- There's two things you have to do when you make that decision. One is you have to make
it based on your gut and fully trust your gut and go headstrong that you made that decision. And two, make peace with the fact that it could be the wrong decision. Welcome to the Checkup Podcast. Today we have such a hard hitting
and important conversation with guests, Sam and Colby. They're known for their incredibly
popular videos on YouTube exploring paranormal activity. And today we're gonna
touch on on some of that. But we're also gonna touch
on the earth shattering testicular cancer diagnosis
that Colby received only a few short months ago. From how he received the news, the emotional impact of
it, the medical journey. And in fact, we will brainstorm
on this very podcast, what exactly should he do moving forward? Very educational conversation. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Let's get started with
the Checkup Podcast. I have to ask first question,
is this place haunted? - We walked in here and I
just felt something was off, immediately.
- Really, there's an energy? - I think we have to start
an investigation now. - Really?
- Oh, yeah. I think, you know what? Lets do the podcast.
- Well, I think the investigation that has to happen is to why they lie about
floors in this building. - 100%.
- Honestly. - Because if there's 10
floors missing in a building, maybe that's an area
where ghosts hang out. - You know what? You're onto something here. - What's on those mystery floors? We gotta go figure it out. - Little did we know there
are no mystery floors. They just lie about the floors. - They're just liars, oh God. - Savages, for those listening, what we're actually talking
about is that my building, they have 10 floors
missing in one section, then another 10 floors missing. And I always thought they
were reserved for something. But in reality, if you go
in between those 10 floors, there's nothing there,
it just skips 10 floors. - So, New York is lying to you. - New York is all about the branding. - Makes sense.
- No, ghosts, just lies. - But speaking of ghosts, I'm
an evidence-based physician. Meaning that every time
I make a recommendation, as you'll see, when we start talking about all the medical stuff
you guys have going on, I'd base it off of
evidence that we studied. - Right. - What is the evidence that
paranormal activity exists? - Well, see that's the thing is there's no concrete evidence. And that's why there's people
that are like ghost hunters like us trying to figure it out stuff. We have like our own
equipment that will go off with electromagnetic energy. And we use that and just honestly, like based on what we hear and see while we're at these places, it's, there's no like concrete
evidence that anybody has or else everybody would know about it. - Fair. What's the best evidence you've seen that paranormal activity exists? - Oh my gosh. We have literally experienced
pretty much everything. Like, we've even gotten pushed, touched, we've heard voices in our
ears, we've seen doors slam, - Behind us.
- On each other. - Yeah, no, we definitely have evidence.
- Door slams? And this isn't like someone
playing a joke or a prank. This is full on real. - I'm in a haunted mansion in
Texas and I ask the question, slam a door if you're, if you're
here, if you're behind me. And not, literally only like 10 seconds,
- It's not your producer, it's not the camera person.
- Promise, it's only us. We only, yeah, it's only
us two as like the crew. - Yeah, we try to go
into every single place, completely alone, so
that there's no element of other people involved. And no one else can say that, hey this, that it could be a producer, that could be another cameraman
or something like that. - It was perfect timing too. It was like the door was
wide open the entire time I was asking questions. I asked that one specifically,
slams right behind me. - How do you recover from that though? Because like, all I would
be thinking about is, what is that? Is it coming for me? How can I sleep at night? - Yeah, well, I mean, it's
something that we like to call the paranormal hangover, where it takes like two
or three days afterwards to kind of get back to normal and we have to watch like a
bunch of happy YouTube videos to get back in a good mood and stuff. - It kinda, it gets depressing. - It gets bad, but. - What's the happy YouTube
videos you guys watch? - God, oh man. For me, you know, I always
love watching PewDiePie. - Oh yeah?
- He's my happy guy. - You don't watch the little cat videos? - Sometimes the cat videos pop up, but we don't need to
talk about that, right? - No, but truly like it's scary. Especially when we first started this, we've been doing this for
four or five years now, and so, it gets a little easier over time. Just like a scary rollercoaster. But the first couple times we did this, it was so shocking that we'd
just have long conversations for hours and be like, what
do we actually experience? This is like questioning our religion, questioning what we're
gonna be talking to, like our kids about one day. Like, this is scary stuff
and it genuinely affects us. - Did you go into this believing in it? - No, not at all.
- We're very skeptical. Yeah.
- Really? - Very very skeptical.
- We did because we didn't believe, we're like, all right, like we can go into these
haunted places and not be scared because like, yeah, it's not real. And then stuff was happening and then more stuff was
happening and then we were like, we can't keep chalking
us up to coincidence. This is insane. - That's so scary. How do you know when
to film certain things or when to break out
certain pieces of equipment? Or is that just fortunate timing? - That is a lot of fortunate timing and also a lot of the editing style, we just film like as
much as we possibly can. We try to keep cameras on
whenever we go into new rooms and we try to keep even
like cameras in other rooms while we're not there,
just to try to capture as much as possible, but yeah, there are definitely times that
you hear something in person that you don't get on camera and then you're kicking yourself. - There's also like a million
different things you can do to like ask out if there's
ghosts and, or like for example, there's just like 20 different
pieces of ghost equipment that you can get online. And a lot of the stuff Sam and
I haven't even tried out yet. So, a lot of the episodes
we're just trying new things and again, we're trying to
figure it out ourselves. Yes, we have evidence, yes, we believe, but like we haven't seen somebody levitate in front of our eyes
or something like that. There's not like any
concrete, 100% evidence. - Yeah, so, speaking to that,
if you're so evidence-based, I'm assuming you don't believe in ghosts? - I would introduce myself as agnostic. - Okay. - Meaning like I don't
think I'm smart enough to know if there are ghosts, because I don't have the
evidence to prove that they exist or they don't exist, so,
I'm skeptically agnostic. - And would that be the same
in terms of religion too? More agnostic?
- Yeah, mm-hmm. - Yeah.
- Totally. Because I try and live
in the practical world as much as possible because it
allows me to be my best self for my patients. And even when making YouTube
content in order to figure out what's the best way to
explain something to somebody or get them excited about their health. So, if I start venturing into that space, I can really cause a lot
of problems for people. - That makes sense.
- Of course. - Yeah.
- About, and I'm sure you guys have
seen this like on social media, oh, if you prick your finger here, your sore throat will go away. Or if you have this condition, if you just take my
miracle potion for 7,99. - Yeah, everyone's trying
to sell something on you. - It makes sense.
- For sure, yeah. - Have you guys seen that, actually, I'm curious in the, in your world online, 'cause everyone has
different for you pages. - No, maybe not in the
paranormal like world, but I've seen a bunch of people
being like, oh, you know, you don't need to go to a
doctor, you can just do this or, drink from this beautiful
lake or something, it'll be fine.
- Exactly. - It's incredible how dangerous
and problematic that is. And most people think it's dangerous because it's taking away people's money and it's being unfair and it's rude. All of that is true, but there's actual legitimate
danger to having people not get themselves diagnosed
and have things get worse. - For sure, yeah. - Where they actually did
a study in 2017 to see if individuals who were going
down the alternative medicine pathway as opposed to
conventional cancer treatment for their cancers, which
people died at a higher rate. Those people who went alternative medicine instead of conventional
died at a higher rate, had a higher risk of dying. - Interesting, I mean,
it makes sense of course. Like, we went to the professionals. - Well it does, but
not if you're listening to their magical advice,
'cause they're saying this will make you live forever. - True.
- Well, it just, comes down to why are people believing the alternative stuff? And it's like.
- Why do you think people believe it? - I mean, people are getting
fantastic at marketing. - That's true. - And it's like social media
is so prevalent and sometimes people like in the medical
field are not as prevalent as some of these other master marketers. - Or like other doctors don't really care about their credibility and if they, there's money involved in a
brand deal to promote something that's not legitimate,
they'll still do it. And that will influence a lot of people. - Those are absolutely two valid reasons. I have a different
theory than both of you. I think it's because our
healthcare system sucks so much that it's turned people
off of regular medicine and instead of going to see a doctor where they're staring
at a computer screen, they're burnt out. You have only 10 minutes with
them, they push you a pill. You'd rather go see the
caring, compassionate, kind person who's alternative for an hour and buy into their natural approach. - Right.
- I agree. - That makes sense.
- We've come to that conclusion.
- Yeah, we have a lot to say about that, yeah.
- Yeah. - Oh, what do you have to say about that? - Well, I mean, it's just been very, very hard to contact my doctor. I have multiple doctors
I've been talking to, including an oncologist and
it takes two or three days minimum to contact them via
the patient portal online. Understand doctors are
busy and everything, but even calling them, you
have to wait for your doctor to call you. It's not like, well, for me at least I was having to wait with like a 45 minute
voice answering machine before I was even able to
connect to the front office to maybe talk to my doctor. Like it was just a lot harder for patients to get the answers they're looking for. Especially with a serious
condition like cancer. - I would say like looking at the process that's been happening over
the past couple months, like more than half the
anxiety is caused by not being able to have
any sort of communication with anybody in healthcare. It's like, I'm so frustrated for you, so, I can't even imagine the
thought process going through everything just trying to
get through healthcare. It's insane.
- And again, I'm not, like I know
doctors are busy in general and so, I'm sure they have
like a million patients each and it's hard to like
keep track of and stuff. It's just voicing our
frustration of how long it takes to get information back
when it's life or death. Like you talking about.
- Absolutely. - Even scheduling too.
- Yeah, scheduling. - Like months and months of like, wait, what this is gonna take how long? - Yeah, not like going too
far ahead of the story here, but like for example, we
had to expedite my surgery. Like we were able to do that ourselves. I had somebody on our, on our team just call around
to like the Mayo Clinic in UCLA and they were able
to schedule my orchiectomy way faster, like, I
think three days faster than the intended surgery. Like, interesting. - So, it sounds like you
agree with my theory. - Yeah, literally.
- Yeah. - Because it sucks so much, it's easy to fall victim
to someone who's preying on your insecurities and your fears and giving you false hope.
- Exactly. - And then the second layer of it is if you go see your doctor
and your doctor's like, look, you gotta put in real work, you gotta improve discipline
with lifestyle habits, drop the smoking, drop the
drinking, sleep better, increase the amount of fruits
and vegetables you're eating. These are things that take work, right? And then this other person's like, but I got a potion. - Drink this though.
- This magic pill. Like here you go.
- Who would choose putting in all that work when
there's a magic solution? - Exactly, yeah. Taking the easier,
- It's just easier. - Easier route, yeah. - Yeah.
- Yeah. - For sure. - And what actually
paralyzes me as a physician in order to debunk some of this
stuff is that we brought up the conversation of
evidence-based medicine, which is if I'm making a
decision on when to give someone a blood transfusion, right,
because they're anemic, let's say, I know when to
give that blood transfusion because we've done the research to say at this level it doesn't
really benefit their survival, at this level, it really does. So, we know that's the
cutoff we can give it. Then we can have different situations, the person's actively bleeding,
all these other factors, but we have evidence guiding us, right. - [Colby] Makes sense. - I can say I have the evidence for this, but what I cannot say is, so, let's say a miracle claim is made, this will cure whatever
problem you're having, right? I can then say there is no
evidence to say that that's going on, but I cannot say this
definitely does not work. - Oh, I see, yeah. - Because I would need
to research and prove that that doesn't work.
- You need evidence for that. - Yes.
- Geez, yeah. Makes sense.
- So, it's. - It's a good argument.
- It's so hard, because what the conversation
ends up becoming is the magical snake oil
salesman ends up saying this magic potion works. And I say, there's no evidence it works. And they say back, there's
no evidence it doesn't work. - Yeah.
- Right. - Marketing 101 right there.
- And I'm like, but it's on you to prove it works. You have to prove something works before you make an outrageous claim. So, that's the constant
battle I'm always facing of when can I cross that line of saying, nah, I don't even care that
I don't have evidence that this doesn't work, I'm
still gonna say it doesn't work. - Is there a legal implications for that? Like why couldn't you
just say that doesn't work and I know it because. - It's like an ethical
thing more than anything. And you just want to not be hypocritical, because if you're saying you
need evidence to say something, you need to keep it across the board. - That makes sense.
- Yeah, understandable. - The place where I like to go with it is there's no even reasonable
explanation why this could work and that's what makes me shit on it. So, I'm like, dude,
pricking your finger here has no reasonable way
to affect your throat. This is not connected to
this in any reasonable way. Why this point over this point? And if you have no explanation
for it, to me it's bullshit. That's how I approach it. I approach like systematically
like how can this possibly work? And that's why I look
at ghost hunting stuff and I'm like, I can't even
figure out how this works. - Yeah, exactly. - You can't explain why it doesn't work. - That's also like why
we go into it so often, like bringing people that you know, don't believe because it's so interesting 'cause like for us we're like, oh, we don't really know how to prove it unless you experience it yourself. - Exactly.
