[00:00:00] Every now and then I get lucky and I get to do a show that's timely and topical and that's Today's show, you know yesterday we heard all about Stevie Wonder he was going in for kidney transplant and those of you who watch Fox News. Ed Henry announced that he was donating part of his liver to his sister to save her [00:01:00] life and my good friend Jeff rui weighed in it online for a very long time to have kidney transplant that changed his life.

[00:01:10] And most of us when we renew our drivers license, we look at that little question on the back. You want to be a Kidney donor and we just don't organ donor. I'm sorry. We don't you know, like I and II don't want to make that decision right now. I don't want to think about my death and I really don't know enough about it.

[00:01:26] You hear all sorts of stupid stories, but being an organ donor is is probably the greatest thing you can do posthumously because you're gone. But you can still have an effect on somebody's life. So Joe lafurgey is a friend of the show a fan of the show and he reached out to me because he has experienced some situations in life that probably would have derailed most people and his story is not only inspiring but it shines a light on the importance of of being an organ donor.

[00:01:57] How you doing Joe? Well, it's [00:02:00] great to be with you. Thank you very much for having me and letting me talk to your followers because they're very dedicated bunch. I know I know from your topics that your blunt and you're truthful and we don't hurt feeling too because we all want what's best for each other.

[00:02:15] So I'm really really honored to be no. No, it's it's this is fantastic. I quite honestly look at you and think man, this guy is amazing because you know recently like my audience knows now for. Three better part of three months. I've been living without a right. I almost lost my right eye to a fungal infection.

[00:02:35] They said hey, you may lose your I like what just that fast and living without a ride. Aye and now while I'm able to see out of it, it's still not clear I have. Scarring that has to resolve. I'm still living without being able to see out of my right eye. And so many easy things that we take for granted like being able to put your card your credit card in the chip reader [00:03:00] at the counter at the grocery store when all of a sudden that slot becomes elusive because you have no binocular vision.

[00:03:07] You have no depth perception any longer or. Driving at night has become challenge like Eliza will say you know what? Let me drive because she could see I'm struggling because without binocular vision and depth perception and without being able to see a full field of view and what and let me explain something to people.

[00:03:28] Having a funky eye is actually worse than having. No, I in the other socket and here's why.  You have something that creates binocular vision? And it is actually called the optic chiasm and the nerves that come out of the optic nerves that come out of your right and left eye crisscross in the optic chiasm and then change sides like the old figure eight track.

[00:03:52] The Aurora race cars we had when we were kids and then they go to the other opposite lobes of the brain the goal of the optic [00:04:00] chiasm is to take the image from the left eye and take the image from the right eye and make a perfect single copy of that and that's what binocular vision comes. And so when you have a funky eye and a good eye even the vision from the good eye ends up getting funky eyes because the funky I data is still making it to the brain that this is blurry and actually when I want to see clearly I have to cover my right eye completely which speaks to the you know fact that some people who have very poor vision when I they cover their eye and they can see clearly.

[00:04:34] So this living without an eye is really. So difficult and I hope to have it back because it's changed my life dramatically, but you've lived through this yourself. I mean start start at the beginning your story is amazing. Your story is amazing. Your website appropriately is called the real bionic man for a reason.com.

[00:04:54] The real Bionic Man.com started the beginning Joe.  Well, I had a [00:05:00] pretty normal childhood and run the age of six and a half of seven. I got into swimming and my sister and I took swimming lessons at the YMCA. But like I saw my niece and nephew her children her want her son's a pretty good swimmer, but her daughter was a fish and I was that serious in between the two of us.

[00:05:16] So I took the swimming and was a competitive swimmer even putting in time before school on that level and I love swimming and playing tennis. That was my is my sports that sent me. I was a big kid hadn't played baseball and football yet and when I was 8 years old. When I was 8 years old, I was died.

[00:05:38] I had a swollen neck. My father would walk with his hand on the back of my neck and I was snoring loudly. We went to the pediatrician. He thought it was swollen glands. He treated it for a week treated it with another antibiotic for another week. And he told my mother who's a very elderly man. Dr.

[00:05:56] Schwartz who said, you know, if I'm right about this I'm going to retire because [00:06:00] I've seen this too much and he was right and it was Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. I had a biopsy my neck and it was Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma and on July 14th of 1981. I was given a 70% chance of survival and looked at two and a half years of chemotherapy and radiation as a child as a child now don't think they'll forget that.

[00:06:23] That's that's that's terrifying for a child. Well, it was you know, my father who was not an athlete. He's a car guy take your car apart and put it back together for. He was he was never an athlete. He really spurred me and say and was very very calm simple wisdom. He knew I was an active kid and he said well you can lay on the couch for the next two and a half years or when you're sick.

[00:06:49] You can be sick and when you're not you could be at the pool and playing with your friends and swimming. What's I love that's what with me up. Of course, I want that like it was the middle of [00:07:00] summer. I was in the middle of my of my season where I was taking first in every meat. I was one of the faster kids and I didn't want to give that up.

[00:07:10] So it was that was my choice. So when I was sick, I'd stay on the couch for a half a day, but I was always angling to get back to the pool to go outside. It was that calm wisdom that my dad gave me that has now spent my entire life. So when you're sick stay down, but as soon as you can get up get up and throughout my life, I spent a lot of time in hospitals and I was always ready to get out of the bed as soon as I could move my legs and try to stand and it was that raise them at that point.

[00:07:41] So I went through two and a half years of chemotherapy and radiation and the only setback during that time major setback other than the hair loss in the vomiting. Which I'm just counting now, but it wasn't discounted back. Then that is an inflammation of my pancreas called pancreatitis. I want I want I want to ask you something.

[00:07:59] [00:08:00] I didn't ask you the pre-interview was your thyroid affected at all was your thyroid involved at all in the diagnosis? Of the Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma because we talked about the fact that non-hodgkin lymphoma in the neck happens in the ring of love oranges. And that's right behind the thyroid in front of the the spine.

[00:08:20] Did they ever say anything about your thyroid at all?  Well, it's not funny. You mentioned that but three years ago two years ago my my PCP noticed a growth on my file growth in my neck. And he said we're going to watch that. And even when it got a little bigger, he sent me for sent me for a diagnostic and found out I had a growth on my thyroid and they they they biopsied it was benign, but we watched it for another six months and then they realized it had to come out so three years ago.

[00:08:58] I had to have my [00:09:00] thyroid removed. And but it was functioning pretty normally given given what it's been through well and and it was it was not an issue as a child. They did not called any thyroid issues into question when you will being treated for non hodgkin's lymphoma, right? No sir. Not them not to my knowledge and I have a pretty good memory.

[00:09:20] That's okay. Okay, good. I'm sorry good. So the pancreatitis is been a couple weeks in the hospital and then that pancreas restarted. But then after my freshman year of high school at the age of 13, my poetry has stopped working and I became an insulin-dependent diabetic. So that was and by that time I had given up swimming which wasn't wise but I love football.

[00:09:43] So I start playing football and I loved it so much and I had already played a year of high school ball. And now I was going to become an insulin dependent diabetic with those challenges. But I got through high school and played high school and call it small college football [00:10:00] being an insulin dependent diabetic.

[00:10:01] There was another insulin-dependent diabetic in my freshman class in college and realized after that really what those medical difficulties realize that was that it was going to go pro in any sport. So I started working in sports and I love that had some great interactions. Working for three division one athletic programs the Orange Bowl in Miami.

[00:10:26] And while I was in Dallas working for the Dallas Cowboys. I was helping a friend work on his father's new house. They were restoring this house and I got a bad scratch on my head and like you said it. In fact you had a fungal infection I ended up I didn't fight off the infection in the scratch on my head that went to my left eye and I woke up with this watery burning I one morning.

[00:10:51] And by midday, I was in the emergency room. They told me I had a staph infection in my left eye and by that time it looked like someone had [00:11:00] stirred my eye with a straw and they said we can wait a couple days. But if this spreads to your brain that's going to be it. So I asked him to give me five minutes and they came back and I said praise God and take my eye so they took out my eye and that was that.

[00:11:19] Late December 2001 and I moved back to put back to my hometown of Pittsburgh because things were about to get bad because they were about to get bad. So they haven't gotten your head and gotten better. So let's let's just let's just do it amid interview tally you had Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma and were treated with two years of chemotherapy as a child and radiation and radiation ionizing.

[00:11:44] You developed pancreatitis and your pancreas became non-functioning and then you will became a full-blown insulin-dependent diabetic.  And now you've lost your left eye at this point in time.  Correct. Okay, and yet so it's get it gets worse [00:12:00] you're saying well and also wearing a lot of dress shoes being a Salesman sponsorship guy.

[00:12:07] I thought my feet just hurt when I wore a dress shoes all day. But what I didn't realize was that was the neuropathy of my feet beginning to that time.  Yep, and so will the neuropathy so interestingly enough. It's funny you say this o at Lisa's stepdad just had an unnecessary chemotherapy of benign benign growth in his bladder.

