myself I would talk to people and I would carry on and
00:24:33
I made that choice well from like from your Athletics as well I mean you've got
00:24:37
that that sort of warrior fighter mentality don't you yeah but I had to get that from that other story because
00:24:43
Victor Frankel went through a horrendous amount and I thought if he could get through what he went through then maybe
00:24:47
I could get through what I'm going through which was nothing compared to that nothing compared to Auschwitz yeah
00:24:52
yeah we always religious or did you um did you find a religion or God or whatever
00:24:58
you want to call it through this journey that's an interesting question I mean my
00:25:01
dad was religious my mum and I didn't like church it was in denial all about
00:25:07
it but something really grabbed me when I was in hospital especially being able to take my life um like in the hospital
00:25:14
yet you get a Bible in there and I actually opened it after I started reading the book I started reading and I
00:25:18
opened it to a passage it was in Joshua I just open to Joshua because my name resonated with that first thing I read
00:25:24
and I read in the first verse um Joshua 1 verse 9. be strong and of good courage do not be
00:25:31
afraid nor dismayed for the Lord God is with you and that just sunk to me it just really resonated with me and then
00:25:36
from then on I had a belief in God so that's that's where I really found it in
00:25:40
that moment I suppose when you're going through what you were going through you you need that
00:25:45
belief in God you need to have that feeling that there's something on the other side yeah something on this other
00:25:50
side but someone keeping you accountable too you know because you read it and basically you know how jesus carried the
00:25:55
cross and carried his burdens and sufferings it was like well I need to go through what I'm going
00:26:00
through because this is life and being in that hospital environment Dom you were young kids they were adults and I
00:26:05
got to see everyone else's pain everyone was going through something it just
00:26:09
wasn't me yeah yeah so I thought maybe I could get through this and then I can
00:26:13
encourage other people to get through their own hard times right so so how long all up does it take you to get
00:26:18
through this um this um leukemia so that that bout was was eight months yeah eight months in hospital in and out and
00:26:25
um after that yeah suicide thing I really got myself right I started diary writing writing a
00:26:30
lot of diary visualization was big I did that when I was running visualizing myself running and being happy again
00:26:37
um you know I did a lot of pre a lot of meditation and I started talking to a lot of people people that I trusted I
00:26:43
don't want to talk to everyone but diary writing writing my thoughts down was
00:26:46
fantastic I allowed myself to cry when I needed to cry that's something the psychologist gave me so I locked myself
00:26:52
in the toilet cry to myself and just open myself up a bit more to people who I trusted yeah yeah so um yeah you've
00:27:00
got a book out called um the wind at my back is that is that made up from your diary entries or your journaling at the
00:27:04
time or was this just a book that you wrote specifically so it was made up a bit about my diary because it helped me
00:27:09
recollect the thoughts that I had back then but it wasn't until I was getting
00:27:12
treatment in Melbourne that I really started writing this book because um there was another time where I got in
00:27:17
deep depression as well yeah so I started writing that thinking maybe my life's gonna end not by me taking it but
00:27:23
by the disease that I had and um maybe it's just email for my family or my nieces and nephews yeah it's a hell of a
00:27:31
story yeah a hell of a story okay so so you survived the first bout is that is that where you got it when you go to
00:27:37
Nepal so I get out of the hospital and I recover remarkably right yeah so I was quite confused then I really couldn't
00:27:44
associate myself with a lot of my friends in Greymouth so I kind of disassociate myself and I just went
00:27:49
surfing mate I was out in the surface what do you mean it had just something changed and you know I was just
00:27:54
searching for the meaning of life and what's gone on you know beforehand I was
00:27:58
out partying taking my clothes off running around doing all that stuff and I thought there's more to life than just
00:28:04
doing that yeah I had I had I experienced so much in that eight months yeah and I was understanding who I was
00:28:09
and what was going on and what's this pain and suffering on going on in life
00:28:13
and also too I just love being by myself I really did I enjoyed it it was different this time it was just just me
00:28:20
and I was praying I was thinking and I was out in the surf and I just love being out in nature just connecting just
00:28:26
connecting myself back out back yeah yeah so I was out in the surf and then um friend good friend Ben Wallace rang
00:28:32
me up and he said hey bro do you want to go down Nepal to Kathmandu and I said no
00:28:37
[ __ ] off you were joking I just I just mean we we well enough to travel at that
00:28:41
point no no no but on your life for short Don yeah yeah and it was like you knew that you needed
00:28:48
to take opportunities because something can be taken away from you so quickly so I've rung him back and I said to you
00:28:55
mate let's do it I was out in the surf one down and I just slapped my hands down and I said you mate you just got to
00:28:59
do it so I spoke to my doctor he said yep good as gold go do it and I got on the plane arrived at
00:29:06
Kathmandu and it was just overwhelming just been it was my first overseas experience so oh is that right yeah
00:29:13
actually yeah I've been to Australia right yeah it doesn't really count yeah
00:29:17
it doesn't really count you know Aussie's similar to New Zealand yeah going over there I mean you land you go
00:29:21
you get out there and there's just all these people talk talk and the smells
00:29:24
and the senses and seeing everyone around but this trip really changed my life in a in a huge way it gave me a
00:29:30
real good perspective of how good I did have it in my hospital room it's a very
00:29:34
poor place isn't it very very poor I think it's in the top five right all
00:29:38
places in the world but go to my talk talk and he's taking me to the backpack
00:29:41
as we were staying I was driving along and just in awe of where I was and I saw these kids you know BFF similar couple
00:29:49
of men no tops and they're playing in this rubbish and they got up and they're
00:29:52
waving at me with these smallest on and I thought holy heck how good did I have it to suffer in such good conditions no
00:29:59
I had my mum I had a beard I had the treatment I needed and I had good food yeah you know I had everything I needed
00:30:05
to suffer in such good conditions that these kids had nothing and I thought holy moly yeah some perspective it was
00:30:11
it really was so it really fulfilled me then that I didn't have it so bad I really didn't have it that bad
