 Welcome to another show of Celebrate Life. My name is Gary D. Carlos and I'm your host. This show is about allowing amazing people, and we all are, to tell their life story while they're alive. The whole impetus behind this show is that having read many obituaries over the years and realizing that there are some amazing people that I never had a chance to meet, I decided to have a show where you can actually meet them and they're still very much vibrant and alive in this world. And so that's it, and I really believe strongly that everyone has the story to tell. And if you would be interested in having your story told, just give me an email at celebratelife0747 at gmail.com and I'll be glad to queue you up for a future interview. If you have any questions for our guests today, again, send me an email at celebratelife0747 at gmail.com and I'll make sure that it gets to our guests. With that, I'm honored to introduce you to Dr. Julietta Rushford Santiago. Welcome to the show, Dr. Rushford Santiago. Hi, Gary. Thank you. I go by Julietta. It's okay. Thank you. Okay, great. Thank you. So tell us about your life and you can start wherever you'd like. I know that you're from Puerto Rico and I'm sure that has some rich experiences there that you would like to talk about. But anyhow, it's your call and we can start wherever you'd like. So I was born and raised in Puerto Rico. I am the youngest of four with my twin. So we have an older brother, my older sister and then an identical twin and I. And I graduated high school a little bit on the earlier side and came to the United States to study. I was Amherst and got a bachelor's in exercise science. And then decided to pursue my studies in Carapace school in Georgia. And then in Georgia, I met my now husband. We've been together for 30 years actually this year and he's from Vermont. And that's how I ended up here in, you know, when I graduated school, so in 1994. So take us back to Puerto Rico, if you would, and what was life like there and what, and what was it like leaving the island. So it's mixed. It's complicated. You know, people, the thought of Puerto Rico evokes the, the paradise with the beach and the, the pina colada relaxation, which is true when you're a tourist. When you live there. It's a different story, although we do have access to that beauty. Yes. And to the rich culture is a very warm culture. It's very spicy, you know, and you don't notice that as much until you continue England and feel the complete opposite of the tone of the culture. It was it was definitely a culture shock. But the thing about Puerto Rico is that, you know, again, I left at 17 so I haven't lived there. Like my siblings have, and my parents, but I left because of the quality of life. You know, I grew up with a lot of fear of a lot of fear of somebody wanting to steal from me. Somebody wanting to hurt me and I didn't really get that until later on that I'm like, wait a second, why is there, why are there like three locks on the front door and then a fence, a gate with another lock. And then why is there a gate with a lock the size of a grapefruit going from the kitchen to the sleeping quarters. Like that was normal. But then at some point I'm like, what's out there? What are you keeping me from? Why are there, you know, iron bars on all the windows? I was going to say, I remember iron bars on many of the windows. On all the windows and the skylights. So every time I looked out the window for nature, it was through these bars, these iron bars. So at some point, I'm like, you know, when you walked from the car to the house and when you open the door, you have to, you know, look out and make sure that nobody's, you know, my parents were trying to protect us, right? But, and people did steal from the back a couple of times, you know, so there's that sense of, I'm not safe in my own home. So being a highly sensitive person as I am and wanting to raise a family in a different matrix than, you know, the opportunity arose. I mean, I did fall in love with my husband. I didn't use him to come to her mom. It kind of sounds like that now that I say it. But we met in car party school and we came here and like, oh my gosh, Vermont says, wow, like it really lined up and Vermont is so the opposite in so many ways. It's clean here. You don't see trash. Right. You don't see stray dogs. Every stray dog I've seen in Vermont, I pick up and put in the car. Right. And try to find the owner because I know that they're lost, but in Puerto Rico, that's the norm. You just see the dogs. You know, you see trash and you see the billboards and there's less attention to the things that Vermont and Vermonters pay attention and have the finances to do. Right. That's a key word there, right. Right. So there is profound beauty in the island. And I have this nostalgic hug in my heart and it's complicated, right? Because my family is there, but I live here. So my parents didn't get a chance to see my son play baseball as he was growing up or go to his recitals or, you know, and it's a choice. Yeah, right. Have you gone back to Puerto Rico? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I go back. You know, my family is there. Yeah. You know, it's as a business owner, it's hard sometimes to take time off and close the office and go there. So it's not as often as I had hoped. Yep. But now that my parents are getting older, I'm really trying to make an effort to, to fly a little bit more often. Well, that's good. So tell me about spicy. He said, you know, the culture there is spicy. What does that mean? I know family means a lot in Puerto Rico. That I know. Yes, but people, it's open. Like I said, it's, there's, there's this openness of, of, of your bubble. So for example, you, like I go here to a medical appointment and I enter the waiting room and nobody acknowledged me acknowledges me. It's so isolating and so it's just so you just feel so alone. I feel so alone within all these people as a contrast, you can enter any public place in Puerto Rico, whether it's a bus, a restaurant, a medical appointment and you just say I'm loud. Buenos dias. Buenas tardes. I'm just kind of greeting everybody and then it's met with Buenos dias. Buenas tardes. And there's this sense of like, oh, somebody saw me. My presence made, made this person notice me. Yeah. And here everybody and now with their phones like this, like it's I'm invisible. And that, that actually, you know, it hurts a little bit, you know, like I feel not seen and it hurt the most when my son was in sports and we will go to a baseball game. And these are families that we saw every day for practice or multiple times a week for games over years. Yeah. And I would arrive at the field. And not one person would greet me not one person would say, hey, hello. Oh, hi. It was like, and at first in Puerto Rico, there's a word for that. It's coming here. That is your scope, you know, like, you're like, just like, right. These people are like, oh my gosh, they, they're not even looking at me. You know, they're too. Whatever. Right. And then it took me a long time to realize that that's just the culture here. It's just a culture. But, but what happens is now, now I'm the stuff up one. I'm the one who ignores people because I'm like, well, you know, I'm just in my space here, you know, I don't know if they want me to say hi or not say hi, you know, and it's confusing and hard. Sometimes I go to Puerto Rico now. And people talk to me, I'm like, you're in my bubble. That was, this is my bubble here. You know, but it was, it was a huge shock when I first came here. And I've been here for three decades, you know, just about. And now I'm kind of like, I feel my, I feel my spiciness, my passion has gone down. My spiciness has gone down. My, my, you know, that Puerto Rican zest, I don't, it's hard for me to find it now. And there is a big beauty in New England. Oh my gosh, it's such a strong, you know, very grounded culture. And it's very distant. So it's complicated. I have to marry them. Yes, yes. Yeah, so I can, I feel the impact it had on you was like, just dramatic. Yeah. Yep. It was people don't touch here, even pre COVID, right? And if, you know, in Hispanic cultures, there's more of that. That, that, that come like we kiss every time we see each other is just a kid. It's assumed you'll see somebody whether you've met them once or a million times and you kiss. You know, I couldn't teach that to my son. I couldn't teach him to kiss me on the cheek when he says hi and when he says goodbye. Because he doesn't see it here. Yeah. So he's, you know, he's in New Englander. Yeah. I can't get my son to kiss me on the cheek. Hello and goodbye. How quick we can lose our culture. Yeah. Yeah. Right, right. And he didn't, you know, it's not part of the, the, how people behave here. So I believe that we learn a lot. Right. By what's around us. Yeah. And he didn't get to see that part. Yeah. That's interesting. Wow. When you were a little girl. Still in Puerto Rico. What were your dreams? When, what, what did you fantasize? What am I going to be when I grow up? Wow. That's funny. That's a funny question. Part of me wanted to be a nun. I want to, I would put the towel over my head and pretend that I am a nun. But, you know, I will share this, which is a little bit heavier, but now I understand that my desire for that, that connects that solid, that, that internal solitude and connection to the divine came from some childhood abuse that I did not, I was not aware of it until later in life. I can see now why I crave that sense of, of safety and belonging. But no, I've always, my dad is a surgeon and