[00:12:31] So he has no he has no malignant issues in his bladder, but they said well, we're going to give you the chemo. Anyway, just to be safe. And after three three sessions of bladder washing they call it he is now developed full-blown neuropathy peripheral neuropathy from his knees down and he's having a hard time walking in the pain is excruciating.

[00:12:54] So I started digging Joe because that's what I do for a living right? I'm [00:13:00] still Italian. I still dig things. I just I'm just not. Backyards anymore. But anyway, so I start digging and what do I find? I find the study from 2014 that shows 90 people in this study all into our all underwent some form.

[00:13:16] Of chemotherapy some for breast cancer some for, you know other types of cancers will bubble and and 50% of them develop peripheral neuropathy, but to study surmise that it was it was it was a the least to worry about because they're being cured of cancer, which we know they weren't being cured of cancer.

[00:13:34] Anyway, so the doctor just go. Hey look you want to die or you want to have legs that don't work which was. And so it isn't it interesting that you were developing peripheral neuropathy and you underwent chemotherapy at some point in your life.  I distinctly remember being handed a packet of stapled papers from my daughter for my pediatric oncologist shout out that dr.

[00:14:00] [00:13:59] Waldman of the Bronx New York. I remember just thinking remember having because I was inquisitive child and. My mother was a librarian. So I was a reader and I had a packet isn't staple pages and it listed every drug. I was going to take and each strong had a couple sentences of short term side effects nausea nausea hair loss that dizziness and then it had a paragraph of long-term side effects and at that point.

[00:14:33] There were several things. I read that the drugs that they were giving me and the radiation they would give me could ultimately cause cancer right and they knew that Dan but it's like a when we talk about the pre-interview my parents were told that I had a 70% chance of survival and that's great.

[00:14:53] If you're a talented City betting five dollars or in Las Vegas spending $5 a hand that you're going to you're [00:15:00] going to win 70 percent of the time that's good. But when you're talking about the life of your child 7 out of 10 aren't great odds, and as we talked about 97% if your child was in a room with 100 other kids and someone walked in with a gun and said, hey three of these children aren't leaving this room or they walk in with cancer and said three of these children aren't leaving the ring whether 130 as a parent.

[00:15:24] Those are awful lot. So my parents were salesman, but they understood the risks as did I but that like you said it's do you want to walk or do you want to live? Right and I want to also say something else because I just did an interview yesterday for whs radio here in town about the new Androgen deprivation therapy therapy and how it's actually causing Dementia in men fighting prostate cancer when ionizing radiation is used.

[00:15:55] On the left breast of a woman diagnosed with [00:16:00] breast cancer in her left breast the heart always gets damaged always always gets damaged. So when we talk about cancer treatment and survival rates understand that if a hundred people receive a specific cancer treatment, let's say it's it's chemotherapy and.

[00:16:22] The they follow them for the next five years and let's say 20% or 30% of those people died from complications due to chemotherapy but not cancer that's important distinction. So they died from the destruction of their heart from radiation. They just thought they they died from the the necrotic tissue that builds up in their kidneys from sis plantain, which is a very popular chemotherapy and it destroys the kidneys if they die from those other causes related to the chemotherapy but not cancer.

[00:16:59] They are [00:17:00] considered survival successes. They are counted in the people even though they died at two or three years. They didn't die from cancer within five years. They are weighed as a success. Is that not sick is it?  Well, of course it is, of course it is and we'll get to what the radiation may or may not have done to why I needed heart surgery, but you know close to me after I got my transplant.

[00:17:29] I found what I always look for which was love in a in a woman. I had never married single my entire life. No kid. And actually while I was the sickest, I wasn't dating at all self-imposed celibacy and I met the woman of my dreams and I was blessed to know her mother for enough years and she came down with cancer and she was undergoing the maintenance chemotherapy and she was still [00:18:00] working because she wanted to and she ended up with and I always explain this to my my stepson it went well.

[00:18:09] Yeah, most people don't die wage and some a lot of people don't die of cancer with Gail died of and she said up in heaven looking down on us. Now what Gail died of was complications due to chemotherapy which was pneumonia and because she was undergoing chemotherapy and she got pneumonia. She didn't have the white blood cells to fight it off and that ultimately cost her her life and we so that you see that as well technically she didn't die of cancer.

[00:18:37] So a lot of those things a lot of those statistics you really need to get down to the granular level cry not look at them at the 10,000 viewmarq to see to see what's what so yes that does something very close to this something very close to me. So let's get back on the path here. So so now you now how what happened with your kidneys and when did this the show up?

[00:19:00] [00:19:00] Well the early 2002 I moved back to Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh. After the steel mills closed down became a technology and Healthcare Giant in the world, not just the United States and that's blessing pleasantly wonderful for me. I went back and I had a detached retina I have in my good eye and my organs were failing my blood pressure shot up my cholesterol shut up and I had when I had a pulmonary embolism, so that was the that was the second time that you know, I had dodged death in my life.

[00:19:32] But another one another much closer to brush with death is coming. I was diagnosed with end-stage renal failure. And you know, I like my kidneys stopped and then they restarted so in February, they told me I had I believe it was 54% of my kidney function and they said we're going to watch this. It could go one way or another take these [00:20:00] pills.

[00:20:00] And then about six months later in September my kidneys completely failed there was down to 14% function and I started hemodialysis going to a clinic three days a week spending three to four hours monitoring everything you put in your mouth. The renal diet is actually more strict than a diabetic diet, believe it or not.

[00:20:21] Because yeah, you got it. You got it. You got to restrict phosphorus. You've got to restrict protein. You've got to respect fix so many different things and and when people don't understand because my good friend, Jeff Ruby, He he has a genetic disorder that all the men in his family have which polycystic kidney disorder one of the reasons.

[00:20:41] He never married is because he said I don't want to have a boy and give him this curse interestingly. And so he waited for years for kidney transplant. He went, you know, religiously every I don't remember with every week every other week for dialysis. And as [00:21:00] so when he would get the dialysis, he'd be like amazing for 3 Days 4 days, but then as metabolic debris and waste builds up in the bloodstream because you don't urinate anymore.

[00:21:10] Like he said, I don't play anymore. I couldn't even fathom that like what? Yeah, I don't pee. He's I have you know, I have no way to process fluids to my kidneys and he and as that waste builds up you start to change colors. You become lethargic. You become exhausted your breath starts to smell because there's your actually exhaling metabolic wastes.

[00:21:36] And it's miserable. So you feel great for a few days and you feel like crap for the rest of the period of time until you go back in and get dialysis. It's horrible and then you've got to sit there for hours literally hours while they they process and purify your blood and put it back in you it's terrible.

[00:21:56] Terrible. Absolutely. I [00:22:00] would I always said that it felt like. When you have a wash rag, which is, you know soaked with water you can wring it out. You can wring it out pretty good. So before I go in for dialysis, I was that washed right? I was Heavy I felt very heavy but then I would get run out and just like a would have wrought watch Greg looks like after you ring it out.

[00:22:22] That's what your lighter and you feel better. It's like someone just run you out because there's a you don't feel the same after you feel better physically, but you know having the have there's an immediate Hive course, but then the next day you can be so tired and you can't even move and those are some of the things that I went through once I started the hemodialysis and fortunately for me and Pittsburgh Pittsburgh is known as probably one of the.

[00:22:53] Organ transplant capitals the world think to thanks to the late great. Dr. Thomas starzl [00:23:00] who came to Pittsburgh right about the time. I was having chemotherapy and joined the hospital system that I was a part of at that time and he started doing kidney transplants and he became a prolific and he is known internationally as the Godfather of the.

[00:23:18] He was a Maverick. There's a great documentary out there called the burden of Genius that has dr. Starzl in it. He died three years ago, but this was filmed prior to that and he was a Maverick and some people say he had a Gruff personality. I know the woman who was his longtime nurse started with him the day he got there and even in the even in the trailer for the burden of Genius done by a great guy named Carl kurlander.

[00:23:45] In the trailer for the burden of Genius you hear about the stars all this genius. This is Jonas Salk this this amazing person. So I'm not going to start talking until this guy gets his act together and turns on the [00:24:00] camera.  Camera, and it was that it was that Maverick mentality that he was just transplanting organs.

[00:24:07] He gave he risked his he was going to jail. To give the first HIV positive person who needed a kidney transplant a kidney transplant. Wow nowadays just in the past couple of years. We started transplanting HIV positive healthy kidneys to other HIV patients doctor starzl. Did it back in the 80s and he was almost arrested and thrown out of the off medical boards, but he was a Maverick and he did it.

