27. The Day I Went Swimming & Didn't Come Up the Same - Susie Quiroz

Susie is an accomplished and talented Singer, Songwriter, and also the author of a book entitled The Day I Went Swimming & Didn’t Come Up the Same. When Susie was 11 years old she suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury that changed her life forever. When she woke up from her coma she was paralyzed. Susie had to basically relearn everything all over again. Through her journey of recovery, she has had to endure things like memory loss and chronic pain but through it all, she has learned the true meaning of being an overcomer and though her life’s journey has tested her faith, she has found her way in making this world a better place.

Well, we wake. So reason why brain swelling is dangerous is because it's like your brain going into panic mode, and it's firing all these signals to the rest of your body freaking out and not doing what it's supposed to do. And so they put me into a coma, a drug induced coma because that's the closest place to death you can be where you're still alive. And it's like your body's completely chilled out, and that will give your brain time to calm down. I didn't quite understand the magnitude of my injury or maybe a couple of months afterward, and that's when I first started wrestling with depression. The only thing more tragic than the tragedy that happens to us is the way that we handle it. And I needed for me personally to tell depression. No, I'm going to start out every day with positive thinking and to reclaim my thoughts and the power and authority over my mind because God has given that to me. Hey, what's up, everybody? It's Erin writtenaur. Welcome back to the Simply Overcoming Podcast today's guest I am very excited about. Susie is an accomplished and talented singer songwriter and also an author of a book entitled The Day I Went Swimming and Didn't come up the same. When Susie was eleven years old, she suffered a traumatic brain injury, which changed her life forever. When she woke up from her coma, she was paralyzed. Susie had to basically learn everything all over again. Through her journey of recovery, she has had to endure things like memory loss and chronic pain. But through it all, she has learned the true meaning of being an Overcomer. And though her life's journey has tested her, she has found her way in making this world a better place. Suzie thank you for being on the podcast. Thank you for having me. You're in Oklahoma, aren't you? Yes. Where are you? I'm in Oregon. Everyone in Oklahoma wishes they were really. Why is that just how beautiful of a state it is? Yeah. You guys probably get richer. Seasons like Fall and Spring Springs in Oklahoma are beautiful, and it's all here now, and it's getting lovely, but it's very hot and humid in Oklahoma for a long time. It just now started cooling down. Fall is by far my favorite time of the season and favorite time of the year right now. It is just full swing fall going on out there right now, and I love the colder weather, too. Like, 40 degrees is pretty fantastic. I love it. I mentioned some of the things that you do, but I know you do so much more. I've seen that you're a very talented photographer and you have a lot going on. Yeah. There's a lot of fun things to do. I love that you work as a youth care worker. Talk to me a little bit about what you do. Yeah. My job title is Youth Care Worker or Youth Mentor at a girls home for teenage girls in the DHS system. So teenage girls between the ages of 13 and 17 live at this home while they are waiting to be adopted or accepted in the foster care system or just age out of the system. These are all youth who have been removed from their homes, generally because of abuse of situations. And so they live there. It's a 24 hours facility, obviously, because they live there. So the staff there just takes turns on different shifts taking care of them. I work in the mornings and afternoons, so I usually drive them to school, taking their doctor appointments if they're out of school that day. I like to do activities with them. I like to bring my instruments up to and teach them to play songs or just let them sing and play. Or there's a girl I'm working on writing songs with, which is cool. Yeah. And just doing activities. I like to take them places, too. We try and teach them life skills and coping skills. So it's awesome. It's a very rewarding job. I'm super grateful that that's what I get to do every day. What got you into doing that? Is that something that you just sort of fell into? Or was it a calling that you had? Yeah. I've always done volunteering. I've been a volunteer for the past nine years. I think with the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. So I started playing music for women in jail when I was 19, and then when I turned 21, I got my badge and training that lets me into prisons. And so now I'm with an organization that does prison Ministry, and we go and have Church services for actually usually males in high medium security prisons. We have Church services, and I'll play like the worship music before the Church service. And I've done volunteering at, like, a domestic abuse shelter and a shelter before. And I always really wanted to do that full time. And I worked in retail for a long time, and I loved it. It was fun. I worked at a music store. I learned a lot and made a lot of important friends in my life. But there's a lot of I guess, just corruptness sometimes in large corporations. And this is no shame to anybody who works in retail. I mean, keep doing what you're doing because I need to come in and buy stuff. But for me, I just felt like the particular position I had in the particular employer