00:30:18
um and I thought no just go out and enjoy what you do have yeah yeah well yeah so um what you did there is um
00:30:26
something I'd love to do one day you you walked to base camp yeah it's tough how long does that taste it
00:30:32
took us 13 days return I think 13 days right I can't recall the exact number off the
00:30:37
top of my head but yeah it was about 13 days return was it is it tough everyone or is it just tough for you because you
00:30:42
were recovering no it was it's tough for everyone yeah I think there's about 40
00:30:46
of people who decide to go there going to get there I meet a lot of people who got flown out
00:30:51
um I did get altitude sickness spent two nights uh tingle Tingle show spent two nights there recovered got to Everest
00:31:00
Base Camp then climbed up to this mountain called Mount kalipatar it's just under 20 000 foot and got to watch
00:31:05
the um um sun sunrise over Mount Everest mate and I call these small perfect moments
00:31:12
you know I just capture them and put them into my heart and hold them there tight because no one could take that
00:31:16
away from me and I knew how special that moment was you know I set myself on a goal and I achieved it with a good
00:31:21
friend and I saw the sunrise come over and it's like holy heck last year you're
00:31:25
in hospital wanting to you know what we spoke about and here you are Mount Everest you know where Siri it was yeah
00:31:31
I was going to say it must be an extra special being there as a New Zealander it was it was really special you know we
00:31:36
went to the Edmond Hillary School we've got some coloring books and gave some to
00:31:39
the kids and the kids and it was just it was just really really wonderful experience yeah life changing
00:31:45
so then um you come back home is that when you start skydiving yeah so what if what were you up to you wanted to become
00:31:52
like a skydiving instructor it was over the two things that I wanted to do in my
00:31:56
life right even when I was running go to Mount Everest Base Camp and become a skydiver and I knew there was a high
00:32:01
chance of my cancer coming back I knew that yeah really what what did they say yes because I was in a poor prognosis
00:32:07
yeah um they thought they'd try this treatment just the chemotherapy and if it did come back then I had to then I'd
00:32:13
have to have a allergenic stem cell transplant so that was a backup option so I thought we'll have the chemo first
00:32:18
and see what happens um so I come back from Nepal and I enrolled outside of Mifflin the New
00:32:24
Zealand diploma in commercial skydiving it was just absolute matchup mate how many jumps did you do I ended up doing
00:32:29
about 200. [ __ ] yeah wow but that's nothing you know my instructor had done
00:32:34
20 000 jumps yeah so you were you're you're at the point where you where
00:32:39
you're like in charge of your own um Paul cord and stuff like that yeah I was
00:32:43
responsible yeah and I was filming people um 10 and people I was filming them special experience that the most freest
00:32:50
I've ever felt in my life yeah yeah it was wonderful I met some amazing people
00:32:54
too and some good friends here too yeah yeah no close calls or anything no apart
00:32:59
from my very last jump my very last jump I jumped with a good friend Ivan and we went up to 16 000 no
00:33:06
18 000 feet and I got hypoxic and I started seeing six of them as I jumped out of the plane I was like what's
00:33:12
hypoxic hypoxic when I've got um low oxygen people I've got a low saturation
00:33:16
of hemoglobin so the oxygen can't bind to the hemoglobin hemoglobin so I got got real Dizzy and I've seen
00:33:24
six of them whoa started spinning around and he's like waving at me like what's
00:33:27
going on and then I just pulled my shoot at 10 000 feet and just got down to the
00:33:31
ground and you know I was really dizzy and obviously he goes hey bro what was going on and I knew what was going on
00:33:37
because the same thing happened prior when I fell off that bike I looked at my hand too and I saw these purple spots
00:33:43
that was a sign of low platelets platelets are anti-coagulants that kind of clot our blood and I just saw that
00:33:49
and I thought oh I know what's going on it's back it's back and um so I rang up
00:33:54
my mum and dad and I said I know what's happening come out for a Skydive and go for a jump
00:33:59
together so I can film you as well have a family but I was more accepting this time I understood well yes I've had
00:34:04
peace with it I was yeah I really was I've found what I needed in my heart right and I made the choice that no
00:34:10
matter how hard this would get I'd continue on with what I had and you yeah you knew what was uh when
00:34:17
you'd been there before and you knew how hard it was and you had to do it all
00:34:20
over again yeah but this was going to be way physically harder but mentally I've
00:34:24
got the tools in the toolbox now right I could handle that yeah I could handle that and
00:34:29
um I had my mom and dad and I had the people in my corner and I trusted them and I was open to talk to them and yeah
00:34:36
so I was mentally prepared but physically what I was about to go through was going to be something else
00:34:40
yeah and it was didn't disappointed a little bit harder than the 800 meter Raceway wow well I suppose that's the
00:34:50
thing like um whatever distance you're running you're putting yourself in pain
00:34:55
but the pain stops as soon as you stop so you can decide to end that pain yeah it's your choice yeah the sort of um the
00:35:02
sort of pain that you're going through with this these Cancer Treatments there's no escaping it yeah no escaping
00:35:08
you just got to get the job done yeah yeah so why was the uh why was it so much worse the second time around so
00:35:14
this time I'd had to have what I mentioned before an allergenic stem cell transplant so basically what that means
00:35:20
I've had to have um these hemopoietic stem cells these hemopoietic stem cells
00:35:24
live in our bone marrow and they basically the factory cell of our immune system so going to create a whole new
00:35:30
immune system for me yeah so I'd have to get these from a young girl in Germany I
00:35:35
didn't know she was a girl at the time but they were coming from Germany so it
00:35:39
was a mismatch it wasn't a um it was a it wasn't a complete match so there was
00:35:44
this wrist which graft versus host disease so I was going to get Graphics host disease from it so what the protocol
00:35:51
looked like was two months of chemotherapy and then I'd have to have a break in between of another two months
00:35:56
to get myself get myself right before the treatment before a transplant now the treatment before a transplant is
00:36:02
absolutely horrendous they kill your whole immune system basically like Roundup times 10 just spray it so it
00:36:08
doesn't grow back and need these other cells to come in so they can grow a whole new Garden whole new immune system
00:36:13
right yeah does that make sense yeah it makes perfect sense cool and so I had that two months of chemo and after the