[00:24:34] So I ended up at the stars or clinic which they're known around the world. And they started evaluating me for the transplant and that can take months because you have to go see every possible doctor and get evaluations. I hadn't had chemotherapy in 25 years, but I had to go see an oncologist so they could look at my blood work and sign off on me getting the kidney transfer sign off on [00:25:00] me getting on the list.

[00:25:02] To then get a transplant and and if he Anna and they want to know about your personal life if you drink alcohol. Like if they even suspect that you're a casual drinker, they won't put you on the list because they feel like well you just going to destroy these organs as well. I mean, they the in order to get on the line to even wait for an organ in this day and age transplant.

[00:25:28] It's it's really it's like you you're easier being an Irish guy becoming a made man in the mafia then getting on the list. For an organ transplant because they are so as you point out they want to make sure that there's no leftover potential issues from the chemo you received that will end up compromising these great organs that they're going to give you this gift and then all of a sudden they're destroyed that quickly cuz you can't get back online after that.

[00:25:57] That's it.  So well [00:26:00] in this massive World Cup obviously had a lot of hard work ups and I never. I was never told I had a murmur and I wait a minute. Wait a minute. We got Joe we got ahold that we got ahold. I got to do good radio here, right because it actually gets better. Right? So right now everybody's listening thinking that man this guy's amazing like never mind never mind living through this but he's positive about it.

[00:26:24] He's like he's embracing life, but wait a minute. There's more to the story. I don't think I don't think many people. I think a lot of people would have checked out. I lied. I think a lot of people got okay, I get it God you don't want me here. So you keep doing this to me, I guess. But it gets there's more to this story.

[00:26:40] The website is the real Bionic Man.com and the book is called Justin time, but there's a there's a little twist in the way. The the title is written. It's Justin Jus TI n time and you're gonna learn more about why that's the title when we come back stay tuned.

[00:27:00] [00:27:02] Welcome back. This is an inspiring story. I was just texting somebody about this story. I told them they needed to sit down and listen to Today's Show with Joe Lafferty. And you know Joe I got to be I'm going to be honest, you know, I and I was texting my friend and I said you got to hear this story.

[00:27:20] This poor guy has been through the wringer and all of a sudden I caught myself said poor guy. This guy is thriving.  and it's like you you really your story is inspiring on so many levels. I know that you're real goal. Is it get people to pay attention to organ transplant? And that's a very Noble and selfless goal.

[00:27:40] But dude, you you have you have more motivation oozing out of you then Gary V or any of these people that all they do is tell people get up and grind today. And I mean, I mean the fact that. The fact that you've been hit with obstacles that want just one of those would make most people go. Whoa is me.

[00:27:58] My life sucks. I'm gonna [00:28:00] I'm gonna cry my way to my death and you just you just kind of go. Okay gotta roll with it and roll right over it. It's amazing. That alone is amazing and I'm going to ask you questions about your dad. I could to keep boys learn to be men from their fathers and where you where you found this this eternal pit of optimism, but okay, so let's talk about so now they're getting you ready for an organ transplant and and they do an ultrasound and all this other stuff.

[00:28:28] And what do they find? Well in November and and November of 2007 I went by they put they give your case to the board that's going to put you on the list and then he found some inconsistencies in my heart workup. And by the way, I want to thank you for all the kind things. You just said, so. Sorry jump right into it.

[00:28:48] But no. No, I want you. That's cool. Just go. Okay. Well, they found something wrong with my heart's they ordered more hard work ups and catheterization in a few things and they never knew. I had a heart murmur and I said well now [00:29:00] you do. Well, they found out that the pronounced heart murmur I had was I had to leaky heart valve the mitral and they the aortic and they gauge heart valves on a scale of 1 to 14 and anything higher than a 7.

[00:29:16] They they replace it and that my vows were at a 12 and 1/8. So I needed to steal heart valves and much like the old days when you change spark plugs while you're in there you might as well do them both. Right? So the problem was I was still didn't have a mature fistula in my arm, which is where they do the put the needles into the dialysis and like we talked about the pre-interview.

[00:29:40] I had the PICC line the tubes coming out of my neck. And whenever you have something like that, but the problem is because oh well, they can just plug in the tubes with those tubes that are going into your body are all obviously susceptible to infection. Oh, yeah that probably have their Pathways to actually bring things into the body that but the body can't defend against right?

[00:29:59] So [00:30:00] you're a so from November. I didn't officially did mentors on the following July. So I was in the hospital eight or nine. Could you do me a favor just back up only because I know from my friend Jeff Ruby, but the explain what the official is this is this is kind of a plastic hose that they put in the forearm, correct it is and what it's funny because I had one in my arm and I my dialysis nurse rich.

[00:30:30] Said to me he said yeah I said now you have a jugular vein in your bike. Yeah, right exactly. So they mess they mess artery and a vein together in your bicep and then it swells and they give you a kidney size stress ball to pump up. I actually wore one of those out and it still didn't mature they had to go in and keep doing revisions to open it up, right and from from November until the following July finally and like I said, I would get these infections in my pic line in my neck.

[00:30:58] And then go to the hospital for 10 to [00:31:00] 12 Days on these intense antibiotics are still going through Dialysis in the hospital then get out and there'd be six weeks of prophylactic antibiotics given to me a dialysis. So every time I would get one of these infections Not only was my fistula or not, but it's pushing out the date I could have this needed heart surgery six more weeks.

[00:31:21] So in July of 08 my sister loved finally matured it's funny because they did that last. They did that last treatment on it and it blew up in two weeks. It literally was coming out of my arm, right? It was great at the it matured quickly. Right? So II was volunteer coaching football at my alma mater back then and I was walking around the field one day and I couldn't catch my breath and you know being as sick as I've been I know my limits, so I just called the coat head coach over and I said call my dad.

[00:31:56] I need an ambulance and they took me down to the hospital [00:32:00] and they said okay. Well, we're doing a heart surgery now. So on Friday July 2008 I had assigned to the anesthesia and was put under the surgery. Now from this point forward. This is all told to me. The surgery was very successful. I got out of bed the next day.

[00:32:18] I walked around the bed on Sunday night. Monday morning, the nurse came in and asked me what I wanted for breakfast. I told her a banana which is not what you give someone who just had heart surgery. There's too much potassium in it. And I guess I didn't like the answer to she walk down the hall and I flatlined.

[00:32:36] Now when you guys say Flatline your heart stopped.  Just like on TV bbbbbb, right and the amazing The Amazing workers on the cardiac wing. You know if you were walking in a cardiac Wing back then I don't know about the today. They're putting all the machines in each room. But if you I was wondering you walk down a cardiac [00:33:00] when it looks like a junk sale because there's things all over the walls and that's because they keep all the machines they need along the walls so they can drag them into a room and that's what happened with me.

[00:33:12] They ran down it took him seven minutes to revive me. I was put in a medically induced coma put on the cold bed. And then when I woke up it was Thursday night and I questioned my father and said I told him he looked awful. That was the first thing I said to him and then I questioned him. What are you doing in the recovery room because as far as my memory was concerned it was a later on Friday only to find out it was six days later and it was quarter to 9:00 at night and I was in the cardiac ICU.

[00:33:44] That's amazing. That's amazing. So you so you were technically dead for how long seven minutes and they worked on you take I mean, they continue to work on you they didn't go. Okay. This guy's not coming back and we're done now. I got to ask the question. I'm sure you've been [00:34:00] asked me for thousands of times, you know, we hear the story about come to the light and all that sort of stuff and he that stuff happen for you.

[00:34:11] Well, I'll talk to you like this. I should have started lying years ago because no in my memory and I can't give this away over my memory. I could remember you signed to the anesthesia. If you're an adult. I remember signing fee anesthesia. The anesthesiologist great guy. First name is Greg. He had a multicolored.

[00:34:34] I need a multicolored rainbow kind of funky colored surgical hat. He was wearing. I remember it vividly and I remember waking up and seeing my father and he did look awful because he and my mother had been there and you can only come in the room last 15 minutes of every hour and it was nine o'clock at night and they've been there for two days and he did look awful and I was the first so I have no memory.

[00:34:59] I have a lot of [00:35:00] stories that have been told to me. About how I was muttering. What day is it? What time is it? But I wouldn't that's all I would do was Mother those things but I have no recollection of those six. Yeah, so you but you blew the movie now see this could have been a movie if you would have said yes, I you know, I saw I saw God and I walk to the light and it was wonderful, but then he said you're not ready yet.

[00:35:21] And he said go ahead go back in your body. See if you if you add that to it. We have a movie deal Joe. I've been told by a Hollywood screenwriter. Did read my book. He said someone's going to run. He said I can't do this but someone can write this into a movie. Oh, no, I can see you know, you know what, you know, I don't know.

[00:35:39] I may be letting out a little bit too much of who I really am when I say this but I love the Hallmark Channel because oh I do too. Okay. Thank you. Now. I don't feel so foolish, you know, I grew up in Bed-Stuy and just like you Pittsburgh, you know, we we came from very very tough environments, but for some.