- And so that's pretty much the only way. - So, are you saying you could take me to an abandoned hospital and
prove to me that this exists? - Not any abandoned hospital, but some of 'em for sure.
- Really? - Yeah, I mean.
- Oh yeah, for sure. - We've taken many, many people who are like complete skeptics
and they go in and be like, well, dang I didn't think
of it like this before. - When we first started this in like 2019, it was mostly about like
Sam and I and a couple of other friends just
experiencing everything together. But now we're really
trying to take new guests every single time that a lot
of them, like Sam was saying, completely are skeptical,
do not believe at all. And they experience more than us. Like, they're the ones that- - Is that because it's
in their heads more? - You can say that some people think, but. - Like, you were just saying, it's like they can't prove
that it's not real, type thing. Because there's just
no explanation for how that door slammed or how
someone talked in their ear but there was no one else
in the room with them. It's like they know probably their, like in their mind they
want to find a solution or some logical answer, but they can't. And so, it's not technically proven, but it's also like they
couldn't prove it if they tried. - Wow, that's so scary. I wouldn't even know what to
do in a situation like that. I think I would fully break down. - I actually did, the
first time I experienced a paranormal thing. - We both cried on camera, like, - Absolutely,
- Dude, the paranormal. - Yeah, it's bad.
- It was scary. - Fear or unknown, what
was driving that emotion? - Your entire worldview
breaks down and then, then looking forward you don't
know what to expect anymore, because whatever you had thought
previously is now altered. And so, the way I just looked at life post paranormal experience
was like, wait, this is, could be completely different than whatever I thought before. - Especially somebody who's like agnostic, believing or seeing something
that like changes your belief system even like your religion, is crazy. - Yeah, like at the point
of this, like we said, we weren't really believers. I was pretty much not religious at all. I was like at this point
where I was like okay, I just, you know, I can't find a realistic
explanation why this is real. And so, after this first
paranormal experience I was like, - Wait.
- Wait, maybe it could, and like should I become religious again? Like oh my God, everything
changed, you know? - So, how does it change
your day-to-day life now that you are aware that
this could be a possibility and a reality? - I don't know if it changes it too much, but I mean, it depends
on, from person to person. Like we were saying, there's like a paranormal hangover that usually lasts for
like two or three days. Like, especially if we go
to a super intense location, like the Conjuring house for example, that will be like a
weak paranormal hangover where we just have to get back
to acting normal and stuff. Live a normal life, but. - What about spirituality
wise or religious wise? - I think it gives us hope, you know? Like, that's the main
reason why we do this and we always tell all of
our supporters this like, the reason why we're trying to prove it is because it gave us hope and it gave me hope of like-
- Hope in what way? - Of like something more,
it's like if you think that, at the end of your life
you're just gonna get buried and thrown on the ground
and it's over with. That's like kind of a sad thought. But if there's that mind
that maybe there possibly is something else out there
or there's different types of energies or you know,
humans are not the only thing in this entire universe,
it's kind of like inspiring. - Yeah, and no matter
what you believe in too, like you can put that concept
to any sort of religion and it just helps. It just helps to know
there's something more. - I think that there is
power in understanding that we're smaller than
everything else around us. It kind of takes some of the
weight off your shoulders. When we look at the
universe and we see how our understanding of
the universe has changed over the last 100, 200 years, every time we make a scientific discovery, it sounds fake when we
initially make the scientific discovery. Like if someone holds up and they're like, I have the cure for the
bacteria that is within us. Someone's like, what
are you talking about? This is bullshit and then it
turns out to be revolutionary. - Exactly. - Or the vaccine comes out
and it's revolutionary. And then on the other hand
we could see how badly it could be weaponized with
the people giving false hope. - Exactly.
- Mm. - So, the only way I can
figure out what's the fair way of doing it is what's the intention and what's the evidence behind it? That's how I think about it as a doctor. But I would love, if
you guys take me to a, actually I wouldn't love, but
I think people would love. - People would love, I'd hate it. Well, come with us if you want. - Well, because it's scary. I get legitimately scared of the dark. I'm one of those fear of
the unknown type people. Heights scare me, I'm very sensitive. I fight people for a living. - I was gonna say, come on, man. - But you can't punch a ghost. - You could try.
- You could try. - That would be- - That would be a really funny video. - Because it's like when you're
in a ring against somebody, you see the threat, you
can assess the threat, you can make peace with the threat. But when the threat is all around you, it's whispering in your
ear, it's closing doors. It's like, what else is it doing to me? - Exactly.
- You have no idea. - You dunno how powerful or
or what it could do to you or where it's at or even
how it could affect you. - [Colby] Exactly. - What's the wildest story
you've heard from someone else that you've met along this journey, that they've experienced some
kind of paranormal stuff? - With us specifically?
- No, with like on their own. That they've shared a story with you. - Oh my gosh.
- Oh, wow. - There's so many of different things. - I'm sure, but like, which one is, oh, this is really powerful.
- I mean, the one, that first came to mind
is our friend Celina. Celina Spooky Boo.
- Spooky Boo, yeah. - She has like some crazy psychic ability where she can dream and even, if she like spends time
just collecting her thoughts and kind of goes into a trance, she can like almost envision
things happening around her that are somehow
constantly true, like she, - What?
- It's insane. - It's like we didn't believe
it at first, we were like, whoa, this crazy.
- This X-Men thing. - But she was able to predict
everything that happened in one of our videos. Like, she called us and she
was just like, Sam and Colby, you gotta like, be careful. This is gonna happen,
this is gonna happen. You're gonna be running through a forest, like going in between these specific trees that how would she know in a
forest what they look like? Everything she said was very true. - She's on the opposite side of a country. So, like, and she had never
been to this place before. So, it's insane.
- And she knew? - She knew, she knew. Now that's maybe not like
paranormal in a sense. - Well, I mean, that's
medically explainable. - Exactly.
- Yeah, exactly. - There's been people like
who has told us maybe, in this asylum we went to, one guy we'd do a couple videos with, he said he like completely passed out. Like, that's what he
thought and he woke up. But in reality he had been awake for like four or five hours, having these like weird out-of-body like. - Like dissociations?
- Yeah, kind of. But like, yeah, he didn't
remember any of it, but all of his friends
were saying you were acting like a different person that
you had never acted like forever and asking for things
that you would never ask for and be like different person. - Like blackout, he was,
he was blackout drunk. - But then.
- But sober? - But sober.
- Yeah, completely sober. And he has never had that sense and that was just like
a one time occurrence in his entire life. - And he can't recall
anything that happened. It's like all of his friends
saying this happened. - So, he thinks like, you know, as much as we wouldn't
believe in like possession, he believes like that. Like he was just a different
person for a couple hours. - All right, I'm
reconsidering wanting to go. Can you imagine if you
guys take me somewhere, I get possessed and then
I become a worst doctor for my patients. That's a legitimate fear I would have. I don't know.
- Become a different person. - Oh, but maybe I go and
I become a better fighter. - There you go. - So, there could be an upside. - Channel that boxing, you know. - You know what's crazy is
after my whole situation happened, there were people saying, and I'm not saying we believe this at all, but just kind of interesting, people were blaming our
videos on my cancer. - What, in what set? Like I can't even. - Like, for example, okay so there's this haunted
doll in Key West Florida. His name is Robert the Doll. And he specifically, if you disrespect him or stare him in the eyes or take pictures, which we did all of those,
he gives you cancer. That's like the story of it.
- Oh my god. - And I was diagnosed
with testicular cancer not only like two months later. - Two months later.
- Because of Robert. - That's what people say,
I'm not gonna say that. I don't want to put that
narrative out there. - Who owns Robert. - Museum.
- The museum now, yeah. - [Dr. Mike] Can we sue? - Yeah. - We should.
- Let's go. - It's their fault.
- Get that money. - No, it's interesting though.
- No, no, no. I mean, okay, so medically
I don't know what to say. - No, that's probably no
explanation at all for that. - No, I'm just saying.
- It's just interesting. - What I am curious about
is how did hearing that make you feel? - I mean, I obviously didn't believe it. Of course, I don't know, I, like, just kind of shrugged
it off and was just like, there's no way and just
moved on with my day, really. - Okay, well, I don't know, I would kind of feel probably
mad if I'm putting myself in your shoes, 'cause I'm like dude, this is an unfortunate
thing that's happened to me and you're blaming my work on it. - Right.
- You're going too far. I don't know, maybe I'm putting. - And I mean, there was a
lot of people in the comments that were defending me. For that, I just was saying like, hey, you can create whatever
narrative in your head that you wanna think
makes sense, like, okay, I'm gonna say it's just
'cause I got unlucky and testicular cancer is
very common for young men. Anyways, like between
I think like 20 to 35. So, I was just like it was just, you know, an unlucky thing that happened. - Is most cancers completely like random or are there a series
of events that you can- - This is so bad because I
thought you were about to ask me, are most cancers caused
by Robert the Doll? - I mean, yeah, like
could you tell us that? - No, are they completely random? There's a mix between
spontaneous mutations that can cause random mutations in DNA that give rise to cancer. And then there are some that
are passed along genetically, that you can develop. I have a higher risk of developing cancer. So, there's both, it's
not one or the other. It's almost like the nature
verse nurture argument. - Yeah.
- Okay. - But in this case we have
definite proof of both. - Oh. - Because there's certain
cancers, like for example, colon cancer, we now
recommend starting screening with a colonoscopy at age 45. But if you have a first degree relative who has colon cancer, you start your screening
10 years prior to their age of diagnosis.
- I see. - And so, let's say your dad
had colon cancer at age 30. At age 20 we start screening you. - Hmm, I see. - Because that raises
your risk substantially. But that's not for every
cancer because some cancers are sporadic and have no
family connection at all. - Testicular cancer, does that, is that gonna be something
my kids should worry about? Well, my son?
- To be honest, I don't know, we could probably look that up. I think it's good for
the audience right now to sort of lay out exactly
why we're talking about cancer so much.
- Right, okay. - To start, tell your story. How did, how did that whole
process start up for you? - Yeah, well, it's actually
been kind of a shorter journey than expected, I started
noticing some pain in November. It was actually the first
memory I have of noticing some pain was when we were shooting a video, we were shooting this
lighthouse paranormal video where we had to walk a bunch of stairs, like four or five times,
300 feet in the sky. And I remember looking at Sam
on like the third or fourth round of going up the
stairs and being like, dude, it feels like my ball is in pain. Like it feels like a slight bruise. - Were you thinking ghost? - At that point? No, but oh my god.
- I think he was thinking like I actually slammed it with the camera or something like that.
- I thought it like smacked it or something, but it was
just, yeah, my left testicle and it was like very slight. It wasn't even that bad,
it was just going upstairs, moving like my legs a certain way
- Like an ache. - Like a very dull ache. But then I would relax and
would completely go away, like a week later I was completely fine. But I noticed with like a
bunch of strenuous activity, like I've been trying to
go on hikes a lot recently and Sam and I have picked
up pickleball in Vegas. - Oh yeah, nice. - And I noticed being on my feet all day, it would flare up a little bit, get worse, which I thought was just
inflammation at first. And then, so I'd relax for a
few days and it would go down or if I had sex or if I masturbated, the next day it would flare up really bad and then I would relax
and it would go down. And so, that would just repeat. And that cycle went over
until about like January 15th, where it flared up really bad one day and it finally made me pick up
the phone and call the doctor 'cause, yeah, symptoms were, it was at this point when it
would flare up, it was swollen. There was a pain that was
now starting in my lower left pelvis, it was like by my waistband and it was like this throbbing
pain, almost like a cramp, cramping pain when I
would sit down and it, like after it would flare
up for the first day to like three days it would
be even hard to stand up. It was that bad. But again, then I would
relax for a few days and it would go down completely. The only thing that I noticed
that every single time it would go down after the
few days of rest is each time, 'cause again this cycle
kind of happened like two or three times before I
called a doctor, was it would, the swelling would shrink down
but my testicle itself would be larger and more firm and
like it looked asymmetrical in my sac.
- Got it - It was like weighing down. - More so than usual. - Yeah, and each time would
get a little bit worse. - Got it.
- And I would notice that. But like again the pain would go away. It just, at that point I
was like feeling down there and trying to figure
out what was going on. It was definitely firm. In November, it was very slight. And so, that was like
the early, in my opinion, stage of it or whatever,
but December and January, there was everything like affecting it. Like you could tell and there
was some swelling and I knew, I thought I had something
called acute epididymitis. But, so it was January 25th, I believe, I went to the doctor just
for a general checkup. I hadn't been to a doctor
in like eight years, my bad. - Okay. - But oops.
- Oops, but I went. - I mean, and that also doesn't
mean you would've caught it earlier, because like for example, if you're not having an
issue with that area, I might not do a testicular exam. It depends on what you're coming in for. You know what I'm saying?