00:36:19
second round of the chemotherapy I got put in on I got neutropenic sepsis and I got put into life support and I had this
00:36:27
big tube down my throat and the doctor said to my mum and dad this is probably a good chance you won't wake up from
00:36:31
this and God willing I did after 10 days um God that must have been a healthy appearance it was yeah yeah it
00:36:40
absolutely was but there's a silver liner I'll tell you the story my sister
00:36:43
tells it better than I but um apparently when they were putting me in a coma everyone was in there and mum's crying
00:36:48
Rachel's crying and dad walks in and he's like oh yeah all right see you
00:36:53
later son Ben's over he's got that Builders crack coming out lets out this
00:36:57
massive fart mate and you've got five specialist doctors in there like oh yeah he's about to say
00:37:04
goodbye to his boy was that what he was doing so like saying because he literally thought it was going to be the
00:37:10
last time I'd see your life especially for my dad yeah but I must mention earlier before I got when I had got
00:37:17
cancer that first time that's when I really got to know my Dad yeah when he first when I first got to see him cry
00:37:22
yeah we understood one another we connected on a different level so um yeah he put his hand on my shoulder you
00:37:28
know I said goodbye did that we laugh about it now mate you have to don't you
00:37:32
yeah the doctor said you know he may not wake up and you know I did so as I said
00:37:37
before you got two months off that last round of chemo I only had two weeks because the person who could donate the
00:37:43
stem cells they only had two weeks to do it in this period because she was going
00:37:46
away on holiday right yeah so I got out of this coma mate I couldn't talk I couldn't walk I was in a wheelchair I
00:37:54
had to ride on this little white board to you know I was skinny I was like a little alien what what do you weigh now
00:37:59
and what were you weighing then it's about 52 kg when I got out of there I weigh about 61 to 63 now right so 62
00:38:06
around there yeah so I was skinny weak yeah and um I had to have this transplant so I had that high dose Rat
00:38:15
full body radiation I had this high-dose chemotherapy that inoculate my immune system wait for the transplant to come
00:38:21
feed into my bone marrow start regenerating this new immune system and for that month I was in there just
00:38:28
like in the semi comatose state but as I said before this small small little special moments that happen and
00:38:34
sustain you through it you know and I just looked outside to Hagley Park a place that was quite special to me and I
00:38:40
used to see the boys running past and I just visualized myself running with them
00:38:43
yeah yeah and then my mum would come in and give me this sparkling water you know with the carbon dioxide bubbles in
00:38:49
and I couldn't swallow because I had um Graphics host disease in my stomach and that's just popping my mouse mate
00:38:57
it would just give me this joyous smile and it's just little things that sustain
00:39:00
me for the day that I just really hunt on to right I was in a hospital room my mum was here and I had these sparkling
00:39:05
bubbles so it's just small things that I held onto yeah so what'd you do you just
00:39:09
like sort of swish it around in your mouth and then spit it out just held it there and just felt fell to go pop up
00:39:13
and just yeah it just scammy it was where you smile right set it back out and then um chose to woke up for another
00:39:20
day right and when did you when did you realize you were out of the woods was it was
00:39:28
there a moment where you're like okay I'm good yes so it normally takes 100
00:39:32
days 100 day period to kind of see if the transplants accepting your body and I was having a whole heap of
00:39:38
complications so basically I spent a year in Christchurch back and forth um going in and out of hospital with
00:39:44
many many complications you know I had heart issues and body issues but finally they got the level of immunosuppressants
00:39:52
and steroids to kind of balance everything out and I I got in the I got in the clear of it you know I was good
00:39:57
to go home after that year in hospital so it was basically let's see how you go
00:40:03
let's see what what happens with this grass graft versus host disease and hopefully it doesn't flare up and then
00:40:08
slowly taper down the medication because I couldn't be on high steroids and high
00:40:13
immunosuppressants all the time because that would cause more damage going along
00:40:16
in the future especially being so young so I moved to Nelson just recovered there I try to recover
00:40:23
and then I got this email so I got a bit of a part-time job at Skydive much awaker just driving the van now and then
00:40:29
for the Frozen yeah I got this email and from the receptionist at Skydive watch Waker and this email said hey do you
00:40:36
know a guy who's recently had a transplant he's apparently a skydiver because I got to write a thank you
00:40:41
leader to my donor but the names get crossed out so I wrote this thank you Knitter and she's email me back and she
00:40:46
knew I was a skydiver so she emailed all the Drop Zones in the south island and it turned out that she was my donor so I
00:40:53
got her email address we started emailing back and forth and I thought oh yeah I gotta go make this skill I gotta
00:40:58
go say thank you yeah and this is not allowed this wasn't allowed why why is
00:41:02
it not allowed because a lot of people in the past have taken advantage of the situation how do you mean yeah yeah no
00:41:08
good question um so some people have had the transplant they said well you owe me now
00:41:12
oh okay gotcha right yeah right you owe me and and there's a lot of missing counters that have occurred from it so
00:41:19
that's why they kind of keep it separate yeah so I told Ellie the transplant lady
00:41:25
and she said I will keep it on the delay you know I said yo I know her name was but this is another funny thing I just
00:41:31
spontaneously called her Hannah when I got this first letter from here because we were writing but we didn't know the
00:41:36
names and I just called it I just called it Hannah and her name was Hannah mate h-a-n-n-a-h her name was Hannah Boyer
00:41:43
yeah wow that was just a name that I gave you yeah so it was special so I thought I've
00:41:54
got to go see this girl and you're still friends well you just want to see her once just for that thank
00:42:00
you moment I went over there no his sister her younger sister's been out and
00:42:03
stayed with us for two months lived with us I've been over there met her family
00:42:08
um yeah we're really good friends yeah really good friends and I so I went over to
00:42:13
Germany went to Berlin stayed there and I met her and I was just in awe of a you
00:42:18
know no words could justify how I felt no words could do it and I was just I broke down in her arms and she said
00:42:24
Thank you thank you multiple times but it was a harsh winter then it was the end of the year of 2014.