[00:35:56] I like the Hallmark Channel because nobody is hateful. Nobody's evil. [00:36:00] Nobody's stabs you in the back when people break up their cordial ago. Well, I hope you have a great life and they just disappear. It's just like a wonderful wonderful kind of thing. I could see your story on the Hallmark Channel because because you're not bitter.

[00:36:14] You know, you didn't say what was me the world owes me. Now, you're just kind of like this guy who's gone through life and people keep shooting them and he goes I got shot again, but he moves forward again. You know what I mean? Like I could see your story as a Hallmark movie. I really could so there you go.

[00:36:29] I'm just going to put that out there. Well from your lips to God's ya later. So I recovered and on the cover of my book just in time to see a picture of me. It looks like I'm yelling at the referee wearing a polo shirt in my trademark sunglasses. And that's 34 days after I died. I was coaching High School football and we were invited to fly to Dallas Texas and play a team from Dallas in Texas stadium.

[00:36:57] So that's 34 days after I died was [00:37:00] Texas stadium was a hundred and five degrees on the field and I probably shouldn't have made that trip, but I knew that I wanted to. And that was that was 11 days after I got out of the hospital after we flew down there and somehow I stood on the sidelines for an entire game and but I wanted to be with my guys and I want to inspire them and later that year in November.

[00:37:24] I was put on the transplant list, you know, you keep saying that I had this positive outlook that it was the summer following it was the summer following my death and and I come back. Well, I knew my father and my sister my good friend Reverend David Paul and my other good friend that I mentioned to you Bill Curry the second father to me.

[00:37:46] They all went to get tested to donate her kidney to me and Bill low God love Bill. He was he was he didn't know his blood type. He was the wrong blood type, but my [00:38:00] sister and my dad were the wrong tissue type in my friend David had malaria. Reverend Dave and Paul had malaria on one of his mission trips.

[00:38:09] So they they said if I was dying, they would have taken his kidney but I wasn't literally on my deathbed just yet. Right. So I knew I was going to have to wait for someone to pass and it was that guilt that summer that drove me to a very dark place and it was a dark place of I didn't want someone to have to die for me because like you said I've been already through.

[00:38:33] And I wanted to check out I actually made a plan in my mind and I talked about this in my book. I knew I was going to I was going to borrow I was going to steal my friends guns that he kept in his car and I was going to go over to the dumpster at the football field and climb in and ended and that way no one would know what happened to me and I wouldn't be a drain because I wasn't driving I had to give up driving.

[00:38:59] I wasn't [00:39:00] driving at the time. I was carted everywhere and I thought now someone has to die so I can live and that's not fair to someone else.  And my friend Reverend David Paul who's also a psychologist. I told him this like I said, I'm smart enough to know when I'm sick. I'm smart enough to know when I need help.

[00:39:19] I'm not afraid to go to I can't be afraid of emergency rooms. I've been there so much in my life. I'm not afraid to say take me to an emergency room and I told him. These feelings that I was having and that's so sad what happens with mental health is people won't offer up and say listen, I need something.

[00:39:35] I need help. I told David I needed help. I went and saw a psychologist for seven visits and then he released me and I realized that this although I had always, you know love people and it wasn't my fault that someone was going to die and it was I got the call in February of 2010. You come to the hospital that there was a kidney and a pancreas [00:40:00] potentially for me and when I say potentially because when you're on the kidney pancreas block risk, you get them both from the same person maybe when the pancreas it takes various isn't viable they then step they can push you to the side because you're not number one on the list.

[00:40:19] For the solitary kidney, right so you can be you can I was on both wrists, but I had risen to the top of the kidney pancreas block list and the thing about the transplanting the pancreas is it can do all the things they can do but until the the surgeon quote-unquote visualizes or sees the pancreas.

[00:40:40] So it was I was down there I was about to get the medicine that relaxes you but always knocks me out because I'm a lightweight right. I was with my mom and my dad and my sister and the anesthesiologist came in and said, okay, we're a go and I said, alright and I look my [00:41:00] mother looked confused and I knew she didn't know she thought it was about to happen.

[00:41:04] And because we didn't I didn't let her know that there was a chance this could all be reversed and I could lie. And I told my sister said explain it to her and I went into my transplant and I February 14th of 2010, which is National organ donor day. Yeah would use this to the against to help people.

[00:41:27] So on February 14 2010 National organ donor day. Dr. Hickey. Can my my surgeon My Savior did an amazing job and. From there on it's been quite a ride and quite it was it was such a blessing and getting choked up talking about the moment, but it wasn't over it wasn't over. I got to meet my donor family and I got to learn about Justin and that's why the play on words so [00:42:00] the book is called Justin time, but it's spelled j UST Ino one word because Justin was the fella.

[00:42:07] Whose kidney and kidneys and pancreas that you have, right?  I'm a Christian and I'm not responsible for Justin. So I'm responsible for my own but I am responsible for the time that I've been giving this this just in time. So that's why I've tried to have influence on a national level just by literally banging down the doors of people and organizations and begging me to help them.

[00:42:34] That's why the fuck. I wish I could tell you I got Rick's make by doing a book, but I'm actually thanks to thanks to family and friends. I'm several thousand dollars in the hole on getting the book the book out there. But you know, it's a when you have a book it's a credibility in a way to say.

[00:42:52] Hey, look here's my story and maybe you let me Inspire the people that you know, and that, you know, I can help influence. [00:43:00] So yeah, so it was it was it was almost out. Prior to the you're supposed to write your donor family. It's all Anonymous. You never know the person unless everyone signs off and gives up their confidentiality.

[00:43:17] It was right before the first anniversary of my transplant and I had written them a letter. I'm sorry. It was it was it was December of that year and I was very healthy and I said, I'm going to write this letter. I wrote the first week of December. I emailed it to the organ procurement organization that handles all that information in the recovery the organs and those and forwarded, you know, they snail mail it to my donor family who I don't know if the time and actually that they actually didn't get it until Christmas Eve and my donor mother Rhonda Justin's mother got it in the mail and she was swearing.

[00:43:58] So Carrie seems [00:44:00] very angry. She said I don't care who this person is. He's not good enough for Justin to save his life. No one's good enough, and she of course he paid she turned to her husband and said you read it and Scott read it was crying and he said I think you're going to want to read this at some point and my donor sister and my donor brother who was back from serving in the military.

[00:44:22] For Christmas, they all read it and then Rhonda ultimately read it and then it was a year later. I was about to write another letter thanking them. When I got a call from core the organ from Sherman organization and the Pittsburgh area and they said they'd like to meet and it was the front way we didn't get together until the Friday before Mother's Day.

[00:44:46] And that's when I met Scott and Rhonda bussard your daughter Kourtney and I would learn I had. Couple of couple other brothers and another donor sister out there and we were immediately family and one [00:45:00] great thing that I'm very proud of was in that initial meeting. I found out that Courtney my then 15 year old daughter sister her favorite person in the world was a guy.

[00:45:12] I had Coast it wasn't Hills by the name of Rob Gronkowski and she loves Grand. And I showed you a picture of Gronk and I together and I promised is there I said you're going to meet him someday and the following summer. I asked him for an autograph picture for Courtney for her sweet 16. He sent me an autographed jersey and then it was the fault.

[00:45:33] It was the fall after that that we flew up to New England because the buses are from Pennsylvania. We flew up to New England. And Rob got us tickets and you know passes and we went and met with him and he met Courtney and we've been there since and you know after that first meeting with Rob Courtney had gone to bed and Scott and Rob and I were up talking in the lobby and Rhonda said to me I want to thank you because my daughter starting [00:46:00] to smile again.

[00:46:02] That's okay. And so we talked quite often and and there that's why it's just in time. I live my life. And time given to me by Justin. Yeah, do you do you know how Justin passed away did he you know what his circumstances were absolutely it was it was it was a Friday off Friday the 12th of that that week in the in February the head up to that Friday off and he had slept over at a friend's house the night before and he and his friend were to they were going to run around.

[00:46:35] He's going to run around pick up their other. And they're going to have a day of playing video games at the same house. So the friend boxes may vary went and picked up a couple of his buddies picked up his younger 14 year old sister who had slept over at a friend's house, you know that night the night you don't have school the next day and Justin and the 14 year old sister were in the third row of the minivan [00:47:00] and they're coming along.

[00:47:01] This road is the middle of the day. It wasn't wet. It wasn't I see it was cold, but it wasn't I see. They simultaneously they turned their turn signal to make a left and then slowed because a car came up over the hill. They were being followed by a truck and the truck driver on the scene admitted that he looked away to grab his sandwich and it closed the distance in the truck rear-ended the minivan and Justin the only other major injury in the wreck was the 14 year old sister.

