Why We Go Off Script And Talk Real Life

A show can be funny and still hit like a truth bomb. Michael and Victoria keep Contagious Smiles unscripted on purpose, because real life doesn’t come with neat transitions, and neither does healing. We talk openly about why our conversations move the way they do, what “anything goes” really means, and why lived experience can teach things no textbook touches. 

From there, we get serious about mental health support for first responders. We’ve seen what trauma does after the call ends: adrenaline crashes, tunnel vision, and the kind of PTSD that doesn’t disappear after a quick debrief. We also dig into autism and crisis response, where too many commands and the wrong approach can turn confusion into danger. Better training, better communication, and long-term care are not “extras” when lives are on the line. 

We also share the caregiver and special needs side, including what IEP meetings can feel like when parents don’t know their rights, and why schools struggle to meet mental health needs with limited counseling support. Victoria opens up about body image after abuse and why patience matters in relationships when someone is rebuilding safety in their own skin. Along the way, we mention our work with Care Coalition, plus the community encouragement that keeps this mission moving. 

If this hits home, subscribe, share with someone who needs support, and leave a review so more survivors, caregivers, and first responders can find these free resources.

Transcript

Why The Show Is Unscripted

SPEAKER_03 0:01

Howdy y'all, and welcome to another episode of the Contagious Smiles podcast with Michael and Victoria. Okay, let me reword that. With Victoria, the ever so sexy vixen and big-hearted woman. And that's not a fat joke. Oh Lord.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

And my red Nick has been my red Nick has been.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

So we we had some questions this past week. Friday. As far as why do you do your podcast the way you do? Because the person who asked me about this or who commented said that they were a little confused at first about how we structure our podcast. And as y'all know, this is unstoppable. This is anything goes. We we try to keep it PG never happens. But it doesn't happen, okay? This is unscripted. It's it's always unscripted. There's nothing written down here. Which is the only time nothing's written down. So everything is off the cuff. It's it's real life events coming from Victoria and myself. It's lived experience coming from the both of us. It's stories that went that have been written to us through email and other things. So it's just real, raw, everyday living. Life. Life, yeah. It's life. So you you will hear about domestic violence, you'll hear about escape plans, you'll hear about warning signs, you'll hear about narcissism, you'll hear about men being the the survivors, the you know, the victims at the times, and you'll hear about the special needs families, but you also hear about you know school shootings, you know, and and our comments, and you know, how we view school shootings being prior to law enforcement. You'll hear experience that you know we've been in in domestic violence situations.

Lives, Launches, And New Partnerships

SPEAKER_01 2:03

And we both are survivors of abusive relationships, both intimate and family. So you get the him, her perspective, literally, of that. And it gives you an insight because not only have we lived it, we've worked it, we experience it. I mean, you you can't get more real than that. We did a live on Friday, and that was with Mike McNack and myself. And my cutie batootie husband over here was working in the background for me, and it went really well. The numbers, I don't know the wonkiness of the numbers. I've reached out to Facebook and they haven't responded to me yet. They're like, oh, it takes up to whatever amount of hours or whatever. But I had to, I did it differently. I had, and I've never done it this way before where we went through Zoom and then linked live through Zoom, live streaming. And I've had now probably 60 to 75 people reach out about it and tell me that it was great. They, you know, wish that Mike and I had had some more interaction, but it was very just jam-packed for an hour. It really was. And, you know, I love the feedback, positive and negative, because then we know what to do on the next live. So please feel free to keep doing that. And we released This Is What It Takes, first episode on Friday as well. And Mike Makniak's podcast, Holding It Together, kinda also has its episode released Friday, uh, where I was his guest and we were talking about some things. So there's a lot of stuff happening, and it's all out there. For those who don't know, I have been honored by uh by being asked by Mike to come and partner with Care Coalition, which is an amazing nonprofit organization that really focuses on the mental health. And I love that because we focus on it too. So we're very much aligned. And just this past week, at the very end of the week, I officially brought my husband on my team. He has been on my team of a contagious smile now for years and years, and now he's realigning himself to also help with the care coalition, which is awesome because I really believe that we're one of the very few married couples that can work together, live together, just intertwine together. I mean, because he is my best friend.

SPEAKER_03 4:40

Definitely. I like that intertwine bit.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

PG.

unknown 4:44

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Great. So I mean, we are best friends and we we don't argue. And I mean, you know, like faith was saying men are stupid, but you know, it's like the simplicity of little things. Like yesterday, I was getting ready to run out to the store because here and everybody knows my husband says I work ridiculous, like seven days a week, never a day off, not even for a movie, nothing, nothing. And I think that was putting it lightly compared to the last few weeks.