00:42:30
and I ended up getting put in Berlin hospital I got pneumonia I was coughing up blood you know I wasn't strong enough
00:42:36
to go into such a harsh winter got flying back to New Zealand came back here and this Graphics host
00:42:42
disease we were talking about you know it started to flare up and um our body was starting to glue itself together and
00:42:48
I got you know I was I was deteriorating my body was deteriorating basically my body was starting to kill its own self
00:42:55
it started to eat itself I was getting glued up my fascia my ligaments and my collagen were gluing itself together you
00:43:00
can see my face now you know it's all pigmentated threw it around my eyes were getting dry and bloodshot
00:43:06
and this is when the saliva wasn't getting produced properly properly so maybe again I decided to do this walk
00:43:15
to Saint Angela's Hut to the Blue Lake I wanted to go to the Blue Lake and I did
00:43:19
this walk and this was going to be my New Year's resolution you know started for a year
00:43:24
but my body was slowly deteriorating but the medication was holding okay me and my donor Got Back
00:43:30
so I did this walk and my body just started cramping up on the first Hill cramping up and walking up I didn't know
00:43:36
why I didn't know why because of the disease but I didn't I didn't want it
00:43:40
I fell on the top of that top of the hill just locked up like a dead sheep mate you know how did she look it is
00:43:46
silly isn't it yeah yeah just near Saint Angeles Hut and this guy Jeremy from
00:43:52
Switzerland he picked me up took me down the hill I was in hysterics again and from then on my body just deteriorated
00:43:58
um my face fled up red bright red I got sent to Greymouth hospital they thought I had shingles and I said no it's not
00:44:05
similar to Christchurch and I got this pain called trigeminal neuralgia and trigeminal neurologist described as the
00:44:12
worst pain known to man it's also called the suicide disease because about 20 of
00:44:16
people who get this commit suicide just to escape the pain mate to describe the pain
00:44:21
it's like a cheese grater behind your eye or someone's burning your face while
00:44:25
they're stabbing your stabbing your side of your face it was horrendous I was on
00:44:29
every pain medication you could think of and I was screaming down that bone marrow unit just screaming my head off
00:44:34
yeah so but that pain does it like come in bursts or is it just there continuously
00:44:41
no no it was there in birth it was it was flaring like it was hot like burning but then you'd have these severe burst
00:44:47
of pain it would just grab me and it's like yeah light me up what the heavy one
00:44:53
obviously not enough of whatever they were giving you yeah I was on morphine fentanyl ketamine Gabapentin
00:44:59
yeah and then finally I got sent up to the Intensive Care Unit I got given lignocaine infusions which
00:45:05
is an anesthetic a IV and it numb the nerve down the trigeminal nerve on the left side of my face and um I was
00:45:13
pain-free yep but it's still numb but I can still feel it where I'm pointing now it's
00:45:18
still numb there how's your vision is your vision all right I've had both my
00:45:21
cataracts done so yeah that's okay but not the best yeah so I had that and then this gvhd
00:45:28
was out of control mate I was the body was eating itself together it was and the treatment that immunosuppressants
00:45:34
and the steroids weren't doing the job so they'd had to they had to simulate
00:45:37
Melbourne to get some treatment yeah wow she said how can you have faith you know how can
00:45:45
you believe like there's there's a God when you've had such a rough [ __ ]
00:45:49
hand yeah that's a good question but the thing is there's been so much worse
00:45:53
stuff happened to me and I thought why why then why not me so I made that decision that I carry the burden on my
00:46:00
back no matter how hard it got that was the decision I made yeah yeah FM Why Not
00:46:04
Me Why Not Me Maybe I'm taking the pain away from somebody else maybe if I get
00:46:09
through what I get through maybe my story could help someone else that's going for something because I know
00:46:13
everyone out there is going through something it doesn't have to be so significant as me but I know a story can
00:46:19
help someone yeah absolutely so I've had people come into my ward and have a chat
00:46:23
and say hey I've been here and I've got better you know I've been to many many
00:46:27
places you know thinking about taking my life and things being taken away from me
00:46:31
but I've managed to hold on to that self-belief within myself that things would get better yeah and they really
00:46:37
have yeah we're not there yet we haven't even got on to the heart attacks yet yeah that's coming up
00:46:47
someone's got it in for you unbelievable um yeah we'll get to that but your
00:46:52
health now it's it's good it's so good yeah compared to where I thought it
00:46:56
would be yeah it's it's incredibly good yeah I can't even fathom that I'm in
00:47:00
this position and I'm just so grateful to be alive and doing what I'm doing
00:47:03
yeah and what are the chances of the leukemia coming back or any of that coming back I haven't asked for the
00:47:09
statistics yeah and personally I don't think it's going to come back yeah um I
00:47:13
think I'm in my mind I'm stable I'm good I'm healthy I'm strong that's how I see
00:47:17
myself yeah brilliant yeah hold on to that yeah right so yeah so the the heart complications
00:47:23
did this come as a result of the leukemia or anything or completely random no this was a basically a result
00:47:29
of the graphics yeah so we got sent over to Melbourne to get treatment I'm away
00:47:34
from my family and friends but my brother's with me at the time and God bless my brother he's an amazing boy he
00:47:39
was he's seven years younger than I and he took it on his back to fly over with
00:47:43
me get myself sorted cook my dinners do everything like that and set himself up in Melbourne just to help me out mate
00:47:49
incredible young man seven years younger Harold was he at the time like late teens early 20s yeah it would have been