he has, he would be phenomenal to interview. Oh my gosh, he's, his, his CV is this is like two Bibles. He developed the kidney transplant program of the island. Oh my goodness. And, you know, so I grew up around that medical paradigm and a part of me resisted it. It just, a part of me questioned and, and there was something in Congress with the paradigm of medicine and some inner knowing of life and healing. And when I found chiropractic, I'm like, Oh my gosh, I'm home. This is it. You know, the idea that, that we have this innate wisdom inside of us that takes a dead hunk of meat and turns it into a beating heart cell that you cut yourself and your body finds a way to, to heal and suture the skin. And, and it was all orchestrated by the nervous system. And that all made sense to me. So I, I really embraced the holistic philosophy of this career of chiropractic as a way to enhance health. Right. But it's very opposite that medicine. But what I've learned after two cancer diagnoses in my family is that there's room for both. There's very important room for both. You know, medicine does not offer health at all. It's a misnomer. Medicine saves lives. Medicine gives us a second chance. It repairs. Healing is a completely different topic. Healing is achieved with taking care of your spine, taking care of your teeth, taking care of your diet, taking care of your muscles, right? They're two completely different offerings that they save and help people. They're just, they're not the same thing. Right. You can't talk about medicine as health and healing because it isn't. It's about buying time. It's about saving lives. So anyway, so he and I went through, you can imagine, a little bit of a clash, especially in chiropractic school, I was all full of it. And, you know, part of that was chiropractic school itself can be very anti-medicine. And to our defense, medicine has been very anti-chiropractic for 100 years. But anyway, the bottom line is as time passes, that and I are extremely close and we are able to see each other's truth and joke about it a lot and to see each other in what we bring. That's wonderful. What a nice marriage of daughter, dad type thing. And wow. And I don't want to go with that. So do you bring some of that, your culture into your practice? I would have to ask my patients that. So at first, when I first came to the States, especially even mom that I'm a professional, you have my title or doctor and I'm supposed to be all formal and stuff. So I try to hide my accent a lot. And it's hard. My twin sister actually, for some reason she picked up the accent of Pittsburgh. She studied in Pittsburgh for a while. So her English and my brother's English is really good. I have a little bit of a thick accent and I don't know, I think like 15 years ago, I just said, you know what, I'm done. I'm just done. This is how I speak, you know. If you don't understand what I said, ask me to repeat it because I have to ask you all the time to repeat stuff because I don't understand your English. So at some point I just went, that's it. This is how I talk. And, you know, with my patients, I think inevitably I do, you know, I bring a little bit of humor and I call it a pattern interrupt. You know, it's like you expect things to go this way and here I come and just throw something completely different or I make them laugh a lot. And I just, you know, like, and I think I do bring that getting in there, right, that holding. I think part of that is the culture of just kind of like being more, I don't mean to insult people here in New England, but it's a little bit more personable and warm. Let's just call it that. Yeah. Yeah. And I think my patients do appreciate that, but it's interesting you bring that question because a part of me, being Hispanic, being from Puerto Rico, being a woman. And for the first few years in practice, I had like a little bit of a chip on my shoulder. Like I had to, I had to prove that I knew stuff, you know, that even though I was, you know, very educated, very accomplished in But I'm a female in a male dominated career as well back then. In Vermont, which I'm just going to name it, I'm just gonna say it, right, but Puerto Ricans are not necessarily seen in a very high light because we're a colony. So then I would try to, I felt like I had all these, maybe they were self imposed, who knows, maybe people didn't care, but I felt that as a female Puerto Rican doctor, I had to work extra hard, I had to prove myself more. And now I'm a lot, I mean, after 30 years of being in practice, I'm like, you know, I know stuff. That's what I know. If you want it great, if you don't, you can go see another chiropractor. But, and, you know, this is a very white, not very diverse culture in Vermont. Yep. So not many people are used to, especially back then in the