SPEAKER_02 5:13

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

And so I pull into the to our cul-de-sac, and my husband pulls up beside me. And for just a split second, we were both like, wow, this is like the old days when the squad cars would like pull up, you know, and we would have conversations, and it was just like like a little flashback. It was sweet.

First Responder Trauma And PTSD

SPEAKER_03 5:36

So speaking of squad car and law enforcement days, keep it clean. Keep it clean. Now that we're aligned with uh Mike McNack and Care Correlation, and he's really big into the mental health side. As law enforcement officers, we saw a huge need for extensive training for our officers with the mental health, the mentally challenged.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

Not just no, yes, but I want to take one step further, not only for like arriving on scene with someone who's autistic or or in crisis, but also, I'm sorry, I don't agree with a lot of people when they say officers have enough resources to decompress after a situation, because I've seen it firsthand. I see how you know they go in with tunnel vision, like for domestic violence, that's the most dangerous call an officer can respond to. But, you know, when you crash from that adrenaline or you see something so traumatic, and you, you know, if you're involved in a shooting, or you know, no matter what, if you get into a scruffle, I mean a serious knockdown scruffle.

SPEAKER_03 6:46

What's a scruffle?

SPEAKER_01 6:48

You have no room to talk coin all is a scruffle. What's wrestling?

SPEAKER_00 6:52

That's where you wrestle.

SPEAKER_03 6:53

I don't even know what that is. With two grown men getting inside the ring and wearing tidy ways.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Yes. It doesn't even make sense to me. WWE, WWF, and all them WWs.

unknown 7:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 7:08

All right, let's go scruffle. You got some scruffle on your tin.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

I've never had facial hair. You have more estrogen than me, so I don't know what you're talking about. That's because I'm a house bitch. I didn't say it. Anyway, I don't believe that law enforcement, even fire rescue, I don't believe that they have enough resources to help them when they go into a traumatic situation afterwards. You know, when they're involved in something. I I think they should be able to have these resources for free because and I'm not taking away from Hollywood actors, I'm not taking away from you know, people in sports or anything like that, but these people make tens of millions of dollars. And then law enforcement officers, you know, make pittance. I mean, they make nothing. And firefighters, these people are going in and you know, they're running towards while everybody else is running away. And they make like pennies on the dollar in comparison, not even pennies on the dollar. Because if you know, a big sports person signs a six-year contract for a hundred million dollars, an officer won't see that in a lifetime.

SPEAKER_03 8:11

I've seen uh town sheriff here making uh starting out at 55,000.

Body Image After Abuse

SPEAKER_01 8:15

I mean, and that's not what either one of us ever started out of. I mean, back in the day, it was not even you know, half that, and it's just ridiculous. And the thing is, is that and it's not like it's a one-day thing. I mean, you're talking 12-hour shifts and you get exhausted, you know, three on, three off, four, I mean, three on, four off. And then I don't know many officers who don't work extra jobs because they have to have that, you know, extra income coming in. But mental health is not, I mean, when you go on the scene and say there's a shooting or something like that, yes, you get to go and and uh go through the channels, but it's only temporary. Like they're not and it they're not gonna go and help you long term, and that's not okay. They need to provide long term because PTSD is not something that has an expiration date. It's something that lasts a long time, if not a lifetime. I mean, I'm from the physical abuse that I went through, I'm 20 plus years and I'm still dealing with PTSD. You know, am I where I was? Absolutely not. But I'm the first to admit, you know, when I do counseling and things like that, I love the people say, I love how motivating you are and how your words resonate to what I want to get to. And that's it, that's true. But I still have body dysphoria and I'll be the first to admit it. My husband can testify standing right here. I know I had just opened Pandora's box, that even when it's a hundred degrees out, I am still in long pants down to my ankles. I don't wear sleeveless, I don't own anything sleeveless. I don't have any like short sleeves or what is it that Faith wears of spaghetti straps or whatever. I don't own any of that. And I've promised that I am going to one day here soon purchase it. And I have actually gone and I tell people this all the time just go look, right? And be like one day I used to go, hell no, and just kept walking. Like I would never even pick up one of the shirts. I have picked up one of the shirts, and I'm like, you know, that might happen one day coming, you know, it's a pattern, it's you know, it's a process. And I mean, is that not true? I mean, I literally dress like a hermit.

