The Nick Bare Podcast - Archive - Mike Thompson | Conquering Cancer, Kona Ironman, and Kilimanjaro

Episode Date: April 18, 2022

Mike Thompson could have listened to the doctors. At the age of 15, after five years of battling four rounds of cancer, when they told him he wouldn’t make it past age 18. Or when they told him that he would never be able to do athletic activites ever again.  But he didn’t. Now in his mid-30’s, Mike has completed multiple marathons and Ironmans, including the Kona Ironman, and has summited Mount Kilimanjaro. He has now devoted his life to helping others who struggle with cancer, PTSD, and more by partnering with Texas Original, one of the two operating medical cannabis providers in Texas. In this episode, Mike sits down with Nick to share his story, as well as share about his work with Texas Original, and how they hope to educate about the benefits of medicinal cannabis. More Resources: BPN website: www.bpnsupps.com Nick’s website: www.nickbare.com Nick’s Instagram: www.instagram.com/nickbarefitness Nick’s Youtube: www.youtube.com/user/barelifenutrition Follow Us On Social Media! Instagram: @thebareperformancepodcast Facebook: The Bare Performance Podcast Twitter: @BarePerformPod

In this episode of the Bear Performance Podcast, you talk about what's the definition of hard. I think about working out that it doesn't get easier, you just get stronger. It doesn't get easier, you just get faster. You're putting in the same amount of effort, what your body is performing well. And that's, I think, kind of like the Bear Performance Nutrition should be that mantra of, you don't, it's not easier, but you get stronger and faster. And that became my mentality that, um, if I can get through cancer, I can do an Iron Man.

If I can get through cancer, I can climb, you know, a mountain, climb Kilimanjaro. And I did all those things selfishly because I wanted to experience them, but I also knew that I had to do something to get back. So I raised money for cancer organizations, make a wish type organizations to give others a fighting chance at life like I had. Welcome back to another powerful episode of the podcast. I'm your host, Nick Baer, founder and CEO of Bear Performance Nutrition. Every week we bring you insightful stories, knowledge, and inspiration to help you reach

your full potential in life, fitness, and business. If you enjoy the message we're promoting in this podcast, we would greatly appreciate it if you would leave a rating and review on the platform you're listening to. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss it. on future episodes that embody the go one more mindset. All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode. Today I have Mike Thompson, who is Cancer's Worst Enemy. You're just kicking cancer's ass, man.

Over and over and over. What's that process been like? My whole life, the majority of my life has been in survivorship. So it's what I identify with first. Being 36 years old, being told that I wouldn't live, to be 18 and now being double that age is just a huge privilege and I want to use that to inspire others. Yeah, I mean, like I was telling you, this story, stories about cancer and surviving cancer really hit home for me. In 2019, we lost my mom to ovarian cancer. And growing up, I saw cancer

from afar. I saw people that were experiencing it or going through it or being diagnosed by it. And I was almost desensitized to it. It was just like this thing that we lived with. But then when you finally experience it firsthand through someone really close to you, it's a very different experience. And it really takes over the whole person. And the last couple months where my mom, I mean, my mom's cancer escalated very quickly. And in like January, she was diagnosed by June. She passed away. It was like stage four ovarian cancer.

And we're going to dive into this in the episode. But she towards the end needed some sort of relief from the pain. It was super painful. The medicine wasn't doing anything. And she found out she could get a medical marijuana card. Yep. But she wasn't able to get it in time to relieve the pain. ended up passing me before before she could use it.

And I know you're heavily involved in that space right now. Absolutely. And medical marijuana for relief, for pain, for PTSD. But before we dive into that, what are you actively doing right now in your involvement with Texas Original and other foundations you're involved with? Yeah. So I do work for Texas Original. We were the first medical cannabis suspensary in Texas.

as part of the Texas Compassionate Use Program. So that was passed in 2015, and it's since evolved every legislative session since then. And so as of last year, it includes all cancers in all stages, and added PTSD in addition to the already approved conditions that include epilepsy, Parkinson's, MS, basically any neurodegenerative condition is part of that program. And I serve as the Director of Strategic Partnerships,

So working with people that have podcasts, doctors offices, healthcare centers, forward-facing events, just really anything that we can do to partner with like-minded companies to spread awareness of medical cannabis and what it can do. I also am in grad school right now at Texas State getting a master's degree in communication and rhetoric. And I teach at Texas State, teach undergraduate communications, fundamentals of communication. So I love teaching. I love my students. I love being a grad school. I love my job.

I've never been busier in my life and I've never been happier in my life. How impactful is all of that? It's just a few years ago I didn't have a degree. I left school under the fog of pain meds in 2004. I went on medical withdrawal and never went back. And that was the journey through opioids that lasted for almost six years. and it wasn't until 2008, 2009 that I started to have a rejuvenation of passion for life. And that led me to the Iron Man and cycling.

And while I was a baseball player, soccer player, basketball player when I was younger, I had to let go of those things and channel my energy into something else, something less impactful on my body, my leg, my jaw. But yet something that challenged me and brought me back to, you know, some form of shape. and so, you know, we can dive into that portion too, but just a few years ago, I did not have really anything, any accolades, any degrees, nothing that I really felt like I had achieved, and decided to go back to school, finish the bachelor's degree, graduated with honors, and then got accepted to Texas State for grad school. A lot of this is inspired by my wife, Kendall. She's my best friend in the world. She has six degrees, including a doctorate. So Dr. Burleson, takes good care of me and she inspires me a lot. But I would come home and watch Cubs games and