I had was very money hungry and not doing the right thing for people. And that felt kind of immoral in a way. And I really just wanted to do what I'm doing now full time, and it eventually worked out. Wow. That's awesome. Yeah. I've struggled myself personally with the balance of making a lot of money and then also doing something that makes a difference in the world. And I would much rather be doing things every single day that makes a difference and helps other people. But in the society that we live in, we sort of get caught in these little money traps, these little traps of well, maybe just another 100,000, right? Yeah. And there's no shame at all. If you're good at working as a store employee or if you're good at working in financing or whatever, do I think everybody has unique callings and it might not be to feed orphans or everybody has their own calling. And if that's what you're going to doing, then do it and do it well. And I think that's awesome. And I think that you will have opportunities in your career to help others. Or maybe that's just what you do to earn money so that you can help other people. There's no shame. And I hope no one listening feels shame or feels like I'm calling people out for just being a part of the modern world. Not at all. That was just how I felt personally, but there's still needs for other types of non nonprofit work. This is sort of off topic, but I just recently started hosting a radio show that specifically is I get to interview missionaries from around the world, and that was sort of my goal going into it as I want to hear from missionaries. And I just truly believe to a fellow Christian, I truly believe that everybody has their own mission field and that could be in your home. That could be your Church. We all have a calling. And I truly believe that when you're following that calling and when you're following God's voice, you truly are going to find that place where you're supposed to be and maybe your mission field, maybe your place in the world is working retail and then doing something else on the side, you can be a missionary and an uplifting human being to your co workers don't ever feel as if you are insignificant in where you are in your life because God will use you wherever you're at. Right. Absolutely. And I had a lot of cool opportunities when I was working in retail. Just cool random opportunities with people who would come in and needed somebody to talk to. And I felt like there's no other way that this happened other than God sending them here to talk to me. Or maybe I needed to hear what they had to say or vice versa. You never know. And if your heart is in the right place and it's positioned in a humble manner, then you will have opportunities to love people and to make a difference in people's lives. And sometimes we don't see the effects of what we're doing. We just have to trust that we are seed planters and that God will water those seeds and he'll be the one to grow a big harvest from that. You never know what impact you're having on other people by just saying an encouraging word to them or showing them that you care. I don't think everybody is called to give the whole gospel to everybody when they're talking to them. And I feel like that's where faith has to come in because we're seed planters and we just have to trust that God will speak to us if our hearts are humble and we're listening. And then he'll take care of the rest. And I had a lot of cool opportunities like that when I was working in retail or even just out and about in a store or taking a walk or something. You never know when God is going to bring someone across your path, so it doesn't matter what your career is, you will still be used by him. Well said, I'm excited to hear your personal story, and I just love having conversations and hearing about other people's experiences in life. First of all, though, it's really exciting that you were able to write a book about your life. And when did that book come out? May of 2020? May of 2020. So this is very recent then. Yes. What was it like to get that first copy in your hands? Oh, it was so exciting. The funny thing is that I'm not sure if it was Amazon or Ups that delivered it, but my book got delayed in the mail, and I sent the link to a couple of close friends and family members whenever I published it just so they can see that it was actually for sale on Amazon. Well, they all ordered it, which was nice of them, but they all got their copies before me, so I didn't even have the chance to read it or make sure it looked like how I wanted to before my family members got it and started posting about it on social media. And I was like, oh, no. What if there's a bunch of typos or something that I don't like about it? So I decided to make peace with it, and I think one of my family members actually gave me their copies. I think mine never came in the mail or it came much later. Everybody read it before I did. This is very exciting. That's the first time I've ever done anything like that. Very exciting. It's cool that Amazon provides a way for people to write and publish books for free. So yeah, it was a cool feeling. I've already finished it. I wrote a children's adaptation of the book, and I'll be publishing it probably this weekend so that disabilities can read about it and hopefully feel related to and feel as a kid. Children's books are all about imagination and adventure, which is lovely, but that's not very applicable to some kids lives, and I wanted to use words like hospital and things like that to make them feel like these are normal things, and there are other kids out there. There's authors out there who have experienced some of what you've experienced and