SPEAKER_03 10:30

Okay, so yes, you do dress very baggy, but let's not as bad as I used to. Let me piggyback off this, fellas. If your significant other has been through whatever traumatic experience with an ex-partner, ex-husband, ex-wife, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

Even family member.

SPEAKER_03 10:49

Give them their time. Okay. I've been married to my wife for five years. I've known her for 25 plus years, okay? I cannot push her to get into something more skimpy, okay? More skimpy? I don't own anything skimpy. As much as I love to see my wife naked. Oh my god! Sorry. This is just something you cannot push. You have to give them their time, okay? It will come, guys. I don't read into that. But it will happen. All right. Don't be too pushy.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

But why can't you see the beauty from within without having to see the clothing and what it covered? No, I'm just saying. Like, okay, I'm gonna call you out, and now you're gonna be like, oh Lord. Why the other day my husband looks at me and says, Why am I still in love with you?

SPEAKER_03 11:42

Okay, let me let me let me put it the way I did it.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Put that 16-size shoe right up in your mouth.

SPEAKER_03 11:48

I said, You have a big booger foot. Oh, I thought you were looking up my nose. No, that rocks. That's cool.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

Why am I still in love with that is not the way you said it.

SPEAKER_03 12:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

I will call our daughter in. That is not the way you said it. You said you stood right in this office because this is basically where I live, and you looked at me and said, How is it I'm still in love with you?

SPEAKER_03 12:12

Okay, let me put this in perspective, y'all. Into what? Perspective, y'all. What? Perspective, y'all. All right. You see a gorgeous sunset or sunrise. Oh, okay. Okay. You got your urns, you got your yellows. You got your what? Urns.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

You got your urn like somebody's passed away. Urns. O-R-A-N-T. See, Mike says he can't understand you all the time. Now I get it. Okay. Like a loved one is in an urn. Okay, you're messing up my scenic view here.

SPEAKER_03 12:42

That's a scenic view? Yes. You got this scene. It sounds like a view over the ocean. Okay. Beautiful sunrise, beautiful sunset. Pick pick the one that you won't, okay? And you look at urns. With urns. And you think. No, we're not scenario. I have to be. And you look at this and you think, How can you not believe in God? At a beautiful canvas like this. That has nothing to do with how can I still be in love with you? How can I still be in love with you? It's it's no question.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

That's like saying, I think chocolate and vanilla are the exact same flavors.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

That makes no sense, not even in your redneck. Then you wonder about the consistency of it. What if one's Rocky Road and one's chunky monkey? Sure. I'm just saying, how do you say to your wife, how can I still be in love with you? How can I not? That word was not paraphrased nor stated in the statement to which you stated.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

Objection, Your Honor. Overruled my courtroom. I'm saying you did not say that. You didn't say that.

SPEAKER_03 13:53

Well, how can I not? Here's the thing. Be in love with you. Here's the thing after all these years.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

I you always say, Oh, I'm this big yoggly fat guy or whatever. I've never seen that. I look at you and I am like, oh.

SPEAKER_03 14:08

I'm 6'1, 275 pounds.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

No, you've lost more.

SPEAKER_03 14:12

Well, I'm a big fat guy.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

You're not a big fat guy. You your eyes from day one had me at hello.

SPEAKER_03 14:21

We're talking about mental health.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

This is mental health.

SPEAKER_03 14:24

All right, I'm about to commit you. You keep talking about me.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

Don't even threaten that because that's already happened with your father, your sperm donor. So don't even talk about that. That's not even funny. That's not even funny. All right, mental health. So more options need to be made available.

SPEAKER_03 14:43

To the officers.