early 90s, not many people who talked differently. And I look white, right? I'm white. And people would say, Oh, but you don't look Puerto Rican. I just feel like it's, if you're listening to this, just don't say you don't look Puerto Rican, please. Because it's insulting. Yeah. You know, like the Puerto Rican race is the white Spaniard who conquered the island, you know, the black influence from Africa. Native Daino Indians, which were the indigenous copper color skin, right? So that's kind of how Puerto Ricans are, are defined. So when, when, when people heard my accent, they want to place me, they want to place me where you from, right? And then, and then I, I've learned that I don't have to answer that question. That's right. At this age, before it's like, Oh, I have to divulge it. So once I said, I'm Puerto Rican, you could feel the, Oh, I thought you were blank. I'm like, F you, you know, I'm right here. Right. You know, so, so there's, there's complexities to being Puerto Rican in Vermont. You know, and for a long time, I, you know, I, you know, don't talk. Because you can't tell if you see me, but if I open my mouth, you can tell, you know, like my little secrets, my little secrets. But the thing is, now I use this secret in Puerto Rico, or when I travel to other countries too, because people think that I'm American. And they start speaking Spanish. I'm like, I know everything. I whip out it. I whip out in Spanish, like, I know maybe there is that. Buenos dias. You know what I'm saying? Like I have this dual secret that I can whip out whenever it's convenient. When you, when you see someone else from another culture, actually a woman, do you take a special interest in wanting to know how she's doing and offering any support that you can give her? You know, I wouldn't say that I, that I do that. If you need more favoring other cultures, I just kind of do that period. You know, I don't. I wouldn't notice. Actually, that's, let me sit with that for a second. Yeah, there's a woman at Trader Joe's and, you know, she has her accent and we've kind of known each other. It's different. Yeah, I do ask. I do ask how's your family in Poland or how's your family in Bosnia because people, it's hard when you're here and you have family somewhere else. It's a reality that a lot of us know, but we're still few. Yeah, yeah. And you're right. There is a little bit of a commonality of experience there that may make me. Yeah, I mean, when you think of it, I moved from New Jersey to Vermont, not a big deal, but it was a big deal. I mean, but when if I was moving from another country to the United States, that's, that's, that takes courage. It takes, as they would say, that's, that's leaving a lot and going to what, you know, no, but all the familiar things are gone all of a sudden. Yeah, plus language, plus language, right. Plus food. Yeah, right. You know, like I came here and it was all pizza and pasta and burgers and I'm like, oh my God, like, we missed the rice, the beans, the, my mom would send us packages of Puerto Rican. It was such a treat to be in the college dorm and, and open that, you know, that Puerto Rican meal. Yeah. So it's, it's different. I mean, nowadays in Vermont, you can find a little bit more of that food here, just a little bit more, but it's, it's, it's, it is a little bit of a shock in many areas, food being one of them. Yeah, absolutely. How are your, what are your siblings doing? How are they, how are they still on the island? So my brother lives in New Mexico. And then my older sister is in Puerto Rico and has been there for the most part. And my twin is in Puerto Rico now as well. Okay. Yeah. But there was a point where my sister was in Oregon, my brother in New Mexico, my other sister in Georgia and me in Vermont. So when my parents visited, they had, we called it the tour. Wow. Go to a tour and visit all of you. That's quite a tour. Did they, any of them go into the medical field? No. Nope. They're the closest one as a character. Okay. Okay. Who were your mentors as a young person who, who, you know, I think one of the questions I ask is a Marion right Edelman wrote this wonderful book and she talks about lanterns that her lanterns in life the people who lit the path to her future. Who are those for you. My dad, but not for the reasons that you would think. It was my dad because I wanted to be in the healing field, but not that in that iteration. Yeah. So that kind of put a question in me with that hunger of wanting to explore a different path. But with that said, he has such a tremendous crescents in the island, it has helped so many people that, you know, people used to have to fly to the states to get a transplant. Right. You know how expensive that is. I mean, so having, having a transplant program in the island was huge for so many