it's normal, and it's okay. And it's not weird to have a disability or be in a wheelchair or things like that. So hopefully I delivered it in a lighthearted way and that kids with disabilities out there can feel related to being able to testimony is just such a powerful thing. Being able to make somebody feel like they're not alone realize that they're not alone in this world and in this disability that they may have talked to me about what happened when you were eleven. So I was in the swimming pool with my brothers. It was Memorial Day weekend. My dad was in the pool, too, and we were just goofing off, and my older brother was picking up my little brother in his arms and tossing him around in the water, and none of us were paying attention. I think I had my back turn to them, and he accidentally threw my little brother into me and we had heads. My little brother, Micah, was okay after a while. I mean, he was hurt, too, but after about an hour, so he was okay. And that's because he was delivering the impact. He fell on me. And so it didn't affect him as much as it did me. I received the impact. So you have two main arteries going to your brain. He fell at just the right spot where it clipped one of them in half and started causing internal bleeding in my head, pressing my brain against the side of my head and causing brain swelling. Of course, none of us knew this was going on because none of us had any underlying health conditions. There wasn't a Mark on me. We were just kids. Me and my little brother Mike, actually were always getting hurt, bumping into each other, crying like it was a really big deal, and so nobody really knew to take it seriously. My parents got us out of the pool and we're trying to cheer us up, but I just kept holding my head and screaming, and my mom took me inside and I lay down on the floor and I couldn't get up because my head hurt so bad. It was like an intense amount of pressure and just throbbing. After a while, I lost consciousness. And then according to what my parents told me, they took me to the hospital. We lived in a really small town in Oklahoma at the time, and they said that they didn't have the medical resources to help me. So they lifelited me to the city of Tulsa, where I live now. And they did brain surgery on me there at the hospital. Once I landed in the helicopter, they did brain surgery and put a tube in my head to drain out the excess brain fluid caused by the brain swelling. And then they decided to put me into a coma because I was having severe brain swelling, which is a really dangerous thing and the reason why brain swelling is dangerous is because it's like your brain going into panic mode, and it's firing all these signals to the rest of your body freaking out and not doing what it's supposed to do. And so they put me into a coma, drug induced coma because that's the closest place to death you can be where you're still alive. And it's like your body is completely chilled out, and that will give your brain time to calm down. Because if your brain is swelling for too long, that's how you can go brain dead or enter into a vegetative state as a lot of people are, that happens to a lot of people. And that's usually when TV shows and movies and stuff, you hear them say, we're going to have to pull the plug. And that's because they're in a vegetative state, and there's just no hope for them waking up. So I was on my way there, but they put me into a drug and a coma to try and stop that from the brain swelling getting too severe and brain swelling is how you experience damage to different parts of your body. So they put me in a coma, and they didn't really have any plans for what I would wake up. They were honest with my parents and told them that people don't often wake up from comas. Sometimes it takes months, and then I could be like that forever. But I woke up a week later. I actually remember it, which is interesting because of all the heavy coma drugs you're on, your memory is very spotty. And my memory of that of waking up in the hospital is pretty fuzzy. But for some reason, I do remember waking up, and I did suffer memory loss, but it's interesting to me that that's a memory that I have because that's usually, like, the first thing you forget is anything about being in the hospital and the accident. But somehow I remember all of it. Yeah. And I woke up. I saw my mom and I was on life support. I couldn't move anything but my head, I think, and maybe my left arm. At the time, I didn't really realize what was going on. I had no idea what really happened. I remember getting hurt. And then I realized after a while that I was in the hospital, but I thought I'm probably going to get out of here soon. And I told my mom I could only speak in a whisper, but I told my mom, we need to go. It's time to go. Let's get out of here. She kept telling me, Baby, we can't leave. And I didn't understand why I didn't know that I was injured, that I'd been asleep for a week, but I had a traumatic brain injury. I had no idea about any of that stuff. I spent another week in the hospital. They did physical therapy. I couldn't really speak very well, but I could hear, and that was major because they gave my parents a long list of things that I could lose abilities I may lose should I wake up. And I had a lot of them when I woke up. And so that was really miraculous to everyone observing. I spent another week in the hospital, and then after that, they said that I probably wouldn't make any more improvements in the hospital, that I should just go ahead and go home and start physical therapy with the local physical therapist and go from there. And I spent a long time in physical therapy, not as long as everybody expected. I