[00:47:34] Broke her jaw on the back of Justin's Head, which they assume they believe he tried to he tried to put himself between her back. Yeah, right. Yeah, and the other four teenagers walked away with bumps and scratches and Justin never regain Consciousness. He had a massive head injury and they flew him in and they saved his life and I want [00:48:00] to point this out because you said something earlier about.

[00:48:02] Donating your organs and being at the DMV. I don't think people realize how few people can donate organs as a deceased donor. And that's what they're called. That's what Justin was you have to die in a hospital on a ventilator. You know, they got just into the hospital that saved his life. He was alive.

[00:48:23] They got him. He was on a ventilator breathing but he was strong. And then they try to wake you literally if you know anything about the medical profession, they literally try to wake you up and they couldn't wake him up. It couldn't get any reflex reaction from him. So then they do that's called the brain apnea test and gauges all the electronic electronic currents in your brain and it comes up negative and they do it again later to verify it and no one in the history of the world that's brain dead.

[00:48:55] That's not a coma. That's not anything else you here. No one in the history of the world [00:49:00] has come back from a brain death, right that is when the lights are off and there is no one home anymore.  And there's and there's no way to prove there's no way to bring them back. And so that that's it that the family is faced with the difficult decision to remove their loved one from life support and.

[00:49:21] There's all of these great functioning organs. I mean, I'm sure that somebody got Justin's heart. You know, that's funny. You say that because that's the one organ. They couldn't donate they donated all his organs. They when they were bringing him in on the chopper. They had to inject something into his heart and his heart was not transplantable, but it's Rhonda will tell you that's because no one could handle Justin's heart.

[00:49:45] It was just too big and if I could say something about Justin, I like to please. At his wake kids from his high school West Shamokin High School in Pennsylvania were.  we're [00:50:00] encouraged to come up and take the mic and the one thing that Rhonda remembers from the Wake was these two girls came up to the mic and the one girl told this story.

[00:50:08] So this is Rhonda hearing this story at her son's wake the girl said I left what Shamokin as you guys know, and I went away for a year. And I'm sorry, let me take that that Justin had gone from Western Logan for about a year and then came back and this he saw this girl girl one and he said the girl 1.

[00:50:30] Hey, where is girl to your best friend from birth? She said oh well, we had a falling out and I don't talk to girl to anymore. So we just don't like each other anymore and Justin said on the spot. I'm going to get you guys back together as friends. This is ridiculous. And by the end of that first week girl 1 and 2 were back together as friends.

[00:50:51] Thanks to Justin the clown and making fun and inserting himself into this relationship and [00:51:00] mending the fences and that was girl wanted grow to up speaking at his wake about how he had re put together their. And they're now best friends again, and it was because of Justin and that's the kind of kid.

[00:51:17] He was he would embarrass himself to get someone to laugh who was in a bad mood. He played the guitar. He was a beautiful soul from every possible point that I can reach out to and talk to he was a beautiful person and that's why I owe him so much. And doing all I can to make sure people know Justin's name.

[00:51:39] You know, I've said this on the show over the years whenever we've talked about the passing of someone that was close to the show or close to me that I'm a firm believer that we die twice. We die. Once when our heart stops beating and we die again when the last person who carries on memory heart stops beating and I think that we're [00:52:00] keeping Justin alive.

[00:52:02] And in that sense and so I want to take a quick commercial break and when we come back, I want to talk. I have my I have my driver's license out. I've actually I was going to sign it. I haven't signed it. I'll explain why. When we come back, this is an amazing story a human interest story a story of Triumph a story of.

[00:52:27] Kindness, but more importantly, it's a story that should inspire all of us to become organ donors. Maybe you won't die of brain death, and you won't be able to help somebody else, but maybe you will and why wouldn't you posthumously you can't come back you? Do anything why not help somebody else live on and maybe they believe that I have that we die twice will keep you alive longer because you'll not only be in someone else's heart, but in their mind and they'll carry your memory and your name forward [00:53:00] and you can continue to live on stay tuned.

[00:53:02] We'll be right back. Welcome back.  We're talking with Joe Lafferty. The book is called Justin Time. You can get it at Amazon or you can go to the real Bionic Man.com to get it. So, you know, I'm inspired and I hope everybody in my audience does this this is a easy simple selfless thing to do doesn't cost you anything and it actually could make you a hero right many of us go to lives and whenever he rose and here's an opportunity for you to have the your last thing you do.

[00:53:39] On this planet and make you a hero and I took my driver's license out because I want them to sign it. I was going to say, okay. I'm going to do this.  The one thing in my state it says organ donor. Yes, and I checked it then it asks my signature but then below that it has two witnesses. So I guess I have to find two people to witness me signing this [00:54:00] but I'm going to do this today and I think that everybody in this audience listens to this show should do the same thing.

[00:54:09] It doesn't cost you anything. It will only do your last action on this planet will be one of kindness and heroic Valor and it's so simple to do become an organ donor take your driver's license out and and sign the back of it and choose to be an organ donor, you know. The reason we're talking about this is because Joe reached out to me in the wake of a Stevie Wonder announcing that he needed a kidney transplant.

[00:54:40] And of course Ed Henry announcing he was donating half of his liver to his sister, which is a wonderful surgery, by the way, because both of them will end up with a full-sized liver over time. And then you told me this morning when we got on the phone that President Trump has the signed an executive order to talk about that.

[00:54:59] This is [00:55:00] really timely that we're doing this interview right now, and he did that this morning we have President Trump in the Oval Office today is signing an executive order and much like presidents get the opportunity to do much like Kennedy did in 1960 when he said we're going to walk on the moon in 10 years President Trump has.

[00:55:21] Taking this initiative to end and reverse these numbers when it comes to renal failure in the United States and just were a little context last year. There were last year was another record year for the number of transplants in the United States with more than 36,000 and that number is going up in Leaps and Bounds, which is amazing but of that.

[00:55:46] Of the 36 thousand plus transplants close to close to 30,000 of them, you know, right around 29 and change were kidney and liver transplants and the beautiful thing about kidney and [00:56:00] liver transplants. Obviously, there's a most needed as you can tell by the numbers, but they can also which is happening with Stevie and his donor and as and is happening with Ed Henry and a sister Colleen is that's a living they are not talking about this see stoners.

[00:56:16] Less than 1% of the people who died were talking about living transplants. You can donate a kidney which Stevie's. Stevie's donor will do we don't know who that person is. But that's a hero just like Selena Gomez's best friend from birth gave Selena a kidney and George Lopez's wife gave him a kidney and Ed Henry is a hero.

[00:56:40] He's going to give up about 40% of his liver to his sister Colleen and as you mentioned the liver regenerates, so as liver will regenerate itself as will Colleen's liver and they'll both end up with a fully functioning. Liver of those transplants last year. You know, there were there [00:57:00] were almost 7,000 of those which is a great number and almost a third or I'm sorry, almost 1/4 of the transplants were the living donor transplants and that's what President Trump is really trying to Spur is not only the dialysis which is part of it.

[00:57:16] We'll get to that in a second, but he wants to really inspire people to do to be living donors because that's where we can make the greatest impact in the next. And years 22 people a day die waiting on that list and where I'm from Pittsburgh University of Pittsburgh medical center in that stars Will Clinic I mentioned they have taken it upon themselves to not Corner the market because there's not a market.

[00:57:46] They want to be the best at Living donor transplant. And they have advertised nationally telling people to get out of line and come to UPMC because they believe that's where the greatest growth they're [00:58:00] taking all their expertise. Now, they're still doing all kinds of other transplants what I had my transplant done in 2010.

[00:58:06] And as I told you I like to get out of bed and start walking as soon as I can. And as soon as they removed that catheter I was up and about there was a gentleman there who had a hand transplant and he would walk the halls with his hands up much. Like if he said hey stick them up and that was the hand transplant guys that I heard for months and months was at the hospital.

[00:58:28] So UPMC is focusing their efforts on all types of. Park liver kidneys double single lung double lung hiv-positive all those transplants, but they're really they're really trying to reverse use their power to reverse the trends of people dying from liver disease. So they're really focusing their advertising efforts in their knowledge the public knowledge efforts into partial liver transplants to save lives because the other thing is once [00:59:00] your liver starts to fail, There's not a lot of time whereas and this is also a President Trump is talking about like I was I was on hemodialysis as we talked about it being very evasive very time consuming and it pretty much takes up your entire life.

[00:59:17] And there's another another type of dialysis that President Trump wants to promote which is peritoneal. I think I pronounced that right? Yeah apparently means that they put the tube in your stomach. Yes, and you can do it at home while you sleep at night you do it every day instead of three days a week.

[00:59:35] But every night is you sleep. You can do it yourself. Wow, and that out. That would be a life changer. What's going to save billions of dollars? I mean, this is a must not only is this better for people and I was offered this way back when but I didn't understand it. And obviously this is more than 12 years ago.