levels. So, so yeah, I've been inspired by his altruistic desire to help and to leave the world better than when we came in. That's one of the main things that he has taught me is just wherever you go just try to leave it just a tiny little bit better than when you got there, you know, and in that sense of wanting to serve and help. Of course, his way is his path. He sees people die. He has to give people the news that their loved one died, you know, as a chiropractor, you know, knock on one that's I offer different things. I'm very inspired by his poise and his contribution to society and him as a human being. He's, he's a truly remarkable man who has overcome a lot. Again, Hispanic doctor. Right. It's harder. Yeah, it's harder, even though he has, you know, ran organizations or been part of international organizations in Latin America and been invited to the United States to take some positions of distinguished positions. He decided to stay in the island because he felt like it was his duty to to contribute to his fellow, you know, Puerto Rican. Puerto Rican. Wow. So yeah, I would say my dad. Yeah, how special that is. Yeah. Well, good. And now you have a family. You have a son. Yes. He's 21. And baseball player. Really? He, he's a, he's amazing. Wow. He's a proud mama. Yeah, I'm gonna brag. I'm gonna brag. Yeah, please do. This is a bragging moment. That's right. He, he pitched a perfect, do you know, do you know baseball? I love baseball. Yeah, he pitched a perfect game. A couple of summers ago. Wow. Throughout, you know, it was like right after COVID or during COVID one of those I can't remember everything's a blur. And, you know, his pitching took his team to regional championships and Bristol when he was in Little League and so he's, he's an amazing human. It's his baseball. Is he through college now? Or is he in the minor leagues? He's in college now. He's at UVM actually. Oh, where they got rid of baseball. They don't have baseball. I know. So they're doing, he's doing a club. He's doing club baseball. Okay. And that's one of my, my highlights of my life is to see him play, to see him pitch. Yeah. And it's a very, very rewarding. Oh, that's wonderful. Is he right handed, left handed? Right. Right handed. Yeah. And my husband is a chiropractor as well. So we met in chiropractic school. He's a Vermonter. He's the last of nine. He has stories for you too. He's a Irish family, Irish Catholic, they call it, right? Yep. And he is now, he specializes in pregnant women and children only. Because, you know, the integrity of the spine is critical for the, the hips to open to allow the baby. You know, those are all joints. The muscles and that's all coordinated by the nervous system. So, and when babies come out, they have misalignment in the spine that can, you know, create disruption to that, that, that neural flow from the brain. And it just goes like this. And he's so funny. He wants them over. He has them giggling and everything. And now he's, he's, he's the head of the holistic health sciences program at Northern Vermont, what is Northern Vermont University right now. Right, right. And it's a phenomenal program that wonderful. It's honestly, it's so needed right now with people being so stressed and these kids in college they're so stressed they've been through so much. So teaching mindfulness practices. I think it's life changing to be honest and I would love to see UBM and bigger colleges offer this type of program because it, it, it invites the students to do some self introspection and to use things that are accessible to all of us like breath, movement, nature as a way to self regulate, and then they can choose to pursue it and be a naturopathic chiropractorine massage therapist or reiki practitioner. You know, so it's a beautiful foundation of holistic sciences. Wow, that's wonderful. What's your what do you have a specialty in your practice. I do. I work with trauma. Oh my goodness. Wow. My specialty is trauma. So what happens Gary is that one of the things that we've learned is that the spine. The spine is like a recorder. And you go through life and the spine is keeping track of it saves it right there. And if it doesn't get addressed is just all this energy is gone to this story of stress and tension that happened 10 years ago 20 years ago 40 years ago. And that's interfering with your present life because your nervous system thinks that you're going through that stress that happened 10 or 40 years ago. So we can read people's spines and say, Hey, what happened when you were eight. Oh my goodness. What happened. And people say, Oh, that's the year that I got divorced or I was in a car accident or I lost a loved one or I got ill like there's always something they may not remember at that moment. So then what I help people do is kind of help create a