did regain my ability to walk pretty quickly. I was only in a wheelchair for maybe a couple of months now. I couldn't walk very well at all. I fell a lot. I had a very exaggerated limp, excessive foot drop. I couldn't pick my foot up very well when I walked, but that was a huge goal for them was to even see if I could get walking again. My right arm was weak. I couldn't really move my hand and my fingers. I had just been learning to play guitar then, and I completely lost all of that ability to relearn how to handwrite had pretty severe memory loss, but that improved quite a bit. So you're in the hospital for two weeks, you said and one week you were in the induced coma? Yes. Okay. How did this affect just out of curiosity, being a growing child and having this happen to you while you're still growing? Is it different than if it were to happen to say an adult that's already fully matured? Yes. They said that if I had experienced the injury any older, that I might not have survived or really had a recovery the way I did now, doing physical therapy and recovering from severe loss of motion. As a child that is hard on your body, my legs grew in an uneven way. They're not quite even that really affects my pelvis. Now I have chronic pain because everything is unaligned in my back. I mean, I get it aligned regularly at the chiropractor, but I walk incorrectly. And so every day I'm screwing. I'm just screwing that up again. That probably has something to do with it. And I tell people, yes, it is tragic. And I would never wish something like that to ever happen to a child ever. That was so hard as a teenager growing up that way, just wanting to feel normal. But I'm glad it happened then and not when I was older, because my chance of survival would have been much slimmer. I might not have had the recovery that I had. And honestly, I think it would be much more difficult to have to relearn all of that as an adult, to relearn how to be an adult, how to drive a car. I entered into adulthood with this disability. So all that stuff was normal to me by that time, knowing that everything would be twice as hard and wondering, would I even be able to do this? Will I be independent things like that that were just kind of normal to me at that point. But I think that would be much more difficult as an adult as a child going through something like this. It must be so hard to understand at the time, fully understand why this has happened to you. Why me? Is that something that you struggled with at all? Of course, all the time, I didn't quite understand the magnitude of my injury for maybe a couple of months afterward. And that's when I first started wrestling with depression, because that's all I could think about was why did this happen to me? And I thought that God was in the wrong because I thought that either he should have just taken me entirely. I thought that he should have just let me die instead of saving my life. But I felt like not all the way like he did, like a half ass job. And everybody was. So a lot of people have been praying for me and was just praising me all the time when they would see me. They'd say things like, you're such a miracle. It's amazing that you survived, which, yes, absolutely. And if I was in their position, you better believe I'd be saying that, too, because that's all I would be able to think about as well as, oh, my gosh, this child was supposed to die, and she's still here, and she's learning to walk in. And that's a miracle. But I didn't see it that way because I thought, yeah, I guess it's great that I'm here again, but I've lost everything. I used to play basketball and I was learning to play guitar, and I couldn't do those things very well anymore. And I thought, this isn't great. You guys aren't seeing the other side of this, and it took me a long time to adjust my thinking and my perspective to realize what a gift everything was and how we're not promised everything that we have. Nobody promises us perfect health or wealth or anything like that. And how everything we have really is a gift. But it was hard to see that right away. You know, the trials in your life, trials in someone's life really makes them who they are. And so now that you are older and you can look back and see all the things that have happened in your life, you may not be the person you are today. If it wasn't for that accident, you may not be as sympathetic or understanding to people who are struggling with depression, who are struggling with thoughts of suicide because you went through this. So now you can be a voice for people who have had traumatic brain injuries, people who are dealing with these different things in a way that you never could have before. Absolutely. That's actually what I tell my kids all the time at my work, whenever they're feeling really discouraged about the cards they've been dealt with in life, and they've experienced a lot more trauma than I have. And hopefully we'll ever know. But the best advice I can give to them is that their story allows them to have a voice to help other people out there that not everybody can. And I told them that they have ways to relate to kids who are going through what they're going through in ways that I can't. And that there's that first in the Bible that says what the devil tried to use to harm me. God used for good. And I think that I try and encourage them with that, to tell them that you could let this ruin you forever or you couldn't use your story and your life experiences to help other people. And that's huge. I love that you said, my kids, you have a real heart for young people. I can tell. I do sometimes. Sometimes I don't have children of my own. And so that's probably why I refer