[00:59:56] It wasn't as common and wasn't as evolved as it is [01:00:00] today. So President Trump and the effort to save money through Social Security which pays billions of dollars for people to go to dialysis clinic. He wants to focus on people staying home and doing it themselves because it's less invasive. It's more cost-effective.

[01:00:17] I'm here to tell you. I'm very famous amongst my friends and family of saying you get healed in the hospital you get rest at home, right? You don't rest when you're in the now they wake up they constantly wake you up and prod you you did. In fact, that's there's this there was a study that was just done a year or so ago that looked at the effects of.

[01:00:38] The vigil care and its effects on recovery and by visual Kei I mean, you know the nurses come in and proud and you roll over. Let's take your blood pressure all that sort of stuff.  It actually keeps people from recovering. Yeah, you have that's another thing you have to give yourself into that and I've my many years of many [01:01:00] hospitals and many caregivers.

[01:01:02] I've only come across the wrong kind of nurse and The Rock the only thing that's the wrong kind of nurse is the people who work the night shift and they think because it's the middle of their day. It should be the middle of your day. Right? But when it's real what is really the middle of the night, but you know 99% of the nurses I've ever dealt with and known they come in they.

[01:01:22] And I would say hey turn the light on as much as you want because having one I can lay my head down on the right side and it can be completely dark right but but you know, I say come, you know come in turn and they leave the lights alone. Will they, you know, if you're if they need to move you around they apologized.

[01:01:40] They're also kind but occasionally do get that nurse who comes in like it's the middle of the day like it's because it's our middle of his or her day, but those those are few and far between in the nurses that I've experienced it. BMC have been amazing. So here's a little information about chronic kidney disease.

[01:02:00] [01:02:00] There are three or four well done studies two of them on rodents two of them on humans that show you and when you I got to tell you it makes me question the whole low-sodium Mantra coming from the medical author doxxing. So I stumbled Upon A study once. That showed that baking soda sodium bicarbonate actually could keep chronic kidney disease from progressing and I found rodent studies rat and mouse and a human study that showed that and when humans were talking about they actually make a six hundred milligram tablet that your Pharmacy will fill a prescription for a baking soda.

[01:02:50] I'm like really. Okay, just take an eighth of a teaspoon of baking soda. Good old Armand Hammer, you know if they still keep it in the refrigerator because it will start to smell like everything in there. I mean [01:03:00] you really have to press a tablet. Well, that's the pharmaceutical agenda. Okay, but 600 milligrams of baking soda three times a day.

[01:03:08] We'll keep chronic kidney disease from progressing. It'll stay right where it is today. And if you did it every day for the rest of your life until you die, your kidneys won't go to any worse number one. Number two has two studies on rodents that show that sodium chloride does the same thing sodium chloride is table salt.

[01:03:30] And in fact, I've had as the proper terminology of phrenologist renal doctor they call phrenologist. Yes, sir. The okay so now oh, yes, so I had a phrenologist on the show couple. I think it was last year actually talking about a different subject and I said hey, you know help me understand something.

[01:03:48] The kidneys are working the hardest when they're trying to blockade and sequester things that they don't want to get out of the blood. They're filtering then [01:04:00] that's when they're doing their work. But when they're not trying to filter something there just kind of like the Hoover Dam on wide open all the water just coming out.

[01:04:07] It's not worried. He says yeah, that's right. I said, so if I restrict sodium in my diet, my kidneys have to work harder. Not to expel sodium in my urine. He says yeah, that's right. I said so why do we tell people with chronic kidney disease not to take minerals you because. That is exactly the opposite of what we should be telling we should be telling these people.

[01:04:32] You need to Salt your food you need to make sure you get lots of magnesium and calcium potassium and chloride and and phosphorus and all these other things because then your kidneys aren't working. They're like, oh we have so much of this stuff in the blood we can just let it all out and he goes, you know, that's a really good point my audience probably remembers that interview.

[01:04:55] And so now now let's look at the flipside. Oh low sodium sodium don't [01:05:00] eat sodium. Dr. James d nickel Antonio Medina clay Antonio came on the show two years ago to talk about his new book the salt fix and he shows that you can lower your blood pressure by increasing your sodium intake because the hole.

[01:05:14] The whole idea that by including increasing sodium increases water uptake into the blood and creates greater pressure isn't true. In fact what it does by increasing water retention in the blood is it lowers the viscosity? So instead of your heart trying to pump mud. It's pumping water, which is a lot easier on the heart.

[01:05:39] Okay. So when you start to connect all these dots. And then you come upon these two Steve's these actually was five studies all together three and two that show that sodium bicarbonate or even table salt can stop the progression of chronic kidney disease man that is really huge for the [01:06:00] population of people who are having kidney problems.

[01:06:02] Number one number two. This is a very exciting time in medicine. The FDA has approved doctors to be able to prescribe injectable peptides for the first time in history, very exciting and the international peptide Society is taken up the Baton and his teaching doctors. What peptides do what and how to prescribe them.

[01:06:28] I like to say they're friends of mine because they are I've spent a lot of time out there learning tailor-made Pharmacy, which is a Nicholasville Kentucky up by Lexington is the only FDA approved compounding pharmacy that is eligible to fill prescriptions for peptides because they have invested literally millions of dollars in amino acid sequences.

[01:06:48] So they can synthesize these peptides in house under tight controls and one of the peptides that they. Found its way from the thoroughbred horse racing [01:07:00] industry into the human Market is thymus and beta for.  So thymosin beta for was being used on racehorses decade ago because it increases the reprieve important effect and red blood cell production, which gives more oxygen carrying capacity to the blood but it also speeds recovery.

[01:07:23] So from workout to workout these horses recover faster, they can train harder and then the bodybuilding Community found out about it and started importing crappy stuff, but still from China and using it and now doctors can prescribe it and tailor-made can fill the prescription but one of the things that diamonds and beta for does is in certain tissue, it reduces fibrotic buildup and one of the problems with.

[01:07:52] The kidneys is through a protein called fibrinogen. I believe they become fibrotic they become hard and [01:08:00] calloused and the glomerular filtration rate drops dramatically when they become less pliable. Well thymosin beta 4 has been shown in three studies now to reverse fibrosis of the kidneys specifically, which means that doctors could say to a patient.

[01:08:20] I want you to start taking sodium bicarbonate to hold things where they are and we're going to start giving you one milligram of thymosin beta for a day five days a week. And then we're going to get back in here. We're going to evaluate your kidneys in 6 months and what they may see is a complete reversal of chronic kidney disease for the first time in history right now where we're standing right now at this could potentially be the product of the process.

[01:08:44] How exciting is that? That's very exciting. And I was you know, I don't know that II don't know the compounds as well as you do, but I do know that the only non prescription I [01:09:00] have been taking since my transplant is a magnesium gluconate element, right? And of course, they're making sure I have that, you know 500 milligrams every day.

[01:09:13] That's good. And. Obviously from all the reasons you just explain we're obviously staving off any further damage with those peptides would be amazing. And as far as reversing it I welcome that and you've given me a lot to go to my own doctor and talk about.  Out I have a question for you. That's kind of non sequitur.

[01:09:36] You may think to this discussion but having one I how do you sleep well? I mean, I re I ask this because melatonin production starts when the eyes see the absence of blue light and the beginning of red light which Harold Sunset and we know that people who don't have any Vision suffer from.

[01:10:00] [01:10:00] Something that the medical Orthodoxy named 924 so they can prescribe a drug that drug just happens to be a synthetic form of melatonin for anybody who's paying attention. So those people who have no vision could easily just take melatonin at 7 p.m. Every night and sleep well and reset that re-establish their circadian rhythm, but no doctor makes any money.

[01:10:21] Telling somebody to go to Walgreens and by three dollar bottle of melatonin, but with that being the case with one eye do you do you sleep well do you get tired at night? That does does that one? I do everything it needs to do as far as starting the Sleep Cycle. I wish I could tell you that but I from the literal day I was born they were ready to get rid of me out of the hospital because my entire life I've woken up at 5 a.m.

[01:10:49] And it didn't matter. If I stay up late in college or parties late, I was up if I'm up at 5 a.m. And I've come to realize that about [01:11:00] myself so I get up so I was always the first one to fall asleep at a sleepover. So I thought I'd fall asleep early. I don't know because I have grown to hate sleep. I heard it.

[01:11:16] I heard it in a television show at some. The main character said I'll own the need for sleep. And you know when I'm doing advocacy on social media or trying to connect with great people with podcasts like yourself and I was already a fan but you know, I'm always looking for opportunities to discuss.

[01:11:36] I'm up late doing researching since I saw this announcement this morning. I've reached out to people in the Republican Party in the state of Pennsylvania to try and get me with President Trump. So especially in Pennsylvania being a transplant which state I want to be involved. I want to give my time.