- Exactly. And and there was like a
stigma where like at first I was like embarrassed 'cause it was, it was like down there and I was like, maybe I should like wait for a little bit. And that's probably why I
waited for like a good month and a half before actually going in, before it got super bad. But. - Did you feel comfortable
sharing all that with Sam? - I actually don't think I told Sam until after my doctor's appointment. Right?
- Yeah. I think he told me, - [Colby] The pain maybe. - Yeah, the pain, end of like December, when it was like your second time of actually having it bad, you were like, there's something weird
like, I don't know, maybe I should chill out or something. - I was just playing it
down, I was just like, oh, I think I just like hit it,
like it just feels weird. But that's it, but low-key
I knew like after all day it'd be like very swollen. But I didn't go into
detail with Sam about that. So, anyways, again, like I told the doctor there
was something wrong going on down there and he did an exam and told me like something was wrong obviously. And said like, I think you
have acute epididymitis, you should go see a
radiologist in the next month. And so, I decided to be proactive about it and go see one the next morning. And I'm so lucky I did. - Wait, we wanted you
to see a radiologist? - Yes. - [Dr. Mike] Why a radiologist? - So, they do ultrasounds,
they do all the CT scans. MRIs.
- I see what you mean. Okay, so he wanted to order imaging. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he gave me shots for
like STDs to be safe. Like I got like that
gonorrhea shot in like my ass. - Well no, no. - [Colby] It was interesting. - It's, random and a little bit, sorry. Tell your story and then I'll
tell you my medical feedback on it.
- Okay, okay. They were doing I guess just
for caution, but anyway. So, I went to the radiologist, they did an ultrasound on
my sac, which was great. - Which is like the primary thing we do in a lot of these scenarios. Because we don't have, not x-ray vision, but like see through
vision with our hands. We can see something's abnormal. We could see that there's
a spot area of pain. But in order to visualize
exactly what we're looking at, the ultrasound helps guide that. - Right, and I'm lucky that he told me to go to a radiologist, but I'm even luckier that I
decided to go the next morning because-
- Why did he schedule it a month, I'm just curious? - Well he'd never even scheduled it. He was just like, you should
just go within this next month, you can go to this radiology
place down the street. And it was my decision to,
I didn't even drive home. I drove straight to the
radiologist to the front desk so I could talk to a human and not go on phone calls and stuff. And I just got so lucky
and they were just like, we actually just had a
free spot the next morning at 8:00 am. So, it was right in the
morning the next day and did the whole
ultrasound and everything. And Sam and I were in a
meeting and I got a call from an unknown number and
so I just like hung up. I didn't think anything
about it, but I yeah. - Like ghosts.
- Yeah, I was like, yeah, it was probably just a
ghost calling me, whatever. But I was like looking at my
voicemail and I noticed like you can see like the transcript pop up and I saw like, hello,
it's like your doctor, like I need you to call me
back asap, it's very serious. And I was like, yeah, that
doesn't gimme an anxiety. - It's the worst message
you could possibly get from a doctor. - And so, I was trying to keep
my cool during this meeting, just like only thinking about that. And then as soon as the meeting was over, I went downstairs and I called my doctor and he said that the radiologist said that I had a mass in my ball that
was 95% likely to be cancer. And that was like when my first, like obviously my heart
dropped at that moment and he told me immediately
on the phone call, he was just like, don't
worry, like it's very curable. Usually you just have to get
a surgery and that's that, but I need you to come
to the office right away. And so, I remember just going
straight to my bathroom, looking at myself in the mirror
and being like, all right, like it is what it is, don't
freak out, you've got this. And just kind of talking to myself, giving myself a pep talk. And I didn't even tell Sam. I just started driving and
then I called Sam, I remember, and let you know what was
going on as I was driving to the doctor's office. But yeah, at the doctor's they
obviously reassured me again. They were just like, it does
look like it, it's cancer, but it seems like we caught
it early, so we just need you to get the surgery as soon as possible and then you should be fine. So, they said the next
steps are go right now to get some blood work done
where they test something called your tumor markers, your AFP, hCG. And if those are high, elevated, then it means there's a tumor present. And so, went got the blood work done and met up with Sam
actually he drove out to, we went to like a Walgreens
or something to get the blood work, so, he drove out
all the way to Walgreens, like gave each other
hugs and talked about it. That was the first time
I saw him or saw anybody besides my doctor since hearing about it. - Yeah, which was really, really scary, because I don't, obviously, I don't know what all they
they do at their blood work center, but they were telling
you some scary things. Like, oh wait, you have cancer, are you prepared to not have kids? Like this could be like life or death and it was just scaring
Colby for no reason at all. - Well, you know what's interesting, and I was wanting to ask
you about this as well, is they asked me, they were just
like, no offense, no offense. Like we're not saying you look
like this at all or whatever. Like, or trying to make any assumptions. They were just like, were you a female at
one point of your life? And I was like, no, what? Like almost taken aback,
like what the hell are they talking about? And they said we need
to test for your hCG, which is found in pregnant women, and so, they didn't even understand.
- I understand what you mean. - They didn't get that like it was also like a tumor cancer thing.
- Marker, yeah. So, let me just jump in
there because we need to give a little feedback from what
happens in those situations, that I think potentially
destroys everyone's experience with the healthcare system. And it's when people that are
within the healthcare system that are not experts in the
field, start giving you opinions and thoughts as to what's going on. And it's sometimes being helpful, because they're thinking outside the box and sometimes it's fully inaccurate, fully fear mongering based. And I have no idea how to
approach it as a doctor, because I don't want someone
telling you things about beta hCG that they don't
even know why I'm ordering the test, and they're
like dissuading you almost from doing it or scaring
you and telling you that this is gonna affect
your life in a certain way when they have no idea
what the statistics are or what kind of cancer you
have, all these things. So, I actually struggle with this a lot and I see that happen where I
make a diagnosis to a patient, I ask them if they have
any questions, they say no, let's say this is in an
ER setting, I walk out, then someone walks in who's
helping transport them, et cetera, then they ask that person because they came up with a question and then that person starts answering based on no expertise in the subject and it becomes a disaster. So, I have no idea how to fix that. - And it was interesting
'cause then afterwards they were like, they were being very sweet and I don't mean to like
knock these nurses at all, but like they were just kind of like, oh, well, be thankful for every day. Like, be thankful that you're here man. Just wake up and pray like every day, and I was like, what?
(crosstalk) - You telling him he's
gonna die in in two days. Are you kidding me?
- Was like making my anxiety just like time's 10 pretty much, 'cause my doctor just told me, oh you'll be fine with just the surgery, then this lady's like,
yeah, wake up and pray. Like you should be thankful you're here. - I mean, that's not bad advice, but I understand why
it's anxiety provoking. - Yeah, exactly.
- She was like, don't tell your family or
anybody yet just like, you know, make sure you figure it out
before, I was like, what? Like in this crazy time
I feel like you should try to get as much support as you can. - Exactly. - Your family and friends for sure. - Yeah, I told or yeah,
she told me specifically she was like, 'cause I
made a joke, I was like, well, guess I go call,
gotta call my mom now, as I was walking out. And she was just like, don't do that. That's just gonna like freak her out. Like you should wait
until you're a 100% sure, wait till these blood results
come back and everything. And I called-
- But that's so isolated. - I called my mom when I got in the car. So, she was the first person I called, like five minutes later and then yeah, the next steps were getting
a urology appointment. And then honestly I kind of
felt like that was pointless, if I'm being completely real. Because all they did was I had to fill out a bunch of paperwork,
I went into the office, they checked it and they
were just like, yep, you need to get it taken out. But apparently the urologist
was the one that could help me schedule the orchiectomy.
- Yep. - And so, not like the actual doctor. And so, I needed to have that step. But what what was interesting
is the urologist that I saw in Vegas had scheduled me
out for an orchiectomy like, I think I was saying like two weeks later. - Maybe like three weeks. It was like end of
February, and you found out in the beginning of February. That was crazy.
- Two to three weeks later. And my, like I was saying,
my, one of my team members, I was telling them about
the situation, of course, he just called around
to like the Mayo Clinic in UCLA and got me like one
of the best referrals ever with like one of the most
reputable testicular, specifically cancer doctors
or like urologists out there. And once I got a virtual
appointment with him, he was able to get me
in like four days later. It was super quick. And so, all all basically I'm saying that because like my team and
if we didn't try hard, we wouldn't have like, expedited it.
- And have resources to travel and do all these things.
- Exactly, yeah, yeah. You need that as well.
- People are also, you know, sometimes being a single
parent and having two jobs in the middle of all this. So, it's like a lot of
things aligned very well. - Exactly.
- So, I'm happy that that happened for you.
- I got so lucky, but just to give you a
timeline, I, on January 25th, went to the doctor's appointment and February 6th I got surgery.
- Yeah, it's 12 days. - Yeah, literally, literally, so. - But think about that. If you went to that doctor's appointment, he said get the radiologist
within appointment within a month. Then after that your
urologist would've been, you know, two, three weeks later. Then if you would've listened to that guy and got a surgery in Vegas, which would be ideal for most
people being in the same area. That could've also been a month, you probably would not
even have your surgery yet to this day, if you
stayed in the same system that you were going to go. - And like with the type
of cancer that I had too, which we can get into in a
second, but like it was rapidly, there was a part of it that
was like rapidly growing and who knows if it could have
developed into a stage two sort of a cancer if I did wait till now to just get my surgery, it's just scary stuff.
- Very. - But I can go into
the surgery if you want or I could keep going with this path. - Let's take a pause so
then I can sort of translate of how ideally this should
go and why certain paths were chosen versus others. 'Cause I think it's an
important learning situation. So, ideally this is in a world
where we know that someone already has testicular cancer. So, we're kind of being
Monday morning quarterback, but I'm explaining how it should go. A patient would come in
with testicular pain, let's say they come into
my office, young person, obviously testicular cancer
would be part of my differential diagnosis, which is one of the options that I could diagnose the patient with, simply because of their
age and because that there is some kind of growth in the area. We also know, as you said, testicular cancer happens most commonly in those age 20 to their 30s. And then it, what's interesting about it is it also happens in those age 60 plus. So, kind of has interesting
two spikes in life. The highest spike is early
in life and the second spike is later in life, it usually
doesn't happen midlife for people, we don't even really know why. And the types of testicular
cancers change with the age, like, usually the ones later in life tend to be less invasive,
less problematic. The ones that happen earlier
in life are the ones that have some potential for growth. So, a patient comes in
with testicular pain, right away I have to rule out
is this a traumatic situation? Is this an infectious situation or is this a cancer situation? Your doctor seemed to
diagnose you with all, - Pretty much.
- Of the above, at the same time, there's ways where we can
start making diagnoses or narrowing down our list of diagnoses so that we don't have to
give you all the treatments, like antibiotics for potential STIs, when I could test them in the office and get you a result in 24 hours. Where I don't have to then expose you to antibiotics unnecessarily. So, that's like one step
that could have been skipped. If you're having pain that is
acute right now, for example, like, let's say you came
into my office right now, it hurts really bad and I
press on the area and it hurts. I'm sending you for an
ultrasound in that moment. Not for the fear of cancer, but for the fear of a condition
known as testicular torsion, where the testicle can
actually mal rotate. And cut off circulation to it, which is a surgical emergency, because a testicle's actively dying and that kind of can
happen on its own for, like without a real true explanation. So, I'm sending, if you
came in you're like, my testicle hurts and it hurts right now, you're getting an ultrasound that day, not in a month. - It's insane. - That's insane, yeah.