Special Needs IEP Fights

SPEAKER_01 14:44

To officers, not just fall, not just law enforcement, but also to fire and rescue. I mean, and to teachers. And you know, you look at these schools, and these schools have six, eight, nine hundred students and one, maybe two counselors. Uh how do you do that? I mean, how can you do that and and justify it? But here's the thing. And when it comes to special needs, the counties are getting supplemental income for every child that goes into a special needs classroom, right? But then they have to have all these rules and regulations and IEPs and five of you know 504s and all these things. But behavioral plans, they don't do it. I mean, I'm like one of the advocates for special needs, and I used to love going into IEP meetings. Ask any person who's ever been in an IEP meeting, it is god-awful painful. People are like, it's like a colonoscopy without being put to sleep because you go into a room, right? You go into a big conference room, and you're the only person there. Everybody else is the teachers and whoever the, you know, the counselor who's not there helping the kids, and you get a form of who is gonna attend, and you're the one who can say whether or not they're allowed to be excused or not, right? But they come in with this mindset of we're gonna overpower her with numbers and we're gonna try to talk to her or him like they have no idea what they're doing because most parents don't know their rights for an IEP, right? Like you have to be able to say, I want to see work product. If they're getting special services, you should be able to say, I want to see attendance records. Most, if not well, most parents don't know that. And when I'm in an IEP meeting advocating, they crap when I say, I want this, this, this. And when they're like, well, we don't have it here, we'll have it next time. No, no, no, no, no, no. What you don't realize is that I'm the chief of this one. And we'll wait. We can go on a little break. You can go get your steps in on your little pedometer and walk your little ass upstairs and go get it because you're sugarcoating all of this crap and it's bullshit because our kids aren't getting what they need, and it's not okay. You know, it's not okay. And just because you wanted to get a paycheck and have summers off, now, not all teachers are that way. I've met some of the most dedicated, loving teachers who really are there for the kids, but there are plenty out there that are like, oh, I get summers off and I get this and I get that. I'm all about teaching. But then they don't really put their heart into it, and that's horrible. I mean, that's really how horrible. Why are you looking at me like that?

SPEAKER_03 17:16

Because I love it when you go off in left field.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

You can go off in left field, it's all about mental health, and the mental health is very much dominant in the special needs community. So, how is that going off in left field?

SPEAKER_00 17:27

Teachers' vacation because some of these teachers aren't in it wholeheartedly. Are you serious?

SPEAKER_02 17:38

I'm very serious. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

Here's my mental health cadon. What'd you say? Scrubble? Scribble? I'm gonna scribble.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

My husband and I are upgrading things in our home, and it's been, he's not gonna believe this, it's been a month since we agreed that we were gonna redo the upstairs hall. And we did we were gonna paint the walls and the doors and the door frames, and then we were putting a new floor in. And he keeps saying, I'm gonna do it tomorrow. We're gonna finish it tomorrow. We're gonna finish it tomorrow. We're gonna finish it tomorrow. What are you looking at? The fact that my office door has two colors to it. This door is amazing. Metaphor. Because a minute ago I was talking about the the difference in black and white. And look, black and white. The door is part black and part white. It doesn't make it mixed, it makes it not finished. That is called a mental health issue because it's driving me nuts. See? See?

SPEAKER_03 18:38

Good, like our donor today at the uh dinner table. I purpose I purposely cooked the dinner into in two separate dishes, and she put the main course separate from the other part, right? Did you be any more veg? It was chicken and rice and sweet and sour chicken. Sweet and sour chicken.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

So which normally my husband mixes together, and let me tell you, you have to have a specific kind of palate to like it.

SPEAKER_03 19:05

She had this wide gap between the two different items, and I purposely slid a nugget over into her rice. Will you please stop doing that, Dad? You irritate her. She said her OCD back in the day was so bad.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Oh my god. She had to have like four forks for OCD. Back in the day.

SPEAKER_03 19:24

Back in the day, we're talking about our daughter Faith.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

She would have to have a different plate or container for every food.