to them as that. And you got that natural, protective part of you. Do you have kids? No. I'm sure if you were a dad, you would immediately those protective instincts would kick in where if anybody is looking at your kid the wrong way, you immediately say, don't look at my kids away from my kids. That's what I feel towards. So sometimes I ask myself if I'm qualified or not, because teenagers are very frustrating, hard to understand sometimes, yes. But I have to remind myself that I probably felt like they felt at some point in my teen years. They are frustrating. I know you went through depression. You went through suicidal thoughts. Do you have a specific time in your life where you changed your mindset and you were able to overcome those things? And not to say that I personally would tell people that I've struggled with depression, and it's not something that just completely goes away. It's something that comes back. But is there a point in your life where your mindset changed and you were able to overcome these thoughts? It wasn't a specific point in time, a specific day. It was just something I grew from over time, as far as the suicidal thoughts. Now depression. And I want to be careful about how I word this because everybody's depression is different. Nobody's is the same. But for me, it was more of like a spiritual battle where I was weak in my mind. And I needed to reclaim that power and authority that we are given over our minds. If that makes sense, I'm not telling everyone listening that if you're depressed, you just need to strengthen your thinking. It's not at all what I'm saying, because I know there are different treatments for everybody. I needed to remember that I'm in control of my life and my thoughts and it's up to me to decide how my day is going to go in a sense and that I'm going to start out every day with positive thinking and to reclaim my thoughts and the power and authority over my mind, because God has given that to me and I needed for me personally to tell depression. No, I'm not giving you that authority or me that's personally how I walk through that. And I'm not saying that's applicable to everybody because some people just have a chemical imbalance and need medicine or need to work through some therapy to deal with PTSD or whatever. It may be absolutely personally that's what I needed to get under control was that I'm not this weak victim that I have allowed myself to feel like I am rescued and I have been helped and I am an Overcomer and I will not let depression have a say over my life. I will not let it enter in my mind. It taps at my mind sometimes, but I'm able to now say, no, I'm not letting you have that power over my mind. Not every day is a strong day. It's ridiculous to think that every day you can be a positive thinker, but that's just what I try to do each day, realizing the power that I have over my mind and to choose the thoughts that come into my mind and to push the one the negative ones out and say, no, I'm not giving you permission to enter into that space today. That's my space, and I've given that to the Lord, and I'm not giving you that authority today. It is so easy to allow negative thoughts to control your life. And there's many people who struggle with this on a day to day basis. And I love that you're clarifying that there are some people out there who deal with depression that may need some other type of help. We live in a world right now, and it's probably always been this way, but it seems like especially right now, we're sort of living in a world of feelings, however I feel. And so people are just all over the place because you can't live your life off of feelings as our parents used to tell us, but you don't feel like cleaning your room, but you need to do it anyway. We're not always going to be happy about what we have to do. Yeah, exactly. And I want to say this, too, if to anyone who's listening, who's dealing with depression, my heart goes out to you, and in no way am I telling you to just suck it up and be happy? It's hard. I have several members of my family who deal with depression and they're healthy and they have healthy habits and take care of themselves and their believers, too. And I think depression can sometimes just be one of those thorns in our flesh that we deal with each day. And I pray and I hope for everybody listening deals with depression to get relief from that. But I also want them to know that if you are a believer, I'm not telling you that you can't be a believer and have depression because that's totally BS. When that type of mindset is BS, you can be a believer and deal with all sorts of things, all sorts of mental health struggles. So don't let anybody make you feel like you aren't following Jesus because you have struggles and you have mental health issues because that's just a part of living in the fallen world. I'm a believer and I love Jesus, and I believe in miracles, but I'm disabled, and that's not a reflection of my faith. That's just proof that life sucks sometimes. But I think there's still hope in it. And Jesus, when Jesus was on Earth, he didn't show us how to avoid troubling circumstances, but he showed us how to handle them. Instead, I read a book once where the author said the only thing more tragic than the tragedy that happens to us is the way that we handle it. How is music a part of your life? Susie, I sing and write songs in a band called Brother Rabbit. I started this band when I was 17. Members have changed out, but I've been playing with my same guitar player for about maybe eight or nine years now, and my husband plays drums for us now, which is very cool. I'm the only consistent member, but I've always loved music, always loved