- Just for that reason. And we would've then seen a mass and then gotten the information earlier. So, that's something that
would've changed in the process. And then once we would've
gotten the report of this ultrasound, we would've seen that there's
some kind of unknown mass. You would then come back to my office. I would explain to you the
thing that we just said, that testicular cancer
happens at your age group, 95% survival rate, five years. So, it's a very treatable
cancer with surgery. There are some instances
where we do chemotherapy or radiation therapy depending
on the type of cancer it is. And testicular cancer really
falls into two categories and then they can be
subdivided even further. But one is a germ cell tumor, which is the type of cells
that make your sperm. And then the stromal type tumor, which is the hormonal supportive
tissue of the testicle, that can have a tumor. Then the germ cell tumor
can be further divided into seminoma and non-seminoma. And then to make it even more confusing, there's mixed types and
all these other things and, those are all minutia
that we can talk about once we get your diagnosis. Because you actually sent me your records to talk about more
accurately here on the show. So, each one has different survival rates, different treatments, and that's all a conversation
that needs to happen with your oncologist. So, so far the biggest thing that happened was very messy in the beginning
stages of the diagnosis. - Very, yes. - A lot of anxiety, a lot of worry. And I'm curious,
obviously how you took it, but you're in the situation,
you're making the decisions, your best friend. Sam, how are you handling
that call as a caregiver for your friend, as a supporter
of your friend emotionally? What's your thoughts on this process? Are you Googling right away? What's the first thing you do? - Yeah, I mean, I saw
him say like, you know, back at this meeting when
he first got his call, he was like, I gotta go take this. And I knew it was from
his doctor, I was like, my heart dropped with him as he was going. But I was like, okay,
I'm not on this call. And then as soon as he's like, I'm gonna run out in the car,
like call me asap, called him. And then obviously as soon as he say, hey, I have this thing that's
like 95% cancerous. Obviously both of our hearts
are dropping at that moment. And like obviously every
single thought imaginable is happening at that moment. It's just kind of like
what's gonna happen? But at that moment I was like, okay, two things, I can either freak out or I can be as like
straight up as possible and try to make this as calm as possible. 'Cause I know in his mind
he's probably freaking out. And so, I was like, okay, we got this. No matter what happens, we'll just take it one step at a time. We've done everything in our
career up until this moment, one step at a time together
and we'll just make it happen. And you know, if there's
anybody in this world that can travel around
and make a million calls and drop everything and push
everything for work, it's us. So, let's make it happen
and we will figure it out. And so, that's kind of
how it had happened, which he kind of touched on a little bit, but I wanna just give props 100% to Colby for taking this as the most
strong I've ever seen anybody do this, it wasn't like
even bat of an eye. He was on the same phone call, he was telling me he had
cancer, he was like, I got this, let's just make it happen. We'll take it one step at a
time and we'll get through this. I'm not gonna die, let's make it happen. So, I was like, whoa, all right. I gotta be exactly like that, 10 tenfold. So, like nothing wrong happens. And so, that full day was
like definitely the scariest because at that point, like obviously I had no
idea anything about this. And even lesser known
than what he had known, because he'd gotten the
call from the doctor. So, I was thinking like, oh god, like this could, you
know, this changes everything. Like, maybe this is cancer
we're talking about, when anybody throws out that word, it's like you immediately think
of the worst case scenario. And so, it's like, one,
just how fragile is life? And then two like, oh
my god, I can't believe, like everything ever gets
put aside for health. And so, when those health scares, especially something as
serious as cancer rolls around, like you, it truly hits
you like a ton of bricks, saying like, oh God, what am I valuing? So, luckily, one day
later we called my sister who actually is an oncologist.
- Oh, wow. - Which is awesome. And we were able to have her
talk us through the process and her first thought was, hey, just FIY, testicular cancer is like 95% curable and if you're in stage
one, it's like 99% curable. And so, that was just
the utmost sigh of relief at that point, 'cause up until that, those 24 hours we were
thinking worst case scenario. - Sure, wow, that's so powerful that you actually had to strengthen up to match Colby's resilience in the moment.
- It's insane. I mean, throughout this
whole thing he's like, you know what, I could wait,
now I'm gonna do it myself. It's like he's just done
everything in his whole power to be strong and be like, no,
I don't wanna like, you know, shy away from this, I wanna
tell everybody, inspire people, I want to get this done as
fast as humanly possible, whatever I need to do. And I think everybody has
taken that as a learning like, oh my God. - We should all do this.
- Crazy experiences and especially traumatic experiences, you can either back down and shy away from or you can take headstrong
and he's taken that like to the fullest
extent and that's awesome. - Thank you for saying that, yeah, I mean, my take on it was. - Did you know he felt that way? - You've told me before,
but not to that extent. So, thank you for saying that. - Of course. - But yeah, I mean, I was just for myself, making jokes about it and
trying to stay positive and I think the main thing in my head is I just said it is what it is,
like, it already happened. Why would I be upset about
something that is literally inside of me as we speak? Like, it doesn't do anything
to sit down and cry about it or worry about it, it just
makes things worse, if anything. So, I was just kind of, yeah, on game mode where I just
was like, what can I do, any, we're just so fortunate to be
in the position that we are that we can travel and have
a team that can help call and stuff like that, that
it was more like, all right, game plan, this happened,
I'm gonna survive. That was, my biggest fears
were death and infertility. Those were my two things. And so, after researching
and talking to Allison, shout out to his sister, oncologist, we realized that like both
of those we're gonna be okay. You can bank your sperm if you need to. And again, 99%, like,
survival rate if caught early. And so, it was just kind of
like a, okay, now step by step, what do we need to do? And I think the major thing
was not thinking too far ahead. Like, I didn't even think
about the possibility of chemo. I was just thinking about like, okay, what do I have to do today? Okay, I have to go to a
radiologist today, okay. Tomorrow I have to do blood work. - So, you did like one
foot in front of the other. - Exactly.
- Not thinking too far. - Exactly, and just like, oh my gosh, Google was my worst enemy,
before and after the diagnosis. Before I was like, it was that one day where it really flared up, January 15th. I like was going on Google
and I saw the cancer word and I was like, there's
no way, there's no way. Like it's definitely like inflammation for sure.
- Not me. - Exactly.
- That's how everyone I think would think of it too. - Well, you'd be surprised,
sometimes it's the opposite end of the spectrum, where
it's people have headache, they'll go on web WebMD
and they'll see cancer and they're like, I have cancer. So, it works both ways. - Interesting. - Yeah, that's interesting. But I mean, I just try, like I have, you know Sam or my
parents look up anything that I'm like worried about on Google, if I really wanna figure out
an answer, I won't Google it, I'll just have Sam do it
and then he will be like, hey, this is what I've read
and probably like weed out some of the stuff that I
don't want to hear maybe, but. - Just feel like Google in
general is just a horrible way to get advice. - Yeah.
- I think Google on its own is not great, but Google to prepare you to ask good questions, to
have a baseline understanding of a situation to then go
work with a doctor, is great. - Yeah.
- Yeah. - This is why I think AI's
not replacing doctors, because the AI can tell
you all the great stuff, the survival numbers this, that, it's all factually accurate in most cases. But it doesn't have the
humanistic component of what to expect, what's the next step? What's the process here? Who do I call? Who gives me this information? How do I get emotional support? How should I be thinking about this? That's where the AI suffers. So, I don't hate Google. I hate Google when people
use it on their own without someone guiding them
through the process of Google. - I think it's easy to make
assumptions using Google, 'cause they'll tell you every spectrum of possible outcomes. And it's up to you to
figure out which one. And so, it's like you can
spiral really quickly. - [Dr. Mike] Very quickly. - Go down a bad rabbit
hole of like Reddit, reading personal stories and stuff like. - Yeah, and what I will
say is you truly are breaking a stigma to talk
about an area of the body where people are uncomfortable
talking about generally, which is problematic because
they wait so long to seek care. So, hopefully you're encouraging
people to seek care earlier when they are having symptoms. Whether that's, they
felt something abnormal, like with their fingers, like they felt a mass or they
felt a symptom in that area, they're more likely to go. But then also you're laying the foundation of how a person should
handle health problems. Not so much that you push
through and you are a soldier. That's great. Not everybody will have the
capacity or ability to do that, but the fact that you
advocated for yourself, that when a doctor said something
and you didn't feel like it was right, you saw a second opinion, you went to someone else,
you confided in your friend. That kind of advocacy is
probably the biggest factor on good health outcomes. And it doesn't always
have to come from you, even though in your situation
it did and that's awesome. Sometimes it's having
another person in the room who can advocate on your behalf, when you are so distraught
with a new diagnosis. That's why I encourage
everyone when they're going for a serious medical visit
to bring a trusted partner with them so that if you're
having the cancer word completely dissociate your mind and you're not thinking
clearly, your friend can say, doctor, what you're saying
is not making sense. He can be the objective voice in the room. And maybe not even Sam, because Sam might not be as objective 'cause he's also emotional
in the situation. But having a friend or someone
who can be more objective than you, that's gonna
go really far for people. So, I appreciate you doing
that for people, I think. - Yeah, of course. - There, that's the
moral story right there, is you were like all right, I'm not gonna take no for an answer. Like, I'm gonna do as much as
I possibly can in my willpower to make this as quick and
as healthy as possible. - Yeah, and if guys out there
like think it's embarrassing, especially young guys since
it is like a young men cancer. It's really nothing to
be embarrassed about. Like, I've told so many people about this and especially like doctors
and not one instance has somebody like made fun of me for it. - Yeah, no. - So, like there's nothing
really to be afraid of. And again this is your health though, that we're talking about here. It's the most important
thing is to go get treated, go get help as soon as possible if you think something's wrong. - Because if you go and it
wasn't a cancer or a big problem, the worst case scenario is that you went. - Yeah, exactly.
- But if you didn't go and it does become a really big problem, that's a way bigger problem. So, that's like the
risks you should weigh. Like maybe a little embarrassing 'cause you didn't want
to lower your shorts or whatever it is, but small trade off for
the win that you get. - Exactly. - So, I hope they do that. Something also I wanted
to tell the audience because they might be
wondering why the next step was right away to get the
testicle surgically removed as opposed to doing a biopsy, is 'cause what we actually found, and this is a mistake that
I didn't even know early on in my training, that when you get a diagnosis
of testicular cancer, the actual biopsy is made
when you remove the entire testicle, because if you
have the tumor markers, you have the findings on the ultrasound, that's enough to warrant
the removal and a biopsy, putting a needle in the
area can actually spread, facilitate spread of the cancer. That's why, because if you
have a cancer elsewhere, we usually do a biopsy
before surgically removing it to understand what it is. But the testicle is a unique
area where you don't do that. You just remove the testicle. If you have the tumor markers
plus the ultrasound findings, you can go ahead and
remove it at that point and then find out what
type of cancer it is. Which is what happened in your case. - Exactly, and what a lot
of people don't know too is there were so many of my
friends, rightfully sold, not make, so not making
fun of them at all, but like they were thinking
that they literally like cut open the sack and
take out the ball like that. It's like not that graphic,
not that scary sounding. It's like an incision
right in the waistband. And so, it was, honestly
it was not that bad. I was nervous 'cause I've never been under general anesthesia before. And so, it's just kind of
nerve-wracking to know that I was just gonna basically
black out without my control. But it really like, it was so easy. They just count down from five
and you can't even remember until you wake up, like,
the next thing I remembered was Sam walking into the room
like filming me pretty much, like hey.
- What's up? How you feeling? - Exactly, but yeah to your point, like they needed to take it out
in order to take it to a lab to get the pathology report.
- The pathology. - And so, yeah, it was,
immediately get it out. - And did you, you also,
this is something that wasn't sent to me, but
I'm curious if you did, did you also get imaging
of like CAT scans as well? - Yeah, so, I did a CT scan
right after the ultrasound as well, yeah.
- Got it, yeah. And the reason for that and
why I assumed it was done is because when you're
looking at the prognosis of testicular cancer, is you're
looking for the pathology report which you sent me, that is what the testicle is made of, the testicular tumor is made
of and then you're looking at the blood tests before and after
the removal of the testicle and the CAT scan results
would show us if it has spread to other areas or lymph
nodes, the lymphatic system. So, correct me if I'm wrong, my understanding of
what has happened so far is the testicle was removed, it was found to be a germ cell type tumor, a mixed germ cell type tumor. - Yes. - And it was fully removed. There was no residual amount left, there was no lymphatic spread, there was no spread to
anywhere else in your body. - Correct, yeah.
- And your blood levels of the tumor markers
disappeared after the surgery. - Yeah, so, that was a
scary moment because, so, your hCG, your beta hCG. Mine pretty much went back
to normal the next week. But your AFP is known to
half each time that you go and so it took about six
weeks, five weeks-ish for it to really get into normal ranges. And so, it was something that
I've been calling Scanxiety where like okay you just go. - [Dr. Mike] That's a
good word, scanxiety. - Yeah, where it's just
like you forget about it for a few days and then you
go and you get your scans or you get your blood work and
then you have that scanxiety for like 24 hours, you
get it and then it's like, oh yeah, it's like lowered, hell yeah. But it basically got all the
way to normal ranges now. - Got it.
- So, I'm normal. - So amazing, so, that's
a really great prognosis that puts you in the lower risk category. But then your doctor has also
brought up the possibility of doing one of two approaches. One is active surveillance.
- Yes. - Where we just keep an eye on the area and seeing what happens
with no more treatment now that we've removed the tumor. And the second option is
doing a course of chemotherapy with something known as BEP, which are chemotherapy agents that you would get injected via IV. Take me through your understanding
of each of the two paths and what has your doctor
recommended thus far? - Well, to give context
of what I was thinking, I was like I do not wanna do chemo. Like it was like from- - Well, how did your
doctor explain it to you, that there's these two approaches? - Well, okay, yeah, so I saw
the blood levels got to normal. Technically that means I was cancer free. Like, the on oncologist said, you are cancer free.