00:47:53
about 18 yeah yeah yeah so he went for a heck of a lot but amazing young man for
00:47:58
what he did he took that burden on put his hand up and he was responsible for me when I was responsible for him back
00:48:04
in the day but yeah he took me over there and I started getting this treatment it's called extra Corporal
00:48:09
phototheresis so it's basically down regulating these T lymphocytes my body these tea lymphocytes were sending
00:48:15
signals to other cells to attack my body creating this graph versus host disease
00:48:19
effect um so this hopefully this treatment would just down regulate these these um
00:48:24
pro-inflammatory cytokines and and things like that and it started to work it was great you
00:48:30
know my body was freeing up a bit but these cramps that I talked about my body would just lock up I got locked up down
00:48:37
at the corner of Burke Street and just I'm in pain mate I'm on the ground again
00:48:41
my brother had to come and pick me up put me on the shoulder carrying it home the body was slowly getting better with
00:48:46
the treatment I was getting it three times a week I was living in Melbourne for six months but then I was away from
00:48:50
family I was away from friends and I got that negative thought am I ever going to
00:48:55
get better this is seven years now since I got first diagnosed that's a journey
00:48:58
it's a journey mate and I just winners are going to get better when is it going
00:49:01
to get better but just carry on just carry on and you know every day I thought about jumping in front of a tram
00:49:07
or doing something silly like that I thought about it but it was that conscious choice of not doing it just
00:49:12
carry on keep calm and carry on why did you why did you think like that just because it was like you just had enough
00:49:17
or you exhausted or yeah I was just utterly exhausted I couldn't produce tears I'd go walk down and it was just
00:49:24
like barbed wire in my eyes and I had this constant pain on my body would just spontaneously lock up my arms and feet
00:49:31
and everything would just lock up it was just it was a nightmare it really was but I
00:49:37
held on to hope that I would get better I did hold on to that hope treatment started to work I was getting
00:49:44
a little bit better but that graft versus host disease as a it was attacking the indoctilia cells in my
00:49:50
skin but also inside my arteries so I went to this Wim Hof Retreat I went to this
00:50:00
one hops Retreat because I was trying out the wormhof method and I was starting to feel a bit good inside
00:50:04
myself yeah I was having these cold showers and I was doing the slow breathing yeah for anyone that's I'm not
00:50:09
familiar with Wim Hof which is probably not many people uh the Dutch Guy this is
00:50:14
a cold shower day keeps the doctor away absolutely so yeah how did you get on the Wim hofbuzz just like a an audiobook
00:50:20
or you read a book or no no a friend um Matt Walker he sent me the link of this voice documentary of Wim Hof saying he
00:50:26
could help his immune system decrease inflammation in the body do all these miraculous things I thought I'm
00:50:31
desperate I need to just try anything you know I'm willing to try anything to
00:50:34
get myself better yeah the doctors were doing a wonderful job of getting me better credit to them and the nurses
00:50:39
amazing people but I needed to take responsibility for myself and try and help myself a bit you know push myself
00:50:44
along and I I changed my diet I was doing a whole group of things and I thought I'll try this method yeah and I
00:50:49
had my first cold shower and I felt a little bit good you know you know it's
00:50:53
invigorating it is it's amazing you know we increase dopamine levels by 250 by
00:50:57
getting into a cold shower you know I did feel a little bit good so just give me a bit of purpose for the day and in
00:51:03
the culture feel good yeah I'm in a [ __ ] situation go have another cold shower so
00:51:08
it gave me that outlet and then I went to a retreat because when Hof was doing this Retreat so I
00:51:12
thought so he was actually there he was there and I got to meet him in Federation Square and he said come come
00:51:17
and do the retreat man he's full of energy I'm like wow this guy's amazing I
00:51:21
want what he has I just want it so I signed up for his Retreat and the first day I didn't even get to attend I
00:51:29
woke up and had a massive heart attack now this is before everyone got to meet each other massive heart attack because
00:51:34
this graphic disease was attacking these my arteries in it and they yeah so it was clamping down on that left main
00:51:41
artery got sent to Geelong hospital had another two heart attacks got sent to Peter
00:51:46
McCullum Cancer Center always getting treated had another one there who finally got sent to the Royal Melbourne
00:51:52
cardiac unit I was in there for 24 days where I had another 12 heart attacks how
00:51:56
did you not die yeah is it your Fitness they got you through I'd say I had a
00:52:00
great Fitness on the you know great Foundation yeah yeah a heart attack's not Cardiac Arrest we've got to remember
00:52:06
that too okay what's the difference so basically that's when Cardiac Arrest is
00:52:09
basically when blood flow stops to the heart I was just getting restriction of blood flow to the heart so that's
00:52:14
basically what a heart attack was and I get this extreme pain it's just yeah you
00:52:18
couldn't move and you can see the ECGs just flip upside down and they didn't know what to
00:52:23
do with me because my skin and all my collagen and all of those ligaments are glued together they didn't know whether
00:52:28
to give me a heart bypass or just stint the left main yeah so they didn't know
00:52:32
how to go about me I was pretty special and they so I wrote the doctor a letter I wrote him a letter and um
00:52:41
I said I don't care what you do if I die that's fine just make a decision and
00:52:45
learn from me as a patient just I wrote him a letter Next Day heart attack he went in the cat lab stint to my left
00:52:50