to sing. Ever since I was really little. I play guitar and piano and I try to play harp and other instruments. I dabble in a lot of instruments. I would not say I'm proficient in all of them, but I do enjoy singing and writing songs. And Brother Abbott's just been my passion project for past. I think eleven years is how long we've been a band. We used to play a lot of shows. We've done a couple of tours, of course, due to the pandemic all that slowed down. So lately we've just been writing songs and working on music videos and such. That's so cool. You are so talented, and I'm sure you've put in a lot of hard work to get where you are, too. Thank you. Yeah. I love how understanding you are. You seem to be very understanding, and that's probably why you can work with youth effectively. I know that something that I read that you wrote was if we look hard enough, we can see ourselves in everybody. Yes. And I love that. Talk to me about that. Yeah, absolutely. I don't know when I said that, but I do believe that I seem like an understanding person, but I don't see how everybody couldn't be because we're all human and we all have similar struggles. Some of our struggles might be a little bit different, but the core of the struggle is the same. And we've all dealt with insecurities and various difficulties and I feel like that connects us all and we can all relate to that. I do prison Ministry, as I mentioned before, and I remember the first time I went to an actual prison, not a jail. It's my first time doing a men's prison and I was terrified and thinking, Wait a minute. These people are not going to care about anything. I have to say. I have nothing no way to relate to a male fellow. I was 21 year old scrawny little girl going up there with a guitar that may or may not have been older than me playing for male convicts and thinking, what in the world do they have like, why would they care about anything I have to say? And when I looked at them in the face, when I was singing the worship songs, I felt a connection because I could see myself. And then I shared a little bit about some of the struggles I have depression and suicidal thoughts and such, and I could just see them relating to me and me relating to them. And I realized that we're all just as hungry for Jesus, and none of us are deserving of eternal life. I'm more deserving than they are. And we're all people of a second chance and we're so much more connected than we think we are. How can someone interact and show understanding to people with a disability, maybe specifically somebody with a traumatic brain injury? My best friend, Nick Maniscalco, he has had a traumatic brain injury and his journey has been rough and it's been long and he's so awesome. He's such a great friend. I wish that other people could experience his friendship. So how can people who may not fully understand interact with somebody who's had a brain injury? That's a good question. Yeah, just treat them like normal. But I think be open to learning too about their experience. Ask questions if you feel appropriate. Every person is different. I don't mind people asking me questions, but not everybody may be comfortable with that, but probably just starting out treating them like everybody else don't make them feel like there's someone you have to make exceptions for, or it's a person in the room. You need to clear out, clear the way out for because there are special needs or something like that. Just treat them like normal. I personally appreciate when people are just sensitive to the fact that I have a disability and ask me questions about it. But also I laugh sometimes with some of my fellow friends from the disabled community about how sometimes people are very, particularly middle aged. Men are very bold with their questions and the things they say. And sometimes strangers will just point things out. They'll just point out I walk with a leg brace and because I'm unable to walk correctly without it, that's how I get around. And sometimes people just point it out or just that's often the first thing strangers say to me, which is not it doesn't hurt my feelings, but it is very insensitive to do because they can ask that to the wrong person and really wound somebody and make somebody feel bad about the fact that that's the first thing people see. But oftentimes that's how strangers make conversation with me, and I don't necessarily mind it all the time, but it is kind of sensitive and kind of rude to make that be a conversation starter, but I think they allow it to be a conversation starter because they probably think I just broke my leg or twisted my ankle and they're wanting to hear a funny story while they're waiting for the elevator doors to open. And then I tell them I have traumatic brain injury. I can't walk correctly, and then they get all apologetic and then everything's awkward after that because they feel bad about pointing out a disability. I think everybody should just maybe work on being a little bit more respectful and sensitive to the fact that what if that was something that was still a painful subject for me? I didn't want to talk about it or what if it happened in a really tragic way? What if it was like a domestic violence situation? And I don't really feel like talking about that? I think people could all afford to be a little bit more sensitive. I guess I want to ask you unless you have anything else you want to talk about specifically to how you've been able to interact and help other people who have a disability or have had a traumatic brain injury. I wanted to talk to you about Pike's Peak is what I wanted to do. Yeah. Go for it. So I seen on your Facebook page. Was it back in July that you climbed Pike's Peak? Yes. So how tall is Pike's Peak? It is just over 14,000ft. All right. 