- That's not technically. That's, you're cancer free. - Okay, (indistinct), so, that's awesome. And so, that was the first good news, I saw an oncologist and he was
like, you're cancer are free. Here's the thing though, it
was like one of those things, like I couldn't get too excited about it. He was just like we could
do the active surveillance or chemo, active surveillance
is where you would have to for that, at least the next two years. He didn't give me a timeline
but he basically said like we're just gonna need to watch you very, very closely where you're
gonna have to get blood work every single month, CT scans
like every three months. Maybe even like an MRI once a year. But again, he never told me
like complete details on that. It's just watching you closely
and you have to be diligent about going to checkups and he said, or we could
give you one cycle, 21 days worth of chemo or I hope 21 days. I'm not 100% sure on that. And that will greatly reduce
your risk of recurrence of it coming back. Now, so, what I had was like
the garden variety tumor is I had something called like
a 40% embryonal carcinoma. - Correct. - And that's like a extremely
fast spreading cancer. - [Dr. Mike] Correct. - And so, that specifically
made my situation a little bit worse to where
basically the oncologist said I had a 35% chance of recurrence. And he told me that five
minutes after he told me I was cancer free.
- Cancer free, yeah. - And so, like I never really
got to celebrate in my head. Like, of course, came home
and Sam had like a cookie cake for me and we cheered and
celebrated, yeah, and all that. But it like, deep down
in the back of my head I was just still thinking
about that recurrence number. Like that's a third, a
third of a percent chance are like that is gonna
come back, possibly. And so,
- Would you have rather not known? - I think I would have rather
known because that's where it leaves my decision right now of, and I wanted to ask you
about this specifically and hear what you have to say about this. But literally in a week from filming this is when I have to tell my
oncologist what I wanna do. I have a CT scan on April
6th and then after that is the meeting where
it's like do I wanna go this chemo route 21 days or do
I want to just take the risk of the 35% chance it could come back? - So, talk about like the
day of when you found out and then the week after, 'cause you were pretty set in stone and you knew exactly
what he was gonna offer before you even walked
into the doctor's office. - Yeah, so, again I was like, I knew there was the chemo
word in the back of my head ever since like I got
the diagnosis at first, but I was just like I'll be fine, I'll just do active surveillance
and like it's a 70% thing. Like I'll be good. But yeah, it was just
conflicting in my head, 'cause I went home wanting
to celebrate and stuff and I was so positive up
until like this past week, I've still been positive but
like the anxiety has hit me worse this last week than
it's has this entire journey, because it's now like up to me to decide. It's not like a doctor
saying you should do this, you should do this, you should do this.
- Yeah, you can't just put your head down and say I'm
gonna push through this. - Exactly. - Now, it's like you have
to push your head down and push through one of two paths. - Right, right, and there's
like so many factors to each path, it's like I could
choose active surveillance and there's a 70% chance
that it never comes back and I'm totally fine and that's
like a pretty good chance. But there's also that third looming in the back of your head. So, is that anxiety worth it? And in my opinion, I don't think it was. So, like doing the chemo is
going to get that 35% down to 5% recurrence and then if it
doesn't come back in two years, that 5% goes down to like
2 to 3% of recurrence for the rest of my life. And that's where I'm at right now.
- How has your doctor relationship, I don't know if you're
having these discussions with the oncologist or
your primary care doctor, who have been in discussing
the pros and cons of this. Have they been positive? Have they just been like, here are your options,
now, kind of screw off or? - Kind of, I mean, so I've
only talked to the oncologist about it like once in person and then haven't heard from 'em since. - How was that conversation? Take me through that convo. - It was basically like I
said, where it was like, all right, so-
- Here are your options and here's the percentages by it. - Literally it was like
you're cancer free but, it's like that's what it sounded like, but you have a 35% chance of recurrence, so here's your options, we could do active surveillance where we do blah blah blah blah. Or we can give you a
dose of chemo right now, which is what I recommend. So, let us know in like
a week or so, goodbye. It was like a 10 minute or less visit. - That sucks.
- Yeah. - And this is a recurring
theme that I keep hearing doing these podcasts. Actually Hannah Fry who's a mathematician, was sitting in one of these
seats not so long ago, telling me about her
cervical cancer diagnosis and she faced the same exact thing where they were like, do you
want us to take out everything? Do you want us to take
out some of the nodes? And she felt rushed because
she's given statistics but not a true understanding
of what can happen. So, now an important thing that I wanna do before we get into the decision
making process of this, or at least the discussion of
the decision making process is so, people understand
and they can follow along in the story why you're
facing this decision. Had your, so because we keep saying you were low risk, right? Because the type of cancer that you had, the fact that there was
no lymph node spread, the fact that the blood
tests all resulted normal makes you low risk. But there was one component
that was the majority component of the tumor. That puts you in a slightly
higher low risk still, category. So, like elevated low
risk and because of that, the active surveillance and
the dose of chemotherapy kind of start evening out
in terms of what we've seen from evidence, where the
decision is not clear on what is the optimal route. Because had your tumor
been made up of that same, - Carcinoma.
- Embryological carcinoma, you would just say active
surveillance and you'd move on. You would say no need for the thing, but because of that it puts
you in a slightly high risk. Now, it's a little bit more balanced. That's why we're facing this decision. Now, medically, legally, all of that, just for your understanding,
I'm not your doctor, I'm not gonna tell you what to do, nor should your doctor
ever tell you what to do. But in terms of just
laying out informationally what happens in these scenarios, I think we're both comfortable
having that discussion. I think it's valuable. - For sure.
- Because, so people can see what should happen during a visit. And if it doesn't happen
with a specialist, 'cause specialists are pressed for time, they're running in and out of rooms, a relationship with a primary
care doctor should happen in this way. That the doctor can guide
you for you to make the best decision by laying out
what the pros and cons are of not just the statistics,
but of the reality. What is life like? Not just statistics,
but what is your life, how does your life change? And right now we're facing the decision of active surveillance
as being the one route where you're gonna be
doing some kind of scans and there's different strategies
to active surveillance which you can discuss with
your doctor, obviously, where maybe you do more
aggressive scanning early on and then it gets more
sporadic as you get older, because of this potential
risk of recurrence. Or do you go down this one
single dose of chemotherapy? When I say dose, I mean
the course of chemotherapy. What has your doctor told you
about risks of going down, you know the risk of going
down active surveillance is that there could be a recurrence. - Yeah. - What is your knowledge of the risks of the chemotherapy component? - Well, they gave me
like a four page packet about all the side effects of chemo and so, it was definitely hard to stomach, but it's like one of those things where, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but doctors have to tell you
everything that could happen. Pretty much.
- Well legally, they're handing you the paper
and they can check a box and they say I've educated
the patient on the risks. - Right, and so there was, I
can't even name all of 'em. There was like. - You know it's, I can't name them. There's too many of them. And the way that they
explain them is, okay, 10% of people will have
these side effects, 1% of people will have
this list of side effects. And then really rare, even less than 1% people
will have these side effects. - Exactly.
- And then it's like, and then some people will have
long lasting side effects. So, if you really look into that, that can be so anxiety provoking, that it almost becomes the bigger problem. - Yeah, exactly, and
that's why this last week has been like the hardest for me is because I did accidentally
go down a Google rabbit hole, not gonna lie.
- Of course. - And luckily having his
sister like to be able to call and she's an oncologist
herself and actually cares to talk to me for a while. Like, roasted doctors,
no, I'm just kidding. She basically told me
that like with one cycle, which hopefully, again- - Well, what did Google first tell you? - Google told me all the, all the worst things
like long-term problem, like lung failure, like actually any organ
failure, like diabetes, obviously short-term side effects will be the hair loss which
everybody is aware of. Oh man, there's just so, so many. - So, a lot of side effects. - Yeah like, blood, red
blood cell decreasing down, like, infertility, possibly,
like testosterone levels tanking, so many, I could go on and on, and I don't even know 'cause
I like stopped looking at half the side effects
'cause I was like, I don't even know if
I'm gonna do chemo yet. So, I was like why am
I processing all this, - I think at that moment too, for that first like week
after receiving that packet, going down the rabbit hole, you were like, oh god this sounds awful. I'm just gonna go do active
surveillance no matter what. - Yeah, that whole week I was thinking, this whole last week I was
thinking the active surveillance route because in my head I was
like, well here's the thing, if I do chemo now there's
gonna be all these side effects and possibly infertility, but if it comes back and I do chemo later, it's gonna be the same side effects. So, I might as well just take
that 70%, you know, chance, I will be completely fine and don't have to do
anything in the future. And then if it comes up in the future then I'll deal with it then. But the thing about
that was if it came back and crucial thing I forgot to mention was if it did come back I'd have
to do three to four cycles of BEP and possibly an RPLND surgery to get the lymph nodes removed, because that's where testicular cancer is shown to spread, yeah.
- Spreads. - And so, now it was like, okay, four months of chemo and
surgery or 21 days of chemo to ensure yourself for life
pretty much, like essentially. And so, that's where I'm at right now. And obviously when I called Allison, she was telling me that
a lot of the longer like side effects that
you might experience in your 40s, 50s, 60s, come from multiple doses
of chemo, multiple courses. And so, that kind of
put into my head where, she basically like talked it
down to where she was like, if you do one cycle, yes, there is potential side effect risks, but it's way, way, way, way, way less than obviously doing three to four.
- Doing multiple courses. - Yeah, and so basically just talk me down into being like this might
be the right decision just to ensure that safety
and it's only 21 days and again the anxiety of
that 35% like looms on you where every day you're
like thinking of that, even if 70 is, you know,
twice as much as the 30, 35, it's still something in the
back of your head of like, is this gonna come back? Is this gonna come back? And so for me personally, personally, I just thought it would be better to get rid of that risk
as much as possible. And I think just being
completely honest with everybody, I think that my biggest
fear was the hair loss. I'm not gonna lie. - That's a fair feeling to have.
- And I mean, our profession too, like
us being on camera 24/7, you understand like
what I'm talking about. Like that is terrifying. It's so different than if I
worked just somewhere else doing another job, but
considering the job that I had, it was like even more
scary and having the whole like social media look at
you too was even more scary. So, there was a lot of
factors for me personally to think about, but. - That's what the doctor
needs to discuss with you. Like the example I gave
with Hannah Fry was if I'm putting on a patient
and I know them well that they're a musician and I know the medication
can cause a tremor, I'm gonna be much more
sensitive about introducing that medication to them than I would a person who doesn't play the
instrument and doesn't care if they have a mild tremor. So, that's the same exact
logic that you're doing. So, I'm glad you have a
person helping you even though they're not your official doctor. - Yeah, exactly. - It would be nice if your
doctor could have this conversations with you. - I know, it seemed
like every single doctor I've talked to besides one, a UCLA doctor, but like every other doctor
in Nevada I've talked to, it seems like it's like, hey I can only talk for
five minutes, yep, yep, okay, okay, okay, cool,
you're done talking to me. All right, this is what
you need to do, I'm gone, like five minutes only. I talked to the nurse longer
than I talked to the doctor. So, it was just kind of frustrating that, it just shows that they, nobody's gonna care about
your medical situation more than yourself.
- Yeah, yeah, exactly. - Or close friends, like his sister. - No, or close friends. But that just shows like
even even trying to schedule a conversation has been
near impossible for you. Like, you had that one
conversation when you found out, but have you even been able
to sit down with anybody since then? - No, I've been trying
to plan this chemo route and haven't been able to contact. - But also based on how you
were describing you seeking care early on when the symptoms first started, it sounds like you don't
have a primary care doctor that have a long-standing
relationship with, right? - Right, yeah, yeah.
- So, that's like, that's the most important thing
you can do for your health in terms of good outcomes because, A, they know you and they
can think about this personal approach to healthcare and
help you make these decisions and be that voice, how I would
be if you were my patient. But then also because
they've seen you for so long, not only do they know you well,
they have a vested interest. - Yeah. - They become family.
- They care. - I have patients that I've
delivered as a doctor, like baby and then now they're like
my five year old patient. So, of course, I'm gonna have
a much stronger connection to this patient than if
I ran into them in the ER for 10 minutes. So, like that's why you really
need a primary care doctor for those conversations. Obviously it's great to lean
on friends who are experts, et cetera, et cetera, but that's like how people
who may not have that access can have that same conversation. - Yeah, 100%, I'm lucky
that I do have Sam's sister to like give me advice, but yeah, besides that all I've been
looking at is like Google and, or having them
look up Google searches so I don't freak out and now, yeah, now it's like pretty much
I have probably like a week from now to. - Yeah, and both are reasonable choices, which makes it harder. - Yeah, exactly, exactly. - When you have two reasonable choices, it's like which path do you choose? Also, when you look at
active surveillance, if they are gonna be recommending that you get repeat CAT scans, you also gotta think about
radiation that you're getting from repeat CAT scans. - Yeah, oh yeah, that's very true. - So, yeah, there's so many variables to take into consideration. It really should be your gut
decision that you go with. And there's two things you have to do when you make that decision. One, is you have to make
it based on your gut and fully trust your gut and go headstrong that you made that decision. And two, make peace with the fact that it could be the wrong decision. - Mm, yep. - That you can only decide
based on what you know now and what with what you know
now, there is no wrong decision. - That's true, okay, it's good to know. - Whatever you decide
right now, not wrong. - And see that already helps
me feel like more at peace. Like even thinking that, 'cause again, like you could say I decide to do chemo and then something, side effect happens, but it's like, I don't know that now. - Can't know.