SPEAKER_02 19:33

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

And it wasn't, I don't necessarily believe it was OCD. For people who don't know, my daughter had was not able to drink a bottle and she had oral aversion and she had a tracheostomy, and so she had a feeding tube, and they told her she'd have it for life. Well, my daughter got her feeding tube removed when she was 16. And they told her she'd never eat by mouth because of her basic non-functioning, non-existing tongue. And so she basically said, watch this, and she got it out. Well, then back in the day, we were trying to, and we were at feeding therapy three times a week, right? And they would always have things in separate containers. And I really think that she took that and ran with it. Because I would say to the therapist, you have to stop this, because they would say, Okay, take a bite and they'd give her a sticker. Or they would say, you know, open up and they give her a sticker. And I'm like, that's not real life, that's not real world. And then if she took a bite and swallowed it, they'd give her a prize out of the toy box. And I'm like, that's excessive. Because when I would try to implement those therapies at home, if she got one bite in her mouth, she put her hand out, like, where's my toy? Where's my sticker? Right. And I think that those kind of resonated at that very impressionable impressionable age. So, yes, she has OC, she has OCD, yes. But to that extent, I mean, yes and no. Like she used to have to have a fork for every tiny thing. She used to have a different like plate or uh, you know, bowl or whatever for each food. And if it touched, if the food even touched, like I remember one time at Band Camp, I was bringing over her dinner that I made, and it had like three or four little items on, you know, in it. And I sneezed. And when I sneeze, I always try to sneeze in my wing or like move the plate out of the way. And I did, and just a little bit of the applesauce slid over into the pudding. Now it's all going down the same gullet, and it's all going into your belly, right? Oh no, nope, not happening with my kid. Oh no. Then she was yours before you even knew because she was like, No. And I was like, Oh god, you gotta be kidding. No, because I wanted to put it on a plate. She wanted the applesauce in the applesauce container, she wanted the pudding in the pudding container, she wanted a new spoon for each. They had to be Color coordinated. Oh my heavens. But we did it. And you know, and you know, if I said it's meal time and the color spoons didn't match, we'd have to wait till the dishwasher had been run because it's how she worked, right? Uh-uh, no. And and it was she's so stinking cute because she couldn't say no because she couldn't get her tongue to reach the roof of her mouth, right? And she had a proxia. So I taught her instead of saying no, she'd say mo, right? And nobody knew the difference. So she'd go, Ma, mo, like, you know, and it was so cute. And she'd go, why are you smiling? Because it was so cute to hear her. And I didn't get to hear her for the first two years of her life. And so when she'd be like, Why are you smiling? You know, and then instead of saying like I need, she would always say, I want, because she could say that people would understand it. But you better believe that Faith pulled off some stuff because she would say things to the doctor, like she called one of them an ass. And he was like, What did you say? And she's she she would say, asshole. And he'd go, What did you say? And I said, She said apple. And she just looked at me like, No, I didn't. I didn't say apple. I mean, but the kid was as fired up as all get out when we went to her autolaryngologist. Now you got me on left field. Talk about like seriously. We're we're going in there and she asked me who he was again because we had 25 doctors and therapies a week. And I said, This is the doctor who put your trake in. And little Miss Tomboy now was fruit fruit then. Little patent shoes, dress, everything had to match. Everything, no matter what. Hair accessories, nails, everything had to match. And so she asked me who he was, and I said that this was the person you know who put her trach in. And she put her hands up. He was sitting in a chair, and he put she put her hands up and he picked her up and she rolled her leg back as hard as she can. She kicked him square in the no-nose.

SPEAKER_02 24:03

In the what?

SPEAKER_01 24:04

In the no-nos.

SPEAKER_02 24:05

In the no-nos.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

That's what I called it back then.

SPEAKER_02 24:08

The no-nos.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

Huh? Because no, no, no. No.

SPEAKER_02 24:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

And the nurse, who didn't like him at all, literally, I think she needed a change of clothes because she was laughing so hard. She thinks she peed herself. She thought she peed on herself. I couldn't say anything. Like, I really wanted to just like give her a happy meal for that. I mean, it was so like, you know, because I thought it was great. And he couldn't say anything.

SPEAKER_03 24:30

I was like, did he drop her?