main artery and I was out there oh two days later yeah but then this gvhd fled up mate
00:52:56
and I'll become a mess I was an absolute Miss I remember I remember um my friend Matt Walker coming into my
00:53:03
coming into my room and um Royal Melbourne Cartier unit and he had all these bubbles going on and I was just in
00:53:10
the corner just crying my head off mine just crying like when will it end but it was just holding on to that face
00:53:16
that it would just holding on at night it's just crying man yeah sheer exhaustion
00:53:24
yeah I don't know if I had much more left but I had my mother's love and I
00:53:27
had hope you know I found God and found a purpose and I was responsible so I had
00:53:32
to keep carrying on yeah yeah so I got got more treatment and then I finally got to go in my first ice
00:53:41
bath now a lot of people would be questioning this I've just had a stint in my left
00:53:46
main artery and I was going to go in a nice bath I was severely depressed mate a
00:53:51
cardiologist probably wouldn't advise it I wouldn't think yeah he didn't advise
00:53:55
it okay so so that's your first ice bath so you go from um so you didn't even do the one half
00:54:01
Workshop because you yeah I didn't get to party in that okay I went there everyone said hello to each other we had
00:54:07
dinner and I went to bed and I woke up in the morning that's when I got taken
00:54:12
away oh for [ __ ] sake so you you so um okay so you go from having cold showers
00:54:17
to the ice bath um how did you how did you learn about like the breath work and stuff like that
00:54:22
just on his online course 13-week course yeah I was doing that but then someone recorded a podcast of the retreat and
00:54:29
they sent it to me because they were wondering how I was and there was this guy Dave O'Brien talking he had the
00:54:34
establishment called Fifth Element wellness and he was talking about gut health and supplements and excess all
00:54:41
this wonderful stuff and I thought I gotta go check this out and I walked into this room and I saw this man called
00:54:46
Mark cluer a wonderful man he's become a great friend and he's just like this um
00:54:50
basically I describe him as a pirate who found his treasure he was just full of life he had this big beard he was tough
00:54:56
tattoos down his arm he's like Josh eat mate yeah picked me up I'm like who the heck are
00:55:00
you would be wondering how you are so he invited me to come and do this ice bath
00:55:04
and you know I was scared I was [ __ ] [ __ ] myself mate but as I said I was desperate and I wanted help shutting
00:55:11
yourself because um you what you thought you might have had a heart attack yeah yeah I did I didn't know what would
00:55:16
happen yeah but I just I knew that this exposing yourself to cold science had validated what it could do for your
00:55:22
immune system your Cardiology logical system and your neurological system especially for depression yeah I went in
00:55:29
there and I was so scared and this was a big change for me because I really wouldn't talk to anyone
00:55:35
beforehand or anything like that and I was so disconnected from myself in a way and I got on the ice
00:55:43
and I just breathed through it closed my eyes the boys like breathe Joshy and I overcome something that I didn't think I
00:55:48
could and I got out mate after how long I was in there for five minutes it's
00:55:52
about two degrees and I got out and I felt absolutely incredible like amazing yeah and I felt
00:55:59
this connection within myself again I started to pick my head out and foreign it's hard to describe the feeling
00:56:09
I I finally felt like I had myself again I had that running was like a moving meditation for
00:56:16
me it was my outlet it was somewhere but now I could physically overcome something that I didn't think I could
00:56:21
and I felt it inside myself and I was just Blown Away mate and it became my daily
00:56:27
practice yeah yeah and you teach it now yeah yeah I teach it now yeah at ice Studio here in Christchurch
00:56:34
and around at home um and Greymouth yep and it's just been an absolute privilege to share something
00:56:40
that's had a profound effect on me especially with my mental mental state of things yes okay so for anyone that um
00:56:46
is curious about it or intrigued like how how would you start how do you start um you can look up the Wim Hof method
00:56:52
yeah um get his teamwork course um but basically the method is just deep diaphragmatic breathing breathing from
00:56:59
the diaphragm hyperventilating yourself and just doing um slow breath holds and then we just expose ourselves to a
00:57:06
culture adapt ourselves to cold and then slowly we get into an ice bath and it's
00:57:10
just learning to be comfortable in that uncomfortable situation so combining the
00:57:13
breath with the ice we can control our breathing and that's you know this is
00:57:17
what I call full mindfulness when we're in there we've only got to focus on
00:57:21
ourself and where we are right now just breathing slowly getting it all under control and just
00:57:27
learning to be comfortable in that uncomfortable situation and that's what happened for me mate that's what really
00:57:31
happened for me yeah wow this yeah but there's always a silver lining so once I had that ice bath you
00:57:41
know I started to feel a bit better I started to communicate with people and my story is just another story of so
00:57:47
many other stories it really is that is always you know the light at the end of the tunnel so after eight years of
00:57:54
getting that treatment I was on a plane back to Melbourne getting treatment and I managed to sit next to this um young
00:58:00
girl and her name her name was Sybil and I and I said hello to her you know I wouldn't talk to anyone on a plane
00:58:06
before I'd shy away and I just said hello how are you really why would you shine away ah just a loner or oh you
00:58:13
look in the face and I was just I was embarrassed about who I was and what I was doing I didn't really want to share
00:58:17
too much about my treatment and stuff I really didn't I'm looking at your face in front of me
00:58:22