- Yeah. - There's never foolproof
answers in medicine. In fact the enemy of making a
good decision in healthcare, you know what that is. What would you say the enemy
of making a good decision is? What's the opposite of a good decision? You're probably gonna think bad decision. - Yeah, bad decision. - No, it's trying to
make a perfect decision. - Right. - There's no perfect.
- There's no perfect. - And when you strive for
perfect it becomes bad. - Right. And you know, what was
interesting is talking to like Sam and my parents about this and I, again, I was on the active surveillance
route the entire time, they were on my side as well. Like, yeah, no active
surveillance seems right. It was only 'till after the
conversation with Allison, the oncologist, that it kind
of flipped my view on it and then everybody was
also able to see that side and nobody's wrong,
it's just like you said, no perfect.
- Opinions. Which is, that's the important thing, hear people out but
let your gut decide it. Because it's your choice. You have to live with it and
if you choose someone else's, it'll be so easy to blame them. But right now in this
scenario where you're deciding what you want and you know
that no answer is wrong, there's no one to
punish, it just happened. Just like you're not punishing anyone for the fact that you
developed testicular cancer. The same way that you'll
handle those side effects if they do occur. - If they do occur. And right now, if anybody's wondering, like I think I am on the chemo route, I think I will do that for sure just 'cause if it is 21 days, I'm still not aware of the cycle of BEP, but if it's three months that
might like I might not do it. That's where I'm at right now. But the 21 days we are like
very far ahead with filming and stuff and I could
afford doing that right now. And kind of like if I did lose
hair or had bad side effects, I could, you know, hide away for a second, we'd still be fine with
our business and stuff. So, I think that is the
right decision because for me personally that 35% is scary. That third of a chance in my head is like, is what was keeping me up at
night like for the past week. And so, if I can get that
down to 5%, that's great. - You were saying-
- That's all that matters. - Even this last like week
and a half was more anxiety than you've had even
learning that you had cancer in general. - Yes, yeah, 'cause I have
to decide myself, yeah. - So, that just means like this scanxiety for the coming two years
would be probably the worst of this entire process for you. - Exactly, yeah, I'd
have to wait two years of just being like, it's
gonna come back, every time. Like, every single month
getting like the tumor markers checked, is it gonna come back? So, yeah, to me it's just
not worth that mental, yeah. - How do you feel about
his thought process? Not the decision but the thought process? - I think it was very fair. It was really interesting to see, because when he first brought it like, hey, like I'm cancer
free, yes, that's awesome. I could see there was
something weighing on him and, - You didn't buy it? - Well yeah, I was like, I'm for sure just for
whatever you want to do. And as I was hearing his
conversations and phone calls with everybody, everyone
said the same thing. It's like, yeah, I can't
make this decision for you. This is obviously like
whatever you wanna do. And at least from what the
lack of knowledge I have, this, the word like chemotherapy
just seems horrible. Like, oh, you're putting
chemicals in your body and you're gonna be
killing all your cells. Like that just sounds bad. All these like packets of
informational side effects, it just sounds bad. So, like definitely could
see where he was coming from of doing active surveillance
and even from the day he found out that his tumor markers were starting to fall
down, he realized, okay, the doctor is going to tell me I could do active surveillance or chemo. So, I wanted to just
do active surveillance. So, I knew from day one,
he wanted to do that. So, I was like, yeah sure,
I'll be on your side there. And literally like just a week
ago I was updating my sister on the whole situation and
that's when I was like, oh wait, whoa, like this is
a lot more to think about. And so, I was like, hey, can you make sure to call Colby tomorrow and really explain this to him, 'cause like the way you explain it to me is like really intense, and so, you know, the next day I saw him having
an hour long conversations with my sister about it
and since then it was, it's been changed. But I could definitely see
after hearing more about it, like that I think he now has all the facts to actually make a decision. I think previously we were
acting a little more on impulse and like what I, what he wanted to do. And especially with this job, I thought deep down
like if the main reason for not wanting to do chemo
was the aesthetic of, you know, losing hair and or not feeling
like you wanna be on camera for a few months, that's a couple months of
your life versus the happiness and healthiness of your entire life. Like yes, like a few, you know, bad months or sluggish
times or awkward pictures for a few months is going to
be worth the rest of your life. And so, I think at least in this, in this decision now we've
gotten past the superficial stuff, I think now he can
definitely make a decision more deep down on what's
beneficial to him. - I think that's powerful. I also think if I had a
patient in your shoes, because I don't wanna influence
your decision in any way, I would tell them two things. One, you know how you said
you have to decide in a week? I would get rid of that deadline. That's the first thing I would recommend. Because that's a deadline
someone else set for you and it's your health, you
don't have to decide anything. - True. - Like if you wanna wait another week 'cause you need time with
it, wait another week. This isn't life or death
that you have to decide in seven days, the tumor's not
like, oh it's day eight, ha. That's not how it works.
- It's time to attack. - Yeah.
- Yeah. - So, do not create artificial
timelines that are not based on any kind of science,
that's what I would tell them. And second, getting the initial
second opinion was smart. How you found a person
to speed up the process of getting the ultrasound
and getting the tumor removed quicker by doing the surgery was wise. I think if there was ever a
time to get a second opinion and have almost two doctors
argue with each other is now. Meaning contact the leading
expert in this situation and have them play devil's advocate. Say, I want to go the chemotherapy route, be devil's advocate for me. That's what I want you to
do for me in this visit. And see if they can present
some kind of evidence that you didn't know. - Okay, that's very interesting. - Because this is the important decision that you have to make. The surgery was very obvious
that you needed to do. Here, as we were saying,
both choices are reasonable. You're not making a wrong
decision with whatever choice, but make sure you have
the best information. And the best information doesn't
come from someone who says, oh, yeah, I gave that medicine once. Talk to the people that
have given the medicine 10,000 times. And talk to the people
who've not given the medicine 10,000 times and see what their
experiences have been like. And that's where, because evidence can't
give us a clear answer, that's where anecdote might
give you some reassurance one way or another. - Yeah, 100%. And luckily with this like
my team finding UCLA doctors and stuff too, I can
do just that and I have the oncologist.
- Exactly, and those are the things you don't need to go in for a visit, you could schedule a virtual. - Yes. - So, like there's flexibility in that. So, that's, those are
two things that I think are very reasonable. Throwing out artificial deadlines and then seeking the knowledge. Not, don't sit, tell
doctors, tell me what to do. Just what happens in these scenarios. - 100%, yeah, no, I
appreciate you saying that 'cause yeah, again, fortunate
enough to have multiple people that I can talk to that are professional,
- So powerful. - In different states too, completely. Don't even know each other type thing. Like they can argue it
out and help me decide. - For sure, you know, right now what we're looking forward to in the medical sphere is
learning which individuals are actually the ones that would benefit from the chemotherapy most. - Hmm, interesting. Like as we continue
studying individual DNA, we start seeing that
there's some individuals that have a better response than others. Some have side effects more than others. And I think over the
next 10, 20, 30 years, that's a major breakthrough
that we're gonna see within cancer treatment,
so, that's pretty exciting. - 100%, and do you mind if I touch on one thing really quick or okay.
- Please, of course, yeah. - Yeah, we can cut this out if the, there's not time but a lot
of questions have risen from like young men of like,
- Oh yeah. - How's life now, type thing. Yeah, how is life now?
- What's working? Type thing. Everything is normal and I
didn't know that at first too. Like losing a testicle, I was
like, what's gonna happen? - Did you sperm bank by the way? - I did not before the surgery. They told me I need to do that if I decided to do the chemo route. But surgery, they said
your one working testicle is going to basically work overdrive and you should have the
same amount of testosterone, same libido, like everything
looks normal down there. I got offered if I wanted
to do a prosthetic, like a little fake ball to put down there. - Did you do the fake ball? - I did not.
- Okay. - No, I decided to-
- Well, why, what was the choice? I'm curious about that decision. - Well, that was an interesting
choice too and like, kind of like something I
battled with because I was like, well, I don't think
it'll look too different. Like, I just didn't know. But my biggest fear was that
the body tends to reject foreign objects. And so, I didn't want to have
the anxiety of like, you know, being 30, 40, whatever and like
be like, wait, this year is, you know, like my, is this
ball gonna fucking get rejected outta me, like what the hell, you know? - Sorry, I'm laughing. - It's all good, like
funny situation, but I, that's to me I was just like,
I should just go natural. And then I just kept telling myself, I was like, if I'm
really embarrassed about, if I really, really care then hey, in a year I can just get a
surgery and get one placed in. That was my thought process. And I'm telling you like
all the guys out there that are dealing with this, it does not look any different down there. Everything works perfectly,
I've been able to work out, I just got my testosterone
tested two days ago and it's like normal ranges,
so everything's great. And I think that's a big
misconception is like, guys think their life is over. As soon as like they get
this diagnosis or like, they just don't know what's gonna happen and it's really nothing, nothing changes, like your other one takes over, so. - What was your first
question when he said that he was gonna get it taken out? What did you think that could go wrong? - Well, yeah, I thought
one, like infertility. And then yeah, like what does
this future look for him like, is that gonna actually affect anything, specifically, testosterone
and infertility. But pretty much all those
questions were answered almost immediately, and what
was really interesting was, I think the doctor,
correct me if I'm wrong, but the doctor was like, yeah, if you sperm bank
before the surgery, it's like not really anything different 'cause the cancer has pretty
much already taken over that ball, your other ball has
already risen to the occasion and is working overdrive already. So, that's how you know you're chilling. Like, you're gonna be fine afterwards. - He made me feel a lot
better just being like, hey man, your ball has not been working for the past two months, man, like. And I'm just like-
- It's gonna be gone, it was already gone, man. - Yeah, so, I was like, oh in that case, like everything's been working
pretty good down there. So, yeah, it just like
relieved that anxiety. - [Dr. Mike] That's a great way to put it. - Takes over. - Okay, so, I'm glad you
had one good interaction in the medical sphere.
- Exactly, just one. - It was interesting how, I think for at least a
week or so you were on the I want to do the prosthetic side. - Yeah, I did think about
that for a while because it, it was just superficial
reasons again, I just like, I just don't know if you know, I don't know what it will look like and I don't wanna be
embarrassed if I'm doing, like if I'm hooking up with somebody and somebody says something.
- Did they show you pictures of like befores and afters or? - They did not, no pictures
and they didn't even, what was interesting is
when I got the surgery, they didn't even like
bring in the prosthetic. They were just like,
did you want one or not? And I had to just say
yes or no and I said no. - [Dr. Mike] God that's. - But, yeah, I thought
they would like, you know, - They should.
- They should. - They should, they show you pictures, they should say this what
it would look like without, this is. - Exactly, and there was risks involved, not only like the infection,
your body rejecting it, but like there was like
horror stories I was reading of them being like the doctor
placed it too high and now. - Didn't you look up
that like one in three, like over time, get either an infection or if their body rejects
it or something like that? - It wasn't like infection, it was like one in three
people are disappointed with the result.
- Okay. - Yeah.
- Whatever that may be. - Sure.