shift in the mind through the spine. Like I don't process people's stuff. You know, I have people with intense histories I tell you sometimes I just need to come home and just kind of diffuse because bad things happen a lot. And we don't talk about it which is okay but but it's there. So people come to me with next stuff. And I'm like, What happened here and I kid you know this woman said, Oh, that's the year that I attempted to take my life. Oh my God. So intense. But that stress is here so they they think the neck pain is about the neck and it's not it's about hidden stories that the nervous system has talked and filed away as a way to survive. But then they show up as back pain neck pain tension. Yeah, you know, so my goal, even though it's not to fix the back pain neck pain my help my my goal is to support the person's nervous system in releasing and unpacking some of these baggage of stress tension and trauma so that they can, you know, lead a better life with more ease and peace. Wow. Would you recommend like psychotherapy for patients of years that have gone through a lot of trauma and you're working with them. Well, I think they go hand in hand. Yeah, they do because I don't do psychotherapy. Right. I'm not trained. Right. But a psychotherapist is not trained in helping that the vertebra go back to place. Exactly. So this is the the the finally I'm hoping yeah that especially after COVID was where trauma is kind of being a little bit more normalized and mental health is being more in the surface. Yeah, that the mental health profession sees that yes there's a gift there but we gotta we have to address the body. We have to address specifically the nervous system because for example when that second neck bone is cranked to the right. That's going to create a head heart shut off. It's just the head heart connection is not there it's a people are here. And it doesn't matter how much you talk about it until the second leg bone doesn't go back home. That connection is not going to happen. So this is where the body mind the true holistic care for mental health is addressing the mind. And you gotta address the body and the nervous system directly and nothing compares to holistic chiropractic that aligns specifically the the cord the spinal cord which affects the brain because people tend to separate for some reason right because we we tend to separate things. The brain from the spine. People talk all the brain the brain the brain the brain but guess what guess what's attached to the brain the spine. I can I can talk on the spine down here and create a change in the brain. So a lot. It is is powerful has been very rewarding a very rewarding career when people say how much the work that my husband and I have in practices like ours have help people you know find more peace you know for I have a woman she said oh I forgive my mom I have another person who said my son was was having suicidal ideations and since he started to see you he's he's shifting and he's more open to working with his therapist get it that's the combination of the two. So, I'm very I feel like I have. I have contributed to leaving the place better than when I came in and I'll share a little bit more I did go through cancer in 2019. And that was two years into my son's cancer so. Wow. Wow. It's it's been intense he was diagnosed with leukemia. And that's a three and a half year treatment for boys and he was 15 at the time. Wow. And two years into it then I got diagnosed with cancer and there. I had complicated he had complications I had complications. God bless him he had to. There was a time where he would be upstairs in the fourth floor in the children's hospital with my son receiving chemo and then just come downstairs because I was receiving chemo. My goodness. But there was a time where I said I may not walk out of here. This may be it for me. You know, and there was this sense of like. I'm not in control. I'm not in control. Right. I'm not in control of my life. Yep. And in that moment. Thankfully. I felt. You did it. You did well. You helped people. You made an impact in people's lives and that brought me a lot of peace. I'm very. I'm very happy and grateful and blessed to be able to say that sentence. I know. Yes. Thankfully, I made it out of the hospital. And I think the biggest. Not lesson affirmation. Is how this life is mine but not really. Right. Right. I'm keeping things in perspective. Right. So the fridge breaks. That's right. I've gone through worse. Not that the fridge is broken, but. I've gone through a lot worse. You know, it's like. Keeping things in perspective and honestly just trying to just stay in. This moment and then this moment and then this moment. That's what helped me make it through my son's cancer is. Just staying here. Staying here, not thinking ahead, not