now there's there's definite um pigmentation stuff going on but um it looks I've said I've seen you on TV
00:58:27
interviews and stuff in the past um it's it's definitely looking a lot better now than what it has in the past
00:58:31
so much better than what it was yeah yeah for sure but at that time when I was getting treatment it was a lot worse
00:58:37
right yeah I was in a lot worse condition and you still didn't know you looked out
00:58:42
yeah I looked really ill bloodshot eyes all the time yeah you know I sat next to
00:58:47
I said hello she said hello back and she's gorgeous mate she's absolutely
00:58:50
gorgeous and I said where you're from she said from Switzerland I said what have you been doing she's been packing
00:58:54
around New Zealand had a great time now she's going over to Australia and I said
00:58:58
oh cool and then I asked oh what do you do for a job and um she said I'm an oncology nurse a
00:59:03
cancer cancer specialized nurse what are the chances what are the chances mate so
00:59:07
I don't recommend this for a pickup line but I said oh I actually going over to
00:59:12
Melbourne to get this special treatment it's called ACP and she goes oh I've
00:59:15
never heard of it so I said to her do you want to come and check it out you're on a backpacking holiday around
00:59:22
Australia yeah mate I'm like what what was she thinking so here I am didn't
00:59:27
think she'd turn up the next day I told him my hotel meet me at the front at 10
00:59:31
o'clock and to this day it's the first time my treatment got delayed normally
00:59:34
it was at 10 o'clock it got delayed to 1 pm so we unfortunately hours yeah we got
00:59:40
we got taken we had to spend that afternoon that morning together and we had a lot in common we really did and
00:59:46
she was just a wonderful person do you think um do you think she um in this may have even been a
00:59:51
discussion that you've had since then like was was she legit interested in the
00:59:56
treatment or did she just like you no I think she was more legit interested in the treatment
01:00:03
three hours late maybe in a blessing because it was a chance for you to charm that yeah yeah I didn't really really
01:00:08
know what to say because I've just talked about my last seven years eight years I mean it wasn't much to say but
01:00:13
she was really intrigued and she was just a generally nice person but the beautiful thing about her is she didn't
01:00:18
see my physical self yeah she saw inside me and who I was yeah man that's cool yeah man
01:00:29
she you know you talk about health so it's fundamental key people like her who
01:00:34
just saw me for me yeah a lot of people shied away from me a lot of people shied away from me and
01:00:41
that's why I didn't want to talk to people before because I knew how scared
01:00:43
they were when they looked at me you know I thought I was a monster how I look but she saw right into me man
01:00:49
sorry no apology not accept it and um she saw me and we spent the week together and at the end of the week mate we had
01:00:57
it we had a nice moment we had a kiss I yeah you've got so much gratitude don't you like I mean these are tears of
01:01:09
gratitude yeah nothing more you know it's just the people in your life that sustain you
01:01:14
mate you know I had my mum and then I had Subs I met here and and she decided to fly over to New Zealand come
01:01:21
and see me when I flew back and this is how special she is yeah I was living at home with my mum and dad I
01:01:27
had no job I was getting treatment for gvhd and I had no income nothing you should come over and hung out with me
01:01:35
for two weeks and that was it in stone now we're married mine and we've got a
01:01:40
kid on the way I'm gonna get onto my mind you know it's so good and let's let's show we sent some of the
01:01:51
story you know I'm not 100 of what I was when I was that Runner but I've got so
01:01:56
much more than what I had and your appreciation for life eh and the people around me mate you know those
01:02:02
wonderful people that went behind my back you know they were the ones pushing me along and I finally got my gold you
01:02:09
know sibling you know we I froze my sperm 11 years ago and we the doctor said you know
01:02:16
there's a good chance your sperm won't work but we'll give it a go and it's the
01:02:19
first egg got fertilizing it was an absolute Miracle mate because I know how many people struggle having IVF babies I
01:02:27
really do and it was the easiest medical procedure I've ever been a part of we
01:02:31
deserved it myself and um and uh my ex JJ yeah we uh after I had that tumor taken up that I
01:02:40
told you about um yeah we were on the uh the IVF treadmill for a number of years
01:02:43
I think we ended up having like seven failed rounds or something before we gave up but um I mean you yeah you
01:02:49
deserve you deserve that that that lucky shot and you've had no no no I don't
01:02:54
accept your apology at all man the stuff that you've been through like you deserve some good luck and some good
01:02:59
news and that was it yeah I was just waiting and holding on to that that's something would change yeah so simple's
01:03:05
over here she's got four weeks to go to she gives birth and uh amazing you know
01:03:11
it'll be a dad have I've got this wonderful woman by my side and you know I've got something to
01:03:16
really look forward to every day I mean yeah isn't it funny how everything happens for a reason everything happens
01:03:21
for a reason if you hold on to face yeah what are the chances of you you know sitting being seated next here on a
01:03:26
[ __ ] plane right oh chances are surreal I mean you know there's too much luck in my life to say it's luck you
01:03:33
know I'm very blessed on I really am and to be here today to have a chat with
01:03:38
you mate in a park across the road from where everything started falling out of control you know it's an absolute
01:03:44
privilege mate it really is to be able to share my story with you and I just really hope that what I've been through
01:03:50
and what I've got out of it is so much more than what I ever could have fathomed yeah maybe it could help
01:03:55