SPEAKER_01 24:32

No, because actually, believe it or not, and I know what you're gonna say. I had a great rapport with most of the doctors, right? They were always like, we love Victoria as long as we stay on her good side, but when we've screwed up, we are never wanting to get near her. Because I am like, hey, here, like, I'm holding you accountable. And that's another thing about mental health for caregivers, right? You know, she had a gastroenterologist, and this is for caregiving, and he had a reputation of not getting along with parents. And one day, Faith is Faith's in the hospital and she wouldn't eat, and she had a GJ tube, which is the gastrodugerum. It goes all the way through down to the digernum of the body and it bypasses the gut. And she was just retching stomach acid like 20 times a day. We were we were admitted in the hospital, and like we were worried it was just making her esophagus raw, right? So we're in there, and I'm calling her her gastroenterologist, and I'm like, You need to get over here. You need to go. He's like, I will after I get off work, you know. I'm seeing patients today. I'm like, we're right across the street. And nothing. So I, of course, always take care of people and I like always took care of the nurses. And I said, Hey, who's GI on call? And they called and had him come up. And I was like, Hey, can you take out the GJ? And he was like, only if you had a replacement button. And I'm, you know, he barely knew me. And he was like, I was like, so what if I had one? And he goes, if you have one, I'll do it right now. So I reached into my emergency bag that I always have with me, and we're admitted, right? We're not in the ER, we're admitted. I reached over and I had tossed it and I was like, scrub up. And I heard him go, oh shit. So he starts and he takes it out. And I'm like, I'm telling you, as soon as you stop, she's gonna stop vomiting because there's foreign objects all the way down in this tiny little thing's body, right? Tiny. So he he gets this and he was like, Well, isn't Dr. So-and-so gonna be mad? And I'm like, at this point, I don't care. I don't, I don't care. So an hour or so goes by. I'm snuggled up watching Mary Poppins for the 1 millionth, 987th time. And here comes Dr., you know, who she calls Dr. Diarrhea. And he comes walking around the corner and we're sitting there, and he was like, What's going on? And I go, What do you mean? He goes, Tell me I didn't just get a phone call from who's on call telling me that that got switched. And I said, Yeah. And he threw the button into the bed, right? And I'm in the hospital bed. Like it hit the feet, it hit our feet area, right? So I look at Faith and I said, I'll be right back. I'll just hold on. And she's like, I wanna go, I wanna Okay, here comes Mama Bear, right? So he's walking back down the hall. And I'm like, hey, asshole. Like, I didn't care. I know I'm in a kid's hospital. I looked around, apologized. I was like, sorry. He turns on and goes, excuse me. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, we're gonna do this right here, right now. I said, first of all, you're gonna march yourself back and you're gonna apologize to my child for throwing something at her. He goes, Well, I kind of threw it at you. And I was like, go. And and I was like, I am not gonna sit here and watch this happen to my child and do nothing to help her, right? Because as a parent, it's hard to be a parent as it is. When you have a child who is medically complex, like Faith was at that time, and you're juggling all of these doctors and therapies and everything else, and you're literally doing it by yourself as a single parent. Have a little compassion for these people. Have some compassion for the mom who won't go home and stays in that bed with her kid for a month straight and says, I go home when she's discharged. And until then, I'm right here and I'm going nowhere. If she doesn't leave, I don't leave. Period. Right? We'd walk the floor, and he's like, She can't walk the floor. Okay, guess what? I took the IV pole, I put her little cute socks or her slippers on there. I tied her around to me with a robe belt. And so she was on there, told her to hold on, and I pushed her. I pushed her with the IV pole all around. And I was like, She ain't walking. And what are they gonna say? You have to be specific with me because I will find that gray area, and she doesn't need to be stuck in the room for a month, right? And so I'm like, we are going to get some air, and we didn't go like outside, we walk, you know, she rolled around in style around the floor. So I made him come back and I was like, There is no reason for you to be so nasty, right? This you're getting to go home, you're getting to go to your family, you're gonna need to go out for dinner at a restaurant, whatever you want to do. We're still here, right? And you know this is going on, and it's ripping her esophagus into raw, like burning flesh because she's throwing up straight acid all day long. She had a pyloral plasti, she had two funnification decents, which is where they wrap your gut to your esophagus so that you can no longer belch or vomit, which she rich through both, right? And I'm like, I can't sit here and watch her in this pain and do nothing. So, needless to say, like a couple days later, he comes back and goes, Could you tell the nursing staff that we made up because now they won't help me because you're so good to them? Like if we go for a walk, you know, I would always, you know, and people would bring me my clothes and do my what my friends would. I'd say, Hey, could you all pick up some candy or something? And I'd always offer them, you know, the nurses, we became friends. I mean, on my Facebook, I probably have half of her nursing staff that ever took care of her on there. And I'd always ask how they're doing and how their family is, you know. And so I was like, I don't know. And so now to this day, he and I have the best relationship from a doctor and parent out of any of them. I mean, he openly states that he doesn't like the parents, he does this for the kids, and he openly started telling Faith, you're so lucky to have your mom because you wouldn't have been here if it wasn't for your mom. And you remember when we almost lost her two years ago, he was out of the country. And the minute he landed, he went from airport to us at the hospital, which he would never have done anywhere else. And it's just like the purpose of this is because the toll it takes on a caregiver, on top being a mom watching their child or a dad watching their child suffer medically, can rip you apart one side down the other. And then you still have to have the strong front because our kids pick up on it. They know when you're not happy, they know when something is wrong, they know when you're upset, scared, or worried, and you have to act like this isn't a big deal, is everything's gonna be fine. I need to go pee real quick. And that's what I would say. I gotta go to the bathroom real quick. And I'd go in the bathroom and throw up and then come back, and she'd have no idea. And, you know, it was you know, she'd say, Mom, are you okay? I'm like, Yeah, can you just turn it up a minute so I can hear the music while I'm in there? And I would just be in there hurling because I am petrified of the what if. I watched my daughter code every single day, all day. I became very close. I became very close with the clergy people. I mean, the the clergy people clergy people of the hospital because she was coding multiple times a day and then going into full convulsional seizures at the same time, you know, and every day. It's I mean, that's something nobody should ever have to experience. My husband's getting up and moving around. So mental health is so important, and you know, so many people are so quick to just say, oh, well, they're autistic, they're on the spectrum, they have this, let's give them a pill, let's do this, let's do that. But they don't take the time to really sit and and look at the whole picture and get the whole you know, history from the family. It's just so quick and you know, in and out, and that's not how this should be.