- Yeah. - So, you felt, I'll make
that decision later on if I need to. - Exactly, and like,
yeah, I was just like, since I didn't know if it was
going to look super different, I was like, might as well just wait 'till all swelling goes down. And then again, if in a
year I'm insecure about it, then I'll deal with it. But speaking of too, like
the scar for example, like that is up in the
waistband, so, it's like, like really nothing looks
different down there. That's basically what I'm trying to say. Full peace of mind for
guys dealing with this. - That's an important peace of mind, 'cause guys are oftentimes
the worst to bring in before there's a problem
or early on at a problem. They really wait for a long
time before they come in. I've seen that in my practice. - Because they think about that stuff. - [Dr. Mike] Yes. - Truthfully. - But we want them to come
in and we wanna be proactive and at the same time I want
to talk about your scanxiety that you brought up, and
that's such a good term. Because sometimes people
come in with the idea that we can order every test
and prevent every problem. And just as I said earlier, the enemy of good is perfect in medicine. We can't prevent every problem. I can't give definitive
answers, like for myself, I can't tell you if I'm
gonna have a heart attack in five minutes or did I
just have a heart attack? I can tell you clinically
it doesn't look like I'm having a heart attack, I
have no symptoms of a heart. But I can't say I
definitely did not have one, because in order to say
definitely I need to go in and prove it. And we're not gonna do that
'cause that carries risk. So, that's part of that scanxiety
is not going to a doctor that's gonna overpromise you things and say we can check everything,
if you pay us extra money, we'll guarantee you don't have cancer. We'll do these genetic
tests, it doesn't exist yet. There's some things we can
actually be proactive on. Colonoscopies, cervical cancers for women and getting Pap smears done, those things we can be proactive on. That's not the complete
list, but those are the, some of the proven things. Other things have fallen out of favor because in order for this, the screening, the test to find out if the problem exists in someone who's not showing
symptoms, that feels fine. In order for that test to be beneficial, it needs to prolong their life, decrease the risk of them
dying from the cancer, improve their quality of life and most importantly not
cause this scanxiety. - Exactly, yeah. - Because so many people are
like, just scan my whole body, see if I have cancer. I'm like, well I don't wanna do that 'cause people have lumps,
bumps, masses in their bodies that mean nothing, but if I
just start scanning and finding, oh, there's a one millimeter nodule, now I'm scanning it and
giving you scanxiety for the rest of your
life and radiating you, with radiation causing
a cancer for no benefit. - That's really-
- Which is why we don't scan everybody. - That's really interesting
'cause going through this whole thing, I think,
from an outside perspective, outside of once he's all healed up, I think the main thing that I took away and a lot of our friends did was like, well, then we should like
be way more proactive about figuring things out or like
doing checkups and you know, to what you just said, maybe
that's not a perfect situation. No, but. - The perfect situation is go
and let the doctor guide you as to what tests you need
and you'd benefit from versus what tests you don't. Because there are some
tests that you do not need. Like, if a healthy person comes in and says, hey check me
for testicular cancer, while we can do like a palpation exam to see if there's any
lumps, bumps or masses. I'm not gonna be ordering
ultrasounds on healthy patients. - For sure.
- Right, yeah. scanxiety. - So, best case scenario, you know, when there's something specifically wrong going that specific,
you know, test, however, just make sure to get a regular
test often or not regular. Regular checkup. - Regular checkup, yeah. Because for example, for me
as a primary care doctor, we have institutional guidelines of things we should be checking each
age group, each demographic, and we should say in this
person they have high rates of condition X and if we
scan for this condition X, we can actually prolong their life. So, we do that test. But then there's some things
like if you just come in, if you came in and you're like, hey I wanna make sure
I'm cancer free, scan me, give me a CAT scan, I would
never order it for you. - Okay, that's interesting.
- Because that's actually gonna cause you harm. With scanxiety, with
potentially finding something that's not gonna be worthwhile and now we're scanning
you over and over again radiating your body further,
maybe doing a biopsy, getting a problem from the
biopsy as a side effect. And all of that because
you had no symptoms, there was no benefit to doing it. - So, let's say someone at
home right now is listening, like, wait, well, I do kind
of feel something weird or I have been feeling something weird. - If you feel something weird
that is no longer screening. - Okay. - Because screening means
you're healthy with no symptoms. So, if you have a symptom, me ordering a test is now a
diagnosis, a diagnostic test. So, basically if you come
to me and you're like, Dr. Mike, I have a terrible
pain in my right lower quadrant of my abdomen, it's
terrible, I'm vomiting, now, I'm ordering a scan
because I wanna diagnose you with appendicitis. - Okay. - But I'm not ordering
that test, if you're like, hey doc, can you just check
if I have appendicitis? I wanna make sure. Well why? I don't know, my mom
had it, maybe I have it. I'm not scanning you. - Okay, so, is there, are there tests or anything
that someone should be doing? Maybe not all the time, but
like every couple years, or. - Proactively, or, well
like the test I mentioned. Like the colonoscopy starting age 45, for women at age 21 starting
getting their pap smears. There are tests that you
have to do, not have to do, but you ought to do that have
been proven to extend life and get the benefit. And then there is tests
that you shouldn't do. But that's where you
have to trust your doctor and have a good relationship
with your doctor to understand why. And if your doctor is ever telling you, hey, you should get a Pap smear, you should get a colonoscopy,
you should have no fear. Like you advocated for
yourself to ask why, why do I need this or
why do I not need it? And if your doctor can't verbalize to you, why or why not, find another doctor. - Hmm.
- That's interesting. But main thing is everyone
needs a primary care doctor. - That's the main takeaway
for everyone at home. And if you have a concern
about something like you had a concern down there, no
matter what the concern is, get it checked out. Because everyone says, when should I go see the
doctor with a problem? If you're thinking about it, go. That's the trigger. - Yeah. - Like as soon as you
have the thought, go, because it's so easy to
make excuses and prolong it. Our minds are excellent at
that, at downplaying the issue. But just go, 'cause again,
the worst case scenario is you'll get a clean bill of health. That's the worst case scenario. - Exactly.
- Yeah, exactly. - Very true. - Yeah, I was gonna say like
don't tough it out too long. Don't think you can just overcome it. - It's not worth it. - It's not necessary because,
again, if you go and it just, oh no this is nothing, just
a muscle sprain, you know, whatever good, you know,
it's a muscle sprain, now you know what a
muscle sprain feels like. - Yeah, there you go. - There we go. That's just gets rid of
the anxiety altogether. - Yeah, totally. Well, let's play some
lightning round questions. - [Colby] Let's do it. - Okay, Sam, with you first. What's the healthiest part of your body? - Oh, on me currently? - Yeah. - I don't know. my stomach, I don't
know the, I don't know. - What? - How about you? - Definitely not my testicles. - What do you mean? Your other testicle's doing a stellar job. - Oh yeah, my right testicle. That's what I'm gonna say.
- There you go. - That's my right, my right's good. - There you go. Okay Sam, what's one part of your body that you wish you could replace? - Oh God, my, dude, these are really hard question. My ankles, they always hurt when I run. - [Dr. Mike] Okay, that's a problem. - Oh man. Shoot, I would replace probably my, my lower back sometimes hurts
when I stand up too fast. - Lumbar spine. Fair.
- Sure. - Oh, that's what I should have said. I broke my back, and why
didn't I just say like. - You got a new back.
- We're on the spot man. - [Sam] This is too much anxiety. - What's one thing that
raised your blood pressure this week? - This situation.
- Okay. - Probably same. - Fair answer. Okay, so now, 1 to 10. I'm just gonna give you a list of things and then you just say 1
to 10 for each of them. You could say it at the
same time or take turns. From 1 to 10, how scared
are you of ghosts? - Five. - Seven. - [Dr. Mike] Movies. - Zero
- Scary movies. - Two. - [Dr. Mike] Books? - Ten. - Two. - [Dr. Mike] Mummies. - Mummies?
- Zero. - Zero. - [Dr. Mike] Wow, aliens or UFOs? - Six. - Eight. They're real. - Possession or exorcism. - Nine. - 10, it's gonna happen one day. - Oh, God.
- Monsters like Bigfoot, Yeti. Godzilla. - One. - Zero. - [Dr. Mike] Loneliness. - 10.
- 10. - War slash invasion. - 10. - 10. - [Dr. Mike] Zombies. - One. - Seven. - Whoa. - Dude, there could be zombies, dude. Think of all the pandemics out here man. Like we're gonna turn- - You guys watch "Last of Us?" - Yeah dude, that's
what I'm talking about. - Oh God, no I haven't seen that. - Yeah, he doesn't need this anxiety, right?
- Watch " The Last of Us." - Got too much going on. - In a year and a half
watch "The Last of Us." - Okay, failure. - Zero. - Zero. - Wow.
- Doesn't matter. - Meteor apocalypse. - You said apocalypse? - Three.
- Meteor. - Meteor. - It's not for likely.
- Like a two. - [Dr. Mike] Okay, being canceled. - Eight and a half. - [Sam] Eight and a half. - Financial collapse. - Two. - Four. - [Dr. Mike] Intimacy. - Scared of intimacy?
- Yeah. - Oh, three. - Five. - [Dr. Mike] The unknown. - Oh, 10.
- 10. - Dark deep water. - Oh God, 10. - 10.
- Freaks me out. - That's scary.
- Yeah. - Getting punched in the face. - One, someone come punch me. - Really? I got six, 'cause that
can really be damaging. - That could, depends
if they're gonna hit, but if you just get smacked
once, like you're gonna recover. - Okay.
- Right? - [Dr. Mike] Bees. - Oh zero, I got that. - Yeah, like two.
- Flick 'em off. - [Dr. Mike] Snakes. - Five. - Two. - [Dr. Mike] Spiders. - Seven.
- Zero. - What, seven?
- Sharks? (indistinct), like scream in
your room when you have a. - They're really scary.
- Oh my gosh. - You're that scared of spiders? - They're like tarantulas
and like Australian spiders. - Okay, I have a cool, fun fact. There's almost no deadly spiders. - Really? - Oh, I thought there was like a lot. - None. - [Colby] It's just like
the thought of them- - Especially North America, there's like, there's never been a death. - Never been a death in
North America from a spider? - I didn't know that. - I thought brown recluses
were chopping people left and right, yeah.
- Yeah, isn't that crazy? - Interesting.
- Yep. - In America though is what-
- No, no, no. But even worldwide,
it's almost unheard of. - Wow, okay. - As long as like you get
some level of medical care. Not like anti-venom,
like a snake thing but, spiders don't kill people. - Zero for spiders. - [Dr. Mike] Sharks. - Zero. - Four. - Zero? - I don't chill with sharks that often. I just feel like I can avoid them. - [Dr. Mike] AI. - 10.
- 10. - Okay.
- For sure. - [Dr. Mike] Horror video games. - Oh, two. - Nine. - Nine?
- Whoa. - I scream every time we do a react video. - The dark. - Two.
- Two. - Okay.
- Got used to that. - Fair, now for the last portion here, you could answer as a team, I have a list of YouTubers here and I'm curious how you
would choose to scare them. - Okay.
- Oh, that's interesting. - Mark Rober. - Oh God.
- Oh my gosh. He would be hard to scare 'cause
I feel like he's like you, evidence-based. I would, Mark Rober if you, we dangle him off the
side of a rollercoaster. - Rollercoaster, yeah, okay,
we'll do that to Mark, yeah. - Mr. Beast. - Oh.
- Mr. Beast. - Send him in the Conjuring house alone. - Conjuring house alone. And he just has to watch
like 1,000 hours worth, worth of something like he used to do in the olden days.
- There we go. That would be perfect. - Oh, that would be painful. Dude Perfect. - Scaring Dude Perfect. - Haunted golf course, I don't like what? Yeah, that's so hard. - Send them in the world's largest maze. - Ooh.
- Okay, all right. - That would be overwhelming.
- That's good. - Yeah, okay. - Casey Neistat. - Oh my God.
- Scaring that guy would be very- - Putting him in a bike
lane and blocking it off. - Telling him he can't run again. - That's fair.
- Oh, there we go. Yeah, does it have to be paranormal? No.
- Oh, what? - I was thinking,
- You're only thinking. That's why I was saying the rollercoaster. - I was like, how do I
think this, Dude Perfect? Like huh, dang. - Airrack. - Oh. - We're just scream at him constantly. For like eight hours straight. - What is that, seriously,
that would scare anybody. I feel like if you just scream
to someone for that long. - The Try Guys. - Ooh. Make each one of 'em go alone
in a different haunted house. - Yeah, divide 'em up. - And they have a walkie-talkie. - Only. Pitch darkness, yeah. - Pitch black, night vision cameras. - Logan Paul. - Oh, bring him to a forest. - Oh.
- Oh. - Just kidding. Just kidding, I can't, too soon. - Wow. - [Dr. Mike] I didn't expect that. - No, I didn't really either. - Especially 'cause the next
one is Ryan's Toys Review. - Oh, my God. - Dangle him over of rollercoaster - Oh my God, he's probably
scared of everything at this point. - Ryan Trahan. - Oh my gosh. - Oh man. Probably just take him to a
haunted place 'cause he is just, he just, his vocally
told us before in person, he just does not mess with ghosts. - He doesn't want that at all. - [Colby] He's too scared. - And I guess for me,
you'd take me into a, a haunted medical institution.
- Yes. - Oh, abounded hospital there we do. - Abounded hospital, haunted. - I would be so scared. No, I would, like I, if we do it, I have to wear a heart rate
monitor the whole time. So, you'll see that I'm
ne not faking anything. So, real time, you'll
see my pulse skyrocket. - If you're down, we
know a million hospitals. - That's a really interesting idea. We should do that too. Like have heart rate monitors. - Just get hooked up, yeah. - You don't even need something crazy. Just like the ones that
go across your chest. Like the polar heart rate monitors. Boom. - That's actually such a good idea, yeah. - 'Cause we're like internally
freaking out sometimes and no one knows.
- And it's hard to show, yeah. Because that's something that
we do when we think a patient is malingering, it's, we feel
like they're faking pain. There are some signs that we
use that the body actually shows that someone's truly in
pain and pulse is one of them. - Hmm.