4400 or something like that. What gave you the idea? And why did you want to climb Pike's Peak? I wanted to climb Pike's Peak because I am an idiot. It just sounded like a really cool accomplishment to say that I did. I like sometimes challenging myself to do something that sounds really hard or crazier wild. And then I also think about the fact I'm a disabled person. That sounds even crazier, and I just thought it would be a cool accomplishment to say that I did, and I kind of did it. Personally, I felt like I was in a small way representing the disabled community. Yeah. I'm glad I did it. How many miles was it because I would love to go and do this one of these days I wear calculates how many miles I walk a day based on how many steps I take, and we split it up into two days. And I think total. I think the first day my Fitbit said we walked 16 miles the first day, I think. And then maybe about nine the next day just based on how many steps we are taking, if that makes sense. Yeah. No, that makes sense. And I mean, it's a lot of vertgain, too. So that completely changes things. My wife and I, we climb mountains. We've been climbing Mount Rainier every year for the last few years, and people ask, Well, how many miles is it? Here's the thing you've got to understand. It's only like, 3 miles from base camp or less, but it's this. Yeah, a mile means so much more when it's going straight up and down. Yes, it does. Well, that's really cool. I forgot about that because I walk a lot every day. That's something I challenge myself to do to walk a lot every day. And I walk maybe three to 5 miles every day. No big deal. As I was walking, they'd say, oh, it's only a few more miles until the halfway point. And I think, oh, yeah, I can do that. But then we'd keep walking and walking and walking. And I think, dear God, have we walked 5 miles by now? And we'd only gone like a mile, mile and a half because it's so much different when you're walking on an incline. Also, please include us next time you go to Mount Rainier, because my husband and I would also like to hike that one. Okay, that would be great. The other thing, too, is we could go climb Mount Adams or Mount Hood just to kind of do like a prep climb for Rainier. We took a gentleman 76 years old two years ago. Unfortunately, he didn't make it, but he gave it a shot. And that's really what counts, right? Died, Erin? Oh, no, he didn't die. No, he got sick. He got elevation sickness. That's one of the problems that people can run into. I've been on Rainier and had to take people down for all sorts of strange reasons. We were ones around 400ft from the summit. We could see it 400 vertical feet from the summit. We could see it. It was right there. And the gentleman that we were climbing with his lips started turning blue and he was having trouble speaking, and he just was really out of it. He was kind of confused. And we were just like, this isn't good. And we had to get them down. So, yeah, all sorts of weird things happen to people at elevation. And, as you know, Pike's Peak is really tall. In fact, Pike's Peak is really close to the same height of Mount Reiner. Elevation does some weird things to some people, and it can strike at any time with anybody. Tulsa, the city I live in is about 700ft in elevation. My husband and I go to Colorado every year, and I'm very sensitive to I'm very susceptible to elevation sickness. I get severe brain fog, which sounds like, what? That one guy you are describing. And so I have to buy the oxygen tanks and bring an inhaler and stuff like that. Don't get me talking about mountains. I love my mountains. Well, that's really cool. I have always had a dream of going and climbing Pike's Peak. I've driven to the top, but I've never been able to climb it and sounds like it's something that I need to put on my bucket list. Absolutely. I've also driven to the top. Views at the top are great, but nothing like the views you can get when you're hiking up. Wow. When you're getting closer to the top of views are breathtaking and you can't see that from anywhere else except on the mountain if you're on foot on it. Wow. That is awesome. I highly recommend it. And if you hike it and you're having trouble, just remember as motivation, a disabled girl in the leg brace did it. So no excuses. Yeah. What is your excuse? So do you have anything else that you'd like to share with the guests before I let you go? Any words of wisdom? Any last minute advice to somebody who may be out there struggling with a similar disability? Gosh. Just know that you're not alone. I don't know if this is something you do, but if anybody listening needs someone to reach out to you're. Welcome to email me. You can email me at my other email, which is Susieqcreative at Gmail. If you need someone to talk to you're, welcome to reach out to me. Amazing. We'll go ahead and drop your email down in the show notes so that people can find you and contact you if they'd like. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. I felt like this was a good conversation. I really enjoyed your story. And again, for people who are listening. If you've made it to the end of the episode, thanks for sticking around. And like I said at the beginning, I've ordered two of Susie's books and these books are going to be going to some listeners of the podcast. So if you want to win one of these books, I recommend you go and follow our Instagram page, the Simply Overcoming Podcast, and we'd love to see you over there. Follow us and we'll be doing a drawing in the future for one of these books. So thank you once again until next time. Have a great day. Bye.