SPEAKER_03 32:45

So there's you know Victoria and I have watched multiple videos where officers have approached a let's say an autistic person, and giving verbal commands to someone like this may not resonate like it does with you know someone without autism.

SPEAKER_02 33:08

Right.

SPEAKER_03 33:09

And and they they simply don't understand or cannot, maybe they cannot follow.

SPEAKER_01 33:14

Can't comprehend. Right. And it's not because they're trying to be argumentative.

SPEAKER_03 33:18

Because let's face it, how many times have you seen, just on TV alone, one officer says, get your hands up, another one says, get on the ground, one of them says, let me see your hands. The other one says, turn around, interlock your fingers, walk towards my vice. All this, all this shit, there's too many commands. And you know, we've experienced this out on the road, you know, my wife and I, you know. So I understand the officer needs to go home at night. Okay, I fully understand that. He has to look out for num numero uno, right? He has to look out for himself for his family. Okay? So he has to approach the situation carefully. But if if you can if you can get educated, if you can get training, you can see these signs, you can you can understand this person will react different if I react different. Right? So I hope in the future that our partnership with Care Correlation and Mike Mad will help lend more training to our local law enforcement and beyond, you know, whether it's in booked form or actual actual one-on-one with a classroom setting. Uh my wife and I have been in classroom settings and talked first aid, first responder, AED, things like that in the past, and how to do it again.

SPEAKER_01 34:45

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 34:46

So what's up?

SPEAKER_01 34:47

So I'm just it you can only help so many people, but we're trying to put everything out there so that we can help as many as we can in all these different avenues. And that's what we're trying to do.

SPEAKER_03 35:02

Yeah. Oh, so uh speaking of help, y'all jump on our website, uh contagious smile.com. Or carecoalition.org. Carecoalition.org. Care coalition is one word. Are you trying to say org? Okay, because we just don't know. Not org.

SPEAKER_01 35:18

We still don't know what earned is orange? Yes, that's what I just said. Okay, let's try this together. Orange. Orange. Holy crap.

SPEAKER_03 35:30

Orange. Orange. Orange. Okay. Don't forget about our our academy. A contagious smile. Academy. A contagious smile.mn.co.

SPEAKER_01 35:50

So you could have juice while watching wrestling with your sandwich on aluminum floor. You did it!

SPEAKER_00 36:00

You graduated. That's not even right. That's not even funny.

SPEAKER_03 36:06

Like that's what you're the one who says scruffle.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

Hey, faith give him a redneck dictionary, and I think it's hilarious.

SPEAKER_03 36:15

Oh, that's by your buddy Jeff.