someone in such a dark situation because I know what it's like to be an athlete I
01:04:00
know what it's like when you think everything's been taken away yeah I coach kids now and it's just wonderful
01:04:06
that I can still give back in a way I can't run like I used to no way I can only run for about 10 minutes but seeing
01:04:12
these kids develop and sit in some Good Foundations in their life you know that's me giving back and that's me
01:04:17
being a part of running again and it's so fulfilling but how can you say you've
01:04:23
had so much luck like anyone that's listening to the story will be if anything you've been unlucky yeah for
01:04:30
sure but it's a glass half full going out I think so many life is about suffering
01:04:38
it really is there's so much hard stuff out there and I think we're accustomed
01:04:41
in life to think it's all good and glossy and I thought that beforehand before I was 23 going into that hospital
01:04:47
room I was I saw young kids two years old getting chemo I saw young boys you know they didn't wake up the next day I
01:04:54
saw Dad's with young kids passing away you know I went to Nepal and saw these
01:04:59
kids with nothing I've seen people suffer if you want to see something go into the bone marrow unit you'll see
01:05:06
real suffering and everyone's going through something everyone is and it's
01:05:10
my responsibility just to go through my suffering and hold on to Hope and Faith that something good would come and it
01:05:15
did yeah and it did and that's what I just share to other people just hold on
01:05:20
to those small perfect moments hold on to that love something special in your life knowing that things will change
01:05:25
that things will change for the better because I know they will yeah yeah I think you're gonna be a
01:05:32
great dad too you I mean you'll definitely be um you know more more open and more willing to display love than
01:05:40
what your own dad was I guess yeah but he showed love in a different way yeah you know I mean to say I'll be a good
01:05:45
dad my dad was a great dad yeah because he didn't have the tools that I'd I had
01:05:49
now of course and he was a great dad in his own way because he was trying to provide money
01:05:54
for my for us to provide opportunities that he never had and I respect him for that yeah yeah oh that's great yeah geez
01:06:02
you're one of the most great people you really are man and um your book The Window by back how can how can people
01:06:08
find that how can they buy it if people want to hear more of your story um you can go to www Josh coleman.com
01:06:14
there's a link there to buy it um I think it sells it with calls and Paper Plus
01:06:18
um yes you can order it through there yeah but yeah that's that's the link to
01:06:21
the book but um thanks for being so open with your story and uh I have to be honest he's key in
01:06:27
this life and yeah you know there's too much mistreuce going on and I'm honest
01:06:30
as I can be for people and that that's what happened um I'm lucky for my suffering I really
01:06:35
am really pleased about it because it's made me a better person it really has
01:06:38
yeah man I'm just so thankful that when you are standing on that balcony that
01:06:42
day that there was that that breath of wind breath of wind yeah Perfect Analogy breath of winds took me around and I saw
01:06:49
my mum and that love hurt me eh yeah was she right there was she yeah because she
01:06:54
was looking after me yeah so she went to the supermarket that day so she was staying at ranui house our new house is
01:06:59
amazing facility they have in Christchurch for long-term patients where family members can stay and
01:07:03
support them so she was staying there and those times I'd have that month of
01:07:06
treatment then come out for a week so in that week she was looking after me she went out to the supermarket yeah I
01:07:13
thought yeah that's when I made that kind of incorrect decision I mean yeah had you done it and let no one no one
01:07:20
could be mad at you no one could you know you'd be perfectly entitled to but
01:07:24
[ __ ] yeah I would no I mean it's hard to think what I was thinking in and to be
01:07:32
honest I wasn't thinking you know I was just in complete despair yeah you know
01:07:36
life was meaningless I felt powerless I felt hopeless I had no purpose and I connected myself to death that's that's
01:07:43
just what I connect myself with well let's hope the second half of your life is better than what the first has
01:07:51
been oh every day's been amazing since I've met sibs you know it really has you
01:07:54
know in those days of hardship too have taught me a lot Don yeah they really have taught me a lot and we can go
01:07:59
through so much you know we've all got it within ourselves to overcome the obstacles that that present themselves
01:08:04
we all have it there and everyone someone wants to help someone and that's the strength right there reaching out
01:08:10
for help you know we we spoke about it earlier in the conversation you know I was too young dumb and fully come to do
01:08:16
it it's silly it was absolutely silly yeah yeah we all need a bit of help we
01:08:21
all need a bit of wind at behind our back and I'm just so thankful for every
01:08:26
person that's come into my life doctors my Greymouth Community the the running
01:08:31
community that I had prior to that everyone's been absolutely amazing and I love them and appreciate them all and I
01:08:36
just love what you're doing Dom you've got some great great people on this
01:08:40
podcast and you talk about some heavy hitting stuff and really get that true authentic person out and they get to
01:08:46
speak some true meaning and life and I think you're doing a wonderful job mate
01:08:49
thanks mate yeah it all depends on the willingness of the person to share their story and be um you know open and raw
01:08:55
and vulnerable and you've definitely been all those things today man and I'm
01:08:58
so appreciative that um you shared your story with me I thank you thank you very
01:09:02
much thanks mate yeah no seriously cheers Josh Coleman love you mate love you too mate thank you Don