- Okay. So, if you wanna prove to
people that this is real and you're really scared,
your pulse ain't gonna lie. - Interesting. - New idea. - Yeah, we should try that. - Can I be there for the
breakthrough episode? - You have to, you have to. - New tactic.
- Cool. - I usually ask a final question, but this time I'm only
gonna ask it to you Sam, because I feel like I know your answer. Have you ever almost died? - Have I almost, oh yes. We almost died scuba diving 100 feet below when we ran outta oxygen. So, we tried to get advanced
scuba dive certified in five days, which is pretty
much as fast as you humanly can, like legally. And we ran, multiple people
in our group ran out of oxygen 100 feet down and we did not
do any of the safety passes of going up as you're supposed to go, so. - Oh my god. - Even some people in
our group got the bends. - No way. - [Sam] So, it was, it was rough. - Wow, that's so scary. - Yeah, that, definitely
one of those that sent us into some anxiety ridden things. - Never been scuba diving
again after that, so, yeah. - That was the last time, actually. - No wonder you said
dark deep water was a 10. - Yeah, exactly.
- Now it all makes. - Real trauma there. - Well, I'm happy neither
of you have passed and that you're here to share this story. I think you're gonna do a
lot of good for the world. I appreciate your honesty,
your transparency, 'cause not an easy topic to talk about. So, thank you. - Yeah, thanks for having us.
- For coming on and sharing your experience and obviously,
- Of course. - For being a caregiver and
supporter for your friend. - Support.
- Get through it man. - We're gonna get through it. - Yeah. Dr. Mike, allow me
to issue you congratulations. I think you just conducted
the best interview of the, your young podcast life. - That's exciting. That's a very hard situation to deal with from Colby's side of things and hard from Sam's side of things for very different reasons. And having both of them
share their opinions openly, honestly, and still factually
keep it all together was tough, but a very valuable experience I hope for everyone involved. - Yeah, you got to really pull apart like the meat off of the
bone of this subject. And it was, it was really
fascinating to hear you say like, I think what X doctor
said here was incorrect and if you're in the situation
in the future audience, you should expect your
doctor to behave this way. And like, so it was kind of controversial but in a really educational way and I found it very satisfying. Dan, I'm assuming you
probably felt the same way. It was, I didn't, I didn't have trouble. I didn't get bored, I didn't look away. I found it really satisfying. - Yeah, I think even the ghost
hunting initial conversation was interesting 'cause it was a little bit of the controversy, is it real? - You were putting them on the spot. That was cute. - And then we started talking about this very heavy diagnosis
and how he's live dealing with this as
we're talking about it in the given moment. And he's facing this huge decision and it frankly made me feel very, I don't wanna say happy is the word, grateful that he trusts me
enough to ask me a question of that weight and willing
to hear my opinion out on it. - It was cool for the audience at home. In preparing for this interview, I had contacted their team and said, hey, if there's any update
about Colby's situation, we'd love to hear it so
Mike can be prepared. And yeah, they literally sent over his like test results and everything. - His pathology, yeah. - So, Mike actually got
to get his hands dirty and take a look at the, the
actual reports there, so. - And it, I think it
highlights how skeptical I am of our medical system, that the first thing I did
was based on his reports, go through the algorithm and see if he's receiving
the right options. - Oh, of the like up to date or something? - Yeah, yeah, like I went on
up to date, look through, okay, he has this thing on his pathology report, he has this on his blood test,
he has this on his CAT scans, what should be his options? And they gave him the right options. But so many times my patients
fall out of that algorithm and start getting weird advice and that's when I ask them
to go back to their doctor, show him this stepwise algorithm and ask why are we deviating from this? And if they don't have a good answer, run. - I was particularly excited
to have Sam and Colby on this episode because they
are the masters of scare on YouTube. And I know how big a scary
cat Dr. Mike actually can be. So, we, you asked them
this very fun question of how scared are they
of a variety of things and actually wanna flip
it around and ask you. - All right, let's do it. - Because their answers varied wildly and I think your answers are
gonna vary wildly as well. So, yes, a again, for
a scale from 1 to 10, one, you are so confident and grounded, you're not scared whatsoever, and a 10, you're absolutely mortified. - One or zero? - If you really don't think it registers, - Zero to 10. - Okay, we'll do a zero out of 10. So, how scared are you? We'll do this in a
slightly different order to throw you off, how
scared are you of the dark? - Give me what a 10 is. - A 10 is probably like
audibly screaming in terror. - Okay. - A full soiling of the pants.
- A full soil. Perfect. - Five. - A five of the dark? Okay, did you have a nightlight growing up or anything like that? - I would always ask for
the door to be cracked or nightlight or something, yeah. - And was that tethered
to a specific fear of oh, there's a monster under the
bed or, I don't know, it's, I just can't see, so I'm just- - The unknown. - The unknown, yeah. That's another one on the
list, fear of the unknown. Zero outta 10. - Six. - Six. How about I didn't, we didn't have this on
the earlier list, heights. - Oh, seven. - Seven. Because you were afraid
of living in tall billings for a little while. - And flying F-16s and everything. That what we've done on the channel. - Yeah, and then in
that F-16 you were flat and then you went straight up into. - Like a missile into the sky, - Outer space. Still one of the strangest
things I'd ever seen in my life. Dan and I stand in there
and watched Mike in a plane fly straight up into the
sky and literally disappear into the blue, that was bizarre. - And then, fly the plane. Like all these people are like, oh, they flew to space, first
of all, they didn't, they technically flew to
space, but it's not real space. And then also they're not
the ones flying the thing. I flew the F-16.
- Yep. - How many people can
say they flew in F-16 that's not in the military? - A handful of people
who did the Thunderbirds, but it's a small group.
- It's a small group, - Ain't me, I can't say yes to that. Very recently, I think you have developed quite a strong fear of
artificial intelligence, AI. - Yeah, I'm definitely afraid of it. I'm not screaming, so, it's like a 7.75. - Mike has been spiraling
testing chat GPT recently and, - It's so scary.
- He is absolutely mortified. - They've connected it to
the internet, that's it. It's done. It's gonna learn on its own
now it doesn't even need us. - But do you think it's gonna turn into Will Smith "I, Robot" situation? Where, it's they're gonna come and attack? - Worse, worse. - Worse? - Worse. - Or do you think it'll
be a "Her" situation, - Worse.
- Where they, well, the, "Her" situation, remember how that ends is the AI, - I didn't watch it.
- Oh "Her" is great. Oh, you got, I'm a I
won't spoil it for you. Okay, AI, horror video games. You've played some of these recently. - Yeah, five and a half. - Five and a half. Sharks. - 10. - 10. - Dude, if you're in the
water and you see a shark, 10. - Spiders. - Zero. - Because now we know,
we just researched this. - One, I'm still a little skeevy. - Well they can still bite you. - And nah, but it's skeevy - Yeah, I think that's fair. Snakes. - Mm, seven. - How about creepy crawlies in general? - Seven. - Okay, bees, stingers,
creatures that can sting. - Four. - Four. I feel, aren't, haven't you
said you don't like scorpions? - I hate scorpions, yeah. - Scorpions.
- 10, 15 scorpions. - Wow.
- They keep me up at night. - Did you have a negative experience? - If you tell me there's
a scorpion on this floor. I'm leaving tomorrow. - Did you get stung by one? Did you see one as a kid? Did you just. - Just look how frightening
they're, they kill you. - They are the most like
intimidating looking creature. - And they kill you, they're not spiders. - And not for nothing, the word scorpion, that's a top 10 word, that word rocks. - And I'm a Scorpio. - Financial collapse. And as someone who just bought a house, you're closer to this than ever.
- Five, five. - There's like personal financial collapse and then sort of like macroeconomic financial collapse.
- Five. Because I feel like I
could always figure it out. - Okay, sure.
- Four or five. - That's the security you
always have is you can always go be a doctor somewhere. - Yeah, but I just have
skills, like hand skills, meaning I could fight, I can
sew a wound, Dan's laughing. - [Dan] You can Only Fans. - Yeah, exactly. - Well, if there's financial
collapse, there's no Only Fans, no one can give you money. - Asteroid or meteor apocalypse. Earth Getting obliterated
by a rock from space. - Seven. - Seven.
- Yeah. - Okay, like that was
the, "Don't Look Up." The Caprio movie. Being canceled. - Mm. I've gotten better with this. Six and a half. - Okay. Zombies. - 10. - A 10. Zombies would get you? - No, actually, no. The zombie apocalypse
10, Zombie itself, 2. - Because you're afraid, so,
that's always the question, you recently played "The Last of Us." And I always ask people who
played it, what scares you more? The infected or the humans? Because they're both scary,
- The humans. - For very different reasons. - That whole apocalypse is scary. The zombie itself one time. - I think the human is scarier. - Human's way worse. - You can kind of predict
the behavior of a zombie. The behavior of a human can be. - The devil you know is
better than the devil you don't know.
- Absolutely. Possession or exorcism. - I don't even know what that means, zero. - But like a demon taking you over,
- Zero. - Good luck.
- Wow. - I'm already a demon. - How about like general
religious phenomena? - Zero. - [Sam] Like Indiana Jones kind of stuff. - What?
- Like the, the ArK of the Covenant opening and, - Zero.
- That there are. - Just don't believe in
it, have no fear around it. - Cool, totally legit, aliens or UFOs? - Mm, two. - Two? So, is that because you
reject their existence? - No, just I have no reason to believe that they'll murder me. - That's a very logical point of view. I think it's a great way to be. Yeah, we can believe
that there are aliens. We can also believe that there are ghosts. Why do we assume they're hostile? - Exactly.
- So, then how about ghosts? - Three.
- Three. Okay, mummies? - Zero.
- Who's afraid of mummies. Come on, right? That's gotta be low,
how about Scary Books? - Zero.
- Have you ever read any scary books?
- I don't read. - That's right, you listen to stuff, yo. - And I've never listened to a scary book. - Yo, read "The Shining" and
come back to me and tell me. Yeah, actually sit there
and read it in the dark. Have you read "The Shining," Dan? - How do you read in the dark? - Well, like in a room with one light. Good point, you got me. And then finally, scary movies. - Six. - Yeah, you do get a little
spooked up (crosstalk), - That's why I don't watch 'em. - Yeah, you avoid 'em. Those are the things that
Dr. Mike is afraid of. You know what Dr. Mike is not afraid of. - What?
- Medical questions? - Yeah. - From the internet.
- I'm ready. - He's a pro. This is a question that
comes from Happy Daisy. If you would like to have
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leaving us a five star review on Apple Podcast, and in
the body of your review, write a medical question
and it may come up and be read to Mike. So, this first question from Happy Daisy, who gave us five stars is, "When someone gets a body part amputated, where does that amputated body part go?" What does the hospital
do with a severed limb? - I think we looked this up in the past for responding to comments video. And I believe they get
disposed of in the biohazard, if it's a small body part. And then I believe that
there are incineration, when something's burned, incinerated.
- Incinerated. an incinerator. - But the process of being
incinerated is incineration? - Your hand was incinerated. - But to the, tion, version of that. - Incineration.
- Sounds weird. - [Sam] Oh no, what's happening? - Well anyway, it's incinerated. - And so, you can't, if you go to get your
wisdom teeth taken out, the dental surgeon may allow you to bring the teeth home with you. Can you bring an amputated
foot home with you? - Mm. - I have to imagine it's, no. - I think a foot, no. But I think maybe certain things. - Like something with flesh. - Maybe something small,
'cause they can preserve it. I don't know, I don't know. I don't know the answer, I'm
not gonna act like I know. - Okay, that's good. Well, please leave us a five star review and also if you've made it this far, you might be interested in
joining us on our Patreon. $10 a month. 100% of the money is donated to a charity of your Patreon resident
choosing every month, we vote on where to to give the money during a Dr. Mike livestream. So, we'd love to have you join us there and continue making our charitable impact. We've given away almost $200,000
now through that Patreon. And maybe somebody out
there could be interested in learning how to turn their
level of professionalism or expertise into a media career. - Join Professionals Media Academy on professionalsmediaacademy.com
where I teach you how to become the go-to
medical or media expert. You could be of any profession,
you could be a doctor, a lawyer, pharmacist, business person, real estate agent lawyer. You could follow and learn
what has made our channel so successful. Our media journey has been so successful and where we've messed up so
you can avoid those mistakes for yourself. - Yes, this is a course designed by Mike that he wish had been given to him when he started his media career. You can learn how to
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- Yes. - Thank you so much for listening. Hope you enjoyed learning
all about testicular cancer. And huge thank you to Sam and
Colby for sharing their unique medical journeys. As always, stay happy and healthy and thanks for joining
on the Checkup Podcast.
I hope someday for a collab with dr.mike, that would be amazing, but as well some clear up about Colby’s cancer.
Thank you VERY much for this!