thinking past. It's very Zen. Can be very. Being in the present. Yep. Yep. Not that I recommend it as a spiritual practice, but. Right. But life has a way of throwing things at us, doesn't it? That we, you don't plan for. And it sounds like you handled it beautifully. Yeah. And being there for your son at that point must have been extremely hard. And yet important. Yeah. I feel that his cancer journey. Prepared me for mine. Cause I probably, when I got the diagnosis, I just said. This is nothing compared to being told that your only child has cancer is nothing. I don't care. You know what I'm saying? It's. It's so different. It's so different to hear the diagnosis yourself and to hear for your only child. Our world crumbled. And that's where medicine came in. That's part of my story. Yes. Medicine saved his life. Did you. Did you get chiropractic? During your time, did you. Oh, well, we always do. Okay. It's just part of our. You know, you exercise, you eat healthy, you get adjusted. It's just part of that. It just helps your nervous system kind of cope a little bit better. Yeah. But I'm so grateful. Your father came. Did he come out? He came several times. God bless him. He and his wife, they came and I remember one time I was in the hospital and like I said, I was having complications and they pulled a couch and they slept right next to me. And this was a couple of years ago. So it was. And because he's a medical doctor, he was able to connect with the medical doctors here and find out information. And. It was very handy to have a medical doctor in your back pocket. It sure is. Very grateful for that. That's wonderful. That's wonderful. Yeah. Well, so. When you think about your life and what, if you were to share some wisdom or. About it to others, what would you say? Well, that's hard to say because I don't. I don't. I'm still in the past. Yeah. I haven't figured life out. For me. I don't have pearls of wisdom. I have my experience, which is I try to hold myself. With compassion and grace. As I try to navigate life. That's that. That's nice. I don't know if you'd call that pearls of wisdom, but it's a beautiful thing to say. Yeah. Thank you, Gary. I do want to be mindful of time. I have a few more minutes and I have to go to patients. Okay. Very good. Anything, anything you want to say as a summary or any awards that you've won over the years. I have, I have, but they're not that important. I think my biggest. And I'll leave this for my son. I think my biggest accomplishment is, is giving birth. To my husband. My husband. My husband. My husband. My husband at home alone in the woods with him. And my husband, it was just my husband and I. No midwife. No medical doctor. We were in the, the woods in a cabinet in Huntington with our white German shepherd. And I think about that. That's the painting a half year is the story of his birth. Oh my God. People ask me, you know, what, what is your biggest accomplishment? You know what? You know what? My body knows how to do this. And in birthing another human being. You know, just in the sanctity of my marriage with my husband. Yes. In that privacy of, of, of our, of that nucleus with. It was, it was. The more time passes, the more I see how. How. How. How. Balsy. That was. Right. How courageous, how. Intimate. And how it also set the foundation. For our son, you know, like, like we did this. We got you. We got you. We. Your birth here with my husband and I, it's, you weren't taken away from me to do tests and stuff. I was taken away from you. I was taken away from you. I was taken away from you. I was taken away from you. Right. To my chest. You got adjusted. It's the first thing my husband put him on my chest. And adjusted his upper neck before knowing what his gender was. Amazing. So I, for me, I would say that that's my. That's profound. That's my biggest award is. Having taught the experience. Of doing that. Having a partner that supported that. You know, I've done so much of that. Entry to the world. Yes. And how it shaped my son's nervous system is. I think my crowning glory. That's wonderful. No pun intended pun intended, right? The way that sounds. OK. And, and I. Listening to talk about your son a little bit. That deep love. right till today. There's no question about that. Yeah. And he's blessed to have you and your husband as parents. He won the lottery of life. Thank you. Yeah. Storm, listen to him. Yeah. No, I'm kidding. He's not going to watch this show. Maybe later on. But anyway, Gary, thank you for my face. Thank you for your gentle nudging to tease out a little bit of the stories of my life. I appreciate that. And let me know if there's anything I can do to support you and the program. I would love to send people your way. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you for being a guest today.