[01:11:56] So I've always hated sleeping and I what [01:12:00] I've done my entire life was sleep as much as I can at night and if I go a couple days with not enough sleep Jennifer the love of my life can tell you sure look at me and go, you know what you needed that so at least once a week I'm taking a three or four-hour nap, but that could also be.

[01:12:18] My heart so I've never read anything into it and you give me something to think about with with I've taken melatonin when I really need to sleep. I have a I have a bottle of that when I want to get but I don't like being groggy in the morning. I want to get up at five and take less my district.

[01:12:36] Let's just take lessons did the the clinical dose of Melatonin is 600 micrograms less than a milligram. Most people taking three milligrams. Some of us take more because I take melatonin for other reasons besides sleep, but those who say man I wake up in the morning. I feel so groggy when they get to 600 microgram dose of Melatonin they wake up in the morning and they feel fine.

[01:13:00] [01:13:00] That's all good. What else do we want to talk about Joe?  Did we miss anything? Well, I well. No, I just want to tell you I want to you know, thank you for all the compliments. About what I've gone through and what I was able to get through and other than you know other than my faith in God and those those why simple words my dad gave me and you said you want to talk about yes, thank you.

[01:13:23] Thank you. Thank you. Where did you where did you get this from right. There you go. Well, we'll Circle back to that. But what I want to tell what I was listening to the why do you hire weightlifting coach broadcast? Which which I think is one of your better ones, I really. One really spoke to me and something that gentleman said in that hot was it Howard was his name or something?

[01:13:49] Which which podcast which one? Why do you hire a weightlifting coach? Oh, I don't remember that one. Isn't that funny golden coach?  [01:14:00] I'm sorry. I'm I'm drawing a blank. I don't know why but good. That's okay, you know something that that gentleman said he was talking about rhesus monkeys and puzzles and.

[01:14:09] When you when you reward them, then they start to slack off and not want to do the puzzles as much if you regularly reward them. It made me think of something. I'm a quote guy and it was Patrick Henry who said what we esteem too cheap. We esteem too cheap.  We value too lightly tis dearness that put gives everything its value.

[01:14:37] And the people who work out like you do and I do and all your listeners are these work out people, you know, you can't just worried about the end. You have to love the process. Like I said, I told you I played high school and college football and was my fourth year of college that I walked up onto the field and I was about to put my helmet on and [01:15:00] get ready to start and I realized I thought to myself I don't want to be here.

[01:15:05] And I walked off the field change the never play football again because I was a tiny myself. I wasn't good enough to have halfway in between first day. I put on the helmet and the last day I took off the helmet. I loved every minute of every practice. I love some work. I loved what I was doing and that could be you know masochistic.

[01:15:30] But I'm sorry, I think yeah, that's the came to be masochistic. But I loved every minute of it. If you only love game day. You're not going to be your best if you only love when you finally way which is in a way or your aunt your biceps your finally 24 inches, like Hulk Hogan's used to be that that that's not the fun of it this the process used to love the process of what you're doing.

[01:15:58] And I believe [01:16:00] through working out training Sports the repetitive things that we do every day, whether it's playing the piano or whatever you do. You can't just love gardening when the flowers come up or you get to eat the tomatoes as so many Italians grow their own Tomatoes. Like I'm sure you do you can't just love it.

[01:16:20] When you bite into the Tomato. You have to love the whole process, right? The journey journey is what the real fun. And the and those produced the happiest people.  You know the love of my life she's a teacher and some day she comes home and she wants to tear your hair out because of the kids but you know 99% of the time when I bring up her class to her.

[01:16:43] She ever years. She says the same thing she says, oh God. I love my kids. I love my love my class. I love my kids. I love my class and it wasn't their third graders. They're not perfect Trust. Far from [01:17:00] perfect, but and I'm sure that I'm sure they have them days in their moods and but every day she comes she goes in there early and she loves them.

[01:17:09] So she loves the process of teaching every single day and that makes the happiest teachers when you love the process of doing your workout and not just the results when you love the process everyday. I think you get not only the greatest success but you get the greatest amount of happy, right?

[01:17:26] There are great. It was dr. Scott Stevenson. You were talking about be your own body building culture just dawned on me a couple minutes ago. That's your total. Yeah. Now you mentioned my dad. Yeah, so men boys become men and their earliest illustration of what a man is their father. So was your father very optimistic guy.

[01:17:50] No. Now, huh? No, my father is a very my father got out of high school and could have went to college [01:18:00] but he loved cars. So he wanted to initially work in that industry and owned a gas station before I was born which something because he had they had me when he was 25 and he married my mother when they were.

[01:18:14] And he hung out in gas stations from the age of 12 and at the age of 13. He started driving. He started his own detailing business. He's to detail cars. Wow in a parking garage. Yeah, so my dad's lover my dad's and we love them

[01:18:41] and he. The youngest of four boys and I don't want to say he's not positive. He is a person that he a realist and he's very Frank and honest and that type of my dad leads the league in common sense. He's great with [01:19:00] numbers. He's a great read of people. But like I've said about him he behind his back and he's going to hear this.

[01:19:07] I've said many times. He leads the league in common sense. And as we all know that's uncommon. Yep. And you know, my dad my dad can be a sales of it wasn't sales guy and my mother was a teacher and she was in sales back in the day and they sold me that all I had to do was not feel sorry for myself, and I could beat anything.

[01:19:33] Simultaneously scared out of their mind and there's a good scene in the book when I had pancreatitis about my dad and how I saw behind the curtain of my father that he didn't know about until years later and then when I saw him when I saw the facade I saw that he had a facade and when he came back in the room, I saw the facade and not behind the curtain.

[01:19:58] And I went okay. Well, I'm going to [01:20:00] be all right if Dad says I'm going to be all right, right. So, you know, we learn we learn from we we learn from our fathers and I learned from my father to have that common sense and to be a realist and you know, my mom's a hundred percent Italian like we talked about in my dad's Irish and Scottish and I tell people my mom taught me how to fight and my dad taught me how to not give up any ground.

[01:20:28] Beautiful and a but between the both of them. They taught you the most valuable lesson not to feel sorry for yourself, but we live in a world where you know between virtue signaling and feeling sorry for yourself has become tantamount to 222 life tools and it's not feeling sorry for yourself doesn't do damn thing for you.

[01:20:52] I saw speaker over the Fourth of July holiday. Very famous person. I won't mention [01:21:00] anything else but I saw this person simultaneously claim victimhood and beat their chests and I thought wow, that's something cuz I'm a I'm a speaker. I've written speeches for gubernatorial candidates and.  People on boards and presidents of organizations I do that for fun.

[01:21:20] And for do that for fun for people. I know. And I heard this person speaking and they simultaneously claimed that they were a victim but then beat their chests. It's in the world's greatest. And I thought wow that that is that that is some verbal gymnastics. I couldn't even fathom coming up with let alone saying out loud well and and.

[01:21:42] You have to be so disingenuous and people feel that they see you know. Fourteen years ago. There's November when I started doing this show.  I promise that because you know before I started doing this show on that a [01:22:00] security company that did alarm systems. We also did background screening and I used to do the background screening for the Howard Stern Show.

[01:22:06] When they would get the like who Wants to Marry a stripper Gary Dell'Abate would send me these guys names and current addresses and Social Security numbers. And we would make sure they weren't murderers, you know, they're obviously crazy to want to marry a porn star in the first place. But, you know, make sure that they didn't have anything in their background and we were very good at we would best in the country at the time and so.

[01:22:31] I II when I started doing this show I promised that I would not hide who I am and I learned that from Howard because Howard the only thing that Howard didn't talk about was his divorce. And that was an agreement. He had early on to protect his daughters, but I learned from Howard that just be who you are.

[01:22:54] They'll either love you or they won't and the people who don't let them go away because the people who love you will stay [01:23:00] and so what I see today. Like and political campaigns you've been these people are so phony it's like they they stick their finger in the wind. They go what do people want to hear me say today and that's what they say and it's and it's and it's so it's so phony and I don't understand how people aren't repulsed by it.

[01:23:23] But it but instead there's a lot of people are attracted by it. So I know what you're talking about. I know when you say beat your chest, but at the same time you're apologizing. It's. It's a crazy world. We live in today where where lies are more important than facts. Don't bother don't pester me with the facts.

[01:23:40] Just tell me what I want to hear. That's what that that's what this world is all about today. It's really sad. Yeah, it's a little different this person was claiming victimhood. Yes. I know. I know I know what you and I screwed it up in my head. Yeah. Yeah. Well today be about today being a victim is a good thing [01:24:00] ever being a victim is actually.

[01:24:02] Makes you makes your point of view more appropriate than larger masses of people they have to do what you want them to do cuz you're peculiar claiming victimhood and let's face it. I know but nobody gets through this life without being a victim somewhere along the line. Well, and I know for my own actions on social media people tell me sometimes I should die with back and if I want to Market and you know what I say, I am who I am and I commented I commented it was a long time ago a couple of years.