Celebrity Support And Spreading Resources

Abuse Stats, Amputation, And Closing

SPEAKER_01 36:17

Jeff Foxworthy. He's so nice. Oh, talk about nice. Okay, hold on. So again, Dermot Moroney comes out and he's endorsing Michael Magnac and I and what we're doing, right? And for those who might not know, it was a couple of years ago, he heard about Faith and reached out to us and wanted to wish good wishes to her because that's when she was in the hospital and it was really, really bad, and she was in complete organ failure. And he, I'm gonna put the video up and he he remembered that this is my daughter, right? He remembered Faith is my daughter. And he was like, My Valentine from a couple years ago. And he's like, Oh, Valentine just went. So I'm gonna have to revisit this with her next year. And I mean, I'm sorry, but ladies are gonna agree with me about this. Dermot Mulroney back in the day. I mean, he was like everybody's cutie patootie pie, right? But I said to my husband a couple years ago, okay, Faith got Dermot Mulroney to ask her, ask him to be her Valentine's. How are you even gonna top that? I mean, how could you even top that? I don't know. I had Amir Arson who is told you to listen to your wife. So I think that's like the pre-Mother's Day gift of all time. And then Mackenzie Phillips, who has such a story and is such a strength, she's reached out and she did a video for us, and we're emailing back and forth about trying to get her on the show, which I think would be amazing because what a survivor! And for her to say that she had been looking at what we do, and I mean, we as in a contagious mouth and care coalition, and then to just love all that we do and stand for, it has no relevance. And I'm not trying to take away from her fame at all or anything that she's accomplished in her craft of being an artist and being an actor. But when you know her survival story, and it's not mine to share, when you know what she's endured and she's overcome and she's a thriver, there is hardly a compliment that can top that because she has been through hell is an understatement, an absolute understatement. And those who don't know her story, please take a moment when there's no children around and go look about it and read about her, and you'll understand. I mean, she's a great actress, don't get me wrong. But I'm talking about Mackenzie Phillips, the person who went through just hell. And to have her, you know, say that she loves what we do and and supports us is just so inspiring. It's things like that that really, and the other day I'm looking at emails and I feel horrible because it was in an email that got into my spam folder, Malcolm Goodwin, who, if you remember years ago, sent me a video and I'm like, what is this on here? Like, I didn't know what it was. Somebody he knew I had been doing therapy with, and he sent me a video thanking me because I saved their life. And to this day, I don't know who which person it was. And I treat everybody the same, so that's not even the point. And he's like, I personally just wanted to say thank you. And you have a lifetime follower in me. So he reached out to me in January and it went into spam, I didn't see it. And that's not really an excuse, but if you ask my husband, I get thousands and thousands of emails a day. And he wants to come on. And it's like I love who they are as people, but if they pass on the message too, we're really going to get out there and be able to help even more. And that's why, around the way, what I was trying to say is take two seconds and tell someone you know, someone you love, or share on Facebook that there is resources here that you can come here and learn things that you won't learn from a textbook or anything anywhere else, and just share. Listen to Mike's podcast, holding it together, kinda. I mean, that's so full of information. He is an attorney with 30 years practice. He is the founder of this really amazing nonprofit that we just partnered up with. He is just, you couldn't ask for better. And this really needs to reach as many people as we can because you know what? And I always use this as an example, but you know, let's go back not even four years from four years ago today. I had two hands, I had two arms. I had no idea that in under four months and a week, I would lose my hand and arm. I'm coming up, I can't believe I'm coming up on my fourth year of amputation. I can't believe it's been that long. And you never know. You don't know what tomorrow is gonna bring. And with the numbers like they are for abuse, one in four women go through it in the civilian sector, one in three go through it in law enforcement and military. That's a mother-daughter grandmother, a mother-daughter sister, a mother-daughter best friend. These are all free. This all of this is free, and just pass the word along so that you know, when they need it, God forbid, it's here for them too.

SPEAKER_03 41:42

And on that note, thank you all for listening to Unstoppable here the Contagious Smile and partnered with Care Coalition and Mr. Mike Michael MacNack.

SPEAKER_01 41:56

It's not Macnack. He is gonna have you for lunch. And think how I feel. I'm in a stucco sandwich. I'm in a Mike sandwich.

SPEAKER_03 42:03

It's Michael McNack, y'all. I said that one time when I was uh I was real tired. I just woke up and I slaughtered his name. Oh, no, no, no different than y'all slaughtered Kellen's. He's got a hard last name to pronounce.

SPEAKER_01 42:17

Can you pronounce it? Fluginger.

SPEAKER_03 42:20

No, I hear an N in there. There's no N. It's I G E R. So anyway.

SPEAKER_01 42:30

So I've now I have I'm I'm in the middle of a mic sandwich and I'm in the middle of a stucco sandwich.

SPEAKER_03 42:35

That's just gross.

SPEAKER_01 42:36

What?

SPEAKER_03 42:37

No.

SPEAKER_01 42:38

Why would you take it there? Because I wasn't taking it there. No.

SPEAKER_03 42:41

No. No, we're not having one of those poly poly ro omnagon, whatever relationship.

SPEAKER_00 42:48

Poly omnagon?

SPEAKER_03 42:49

Whatever the hell they call it now.

SPEAKER_01 42:50

What is a poly omnagon?

SPEAKER_03 42:53

Something that these kids made up. Good night, y'all.

SPEAKER_01 42:56

Oh my please pray for me. Please.