[01:24:36] Well, I come in a couple of years ago when a long time ago a couple of years ago because the rock came out with a new shoe. And his project Rock Under Armour thing and little little known fact in one of my high school teammates earned a full scholarship to the University of Miami Corral green myself and [01:25:00] Dwayne Johnson are all the same age.

[01:25:02] He graduated from high school and the other side of Pennsylvania and arkeo the man who recruited The Rock and Tyrell is part of my book. So that's my part of The Rock. That I know the guy who recruited him to go to the you but I saw the rock came out with a new shoe. And I said, well, I'm going to buy this shoe because I'm not buying Nike and Adidas Nikes anymore.

[01:25:24] Right? And this woman jumped on me on Twitter and said, you're such a racist. The rock is black and I went what? That doesn't even make sense Rock first. I didn't like school. I'm like, first of all, I know that but all I said is I'm going to buy his tennis shoes.  So you're here and you're a racist for not wanting to buy Nike, but you're well and you're not a racist because you were buying a shoe made by promoted and sold by a black man.

[01:25:56] Well in but the funny thing is is I Know Myself and [01:26:00] I know where I'm from. And I know the community where I grew up. I know the couple's the thousands of young men that I've mentored and I know what percentage of them and it's a much greater percentage of them who are black than white, but I only looked at them as players and young men that I got to vote in the through the lens of football so I don't have to pay and that's the one thing that when I comment on things I don't mind if someone calls me a racist because the people I know and love.

[01:26:29] No, I'm not and it doesn't have that only happened that one time but I don't have to walk around with a resume of I have X number of black friends. I have X number of Hispanic room in my book. I refer to a friend of mine Dan Gomez. And this may be inappropriate back then in the mid 90s when we met him, but we referred to him as the world's largest Mexican because he was he again is six foot six is the time.

[01:26:55] Was that 330-pound left tackle for the University of men and we would say to [01:27:00] girls in bars. This is Dan Gomez. The world's largest Mexican. Yeah, I mean, you know, whatever you could say that you could say. Oh the world's largest Italian that's it's just weird where we draw the lines on what is appropriate what is inappropriate today?

[01:27:13] And it's confusing for most people but the reality is that most of it's just be yes, it's just be yes. That's all it is. There's a new to die have a new definition of racism. So an economist.  he looks at the world on how it is affected by.  Or how it affects the economy. If you say to an economist and ask him a question that has to do with population.

[01:27:41] He can't really hear but he can tell you about the economy. And so when economists only sees the world through. Things that affect or relate to the economy and when I was a kid and I think I'm older than you. I'm 61 when I was a [01:28:00] kid. I was very active in the in the civil rights movement of the 60s.

[01:28:05] I paid attention to it. I understand what it was about and it was about Noble things. It wasn't about free stuff.  It was about equal opportunity. That's all it was about. And no one could deny that that was a good thing. And so, you know you fast forward to today and back then racist what people.

[01:28:28] Who held people back or made decisions to hurt people based on their race? Okay today. The new racist is a person who sees everything as a function of race. So maybe I don't hire you because you are not the right person for the job. But because you were black I must have did it because of race and I'm not saying racism doesn't exist.

[01:28:56] But the problem is that now the boy who has [01:29:00] cried wolf so much at everything is racial everything. Oh everything you do is you're a racist everything. It has no meaning today. And then you got guys like Al Sharpton that all they do. Israel is cause conflict and disagreement and blame it on Race because that's his stock in trade.

[01:29:19] I mean if how could this country be racist we voted a black president. It's office two times your many white people took for Barack Obama to win two times. How can this country be racist? But yet they keep saying that crap and it's just and it's you know, what it it doesn't even mean a I grew up in Bed-Stuy.

[01:29:38] I thought I was black the first 14 years of my life. I'm not kidding you.  When I moved to Queens, I got heat because I was I acted black they said to me.  So this terrible what's going on today? It's just dividing the population. Well, and actually this drugs back to just yesterday when [01:30:00] you talk about this vocal minority of people that make a lot of noise.

[01:30:03] I when I heard about Stevie on and add on Sunday, I wrote up a one pager and got it out to my social media contacts in the Donate like organ donation community, and there's a great lady up in Portland who I've never met only talk to you. Email and she's helping me and helping, you know, we could help purple cross promote and I'm part of something called Donate Life Hollywood and she's also a helper in that and that's where we are influencing what's coming out of Hollywood to tell true and accurate organ donation stories.

[01:30:41] And we've had some great interactions with New Amsterdam and the resident part side. So when I sent this one page of information like hey, we all need to get behind. This is Stevie Wonder and Ed Henry and more importantly Stevie Wonder because he's receiving and I [01:31:00] haven't had an idea which I'm not going to share and a hashtag and she wrote back.

[01:31:05] She's like I'm getting some pushback from some of my people and I said well, what's the pushback and she said that certain people in her community are pointing to Stevie and saying he got that kidney because he's famous. And I said to her why didn't you push back and say no, he's getting that kidney because he has someone willing to give him a kidney.

[01:31:29] Now I understand. I don't understand what that those people there's few. People are saying if Stevie Wonder went out on television and said hey, I need a kidney. Yes, there will be thousands of people lined up to give him a kidney and that's why and they don't but that's but that's between him and them that's between him to exactly.

[01:31:49] It's not it's not like his though. He got pushed to the front of a line and someone else didn't get that kidney because he got it. He's procuring that kidney through his own influences. God bless him [01:32:00] well and and they do that when you're looking for a kidney they say to you these hospitals UPMC said to me now, do you have someone in your.

[01:32:10] So many people related to that, you know that you can reach out and they can be a living Kidney donor because it was knocked down the wait time. It's less time that you're on dialysis, especially if it's from a brother or a sister which you know that does happen a lot but my own sisters tissue in mind, I mean she and I are genetically pretty identical other than she's a girl and I my guy but you know, and that didn't work out for me, but they encourage you to reach out to your circle of friends.

[01:32:39] Reach out to your churches your businesses. And now it's gotten to the level where people are just going to going and say Hey, I want to donate my kidney and they have kidney chains that have 20 or 30 people in it right where I give to you you give to someone you could do and it circles back around to the person who needs the other person who [01:33:00] needs it.

[01:33:01] So we should be talking about Stevie how he found his living donor. And that he's going and Henry is a living donor. And these stories should be shouted from the rooftops and not listen to the minority of people who say well, you know, Stevie got a kidney because he's Stevie Wonder now, he got a kidney to someone was willing to give him one.

[01:33:22] Right? Right. I you know, it's just again, that's the whole politically, correct. You got to worry about everybody's you know, I'm just so tired of it. It's just it's just takes way too much energy than it's worth. It really does. Get the message out there. I want everybody in the audience to sign the back of their drivers license to become a kid organ donor.

[01:33:43] Like I said it probably the most heroic thing that you may do in this life at the end of your life is save someone else's life Joe. It's been a fantastic interview the with the website is the real Bionic Man.com. The book is called Justin time. [01:34:00] You can get it there at amazon.com. And fantastic stuff, really really fantastic.

[01:34:05] Thank you so much for being here today.  Well, I was an honor Carl to talk to you and your followers are listeners, which I am one of and after this thank you so much for this opportunity to talk about, you know, Donate Life and organ transplants. I want to tell those people you do. So it is important that you put that on your license, but also what you may not know this.

[01:34:30] Whoever has medical power of attorney has that final decision. So not only put it on your driver's license, but have those conversations with your family and make sure they know listen if I can't use this. I want to save someone else's life my own my own situation. Justin didn't have a driver's license and Rhonda and his his biological father Ron Boyer were there and they both signed the papers together.

[01:34:59] [01:35:00] So, you know, it takes the takes the medical power of attorney and medical next of kin to ultimately sign off on this and people who are in the depths of grief have to make these decisions and if you can take that decision out of your family members have. So they know your desires in advance. It'll make it that much easier for them.

[01:35:22] If it ever comes to that but also consider living donation part of your liver or your kidney and you can look to your local. Oh po your organ procurement organization, or you can go to register me dot-org and register to be an organ donor.  Okay, Joe. Thank you so much. And we'll stay in touch.

[01:35:43] Thank you. Hi, and that's it for today. Tomorrow is Thursday. I don't think I have a show Thursday, but this Friday, you're not gonna want to miss the show when I have dr. Elizabeth. I think I've last name is. Birth, I'm [01:36:00] sorry for not remembering her name. We're going to be doing a pep. Talk about PT 141 the only real aphrodisiac made for women and it works and we'll talk about that on Friday.

[01:36:13] Hopefully a lot of you couples out. There will be interested in using that works for guys to be got to take more I tried. Definitely works. Okay, so that's it for today share the show around and thank you for being here and see you

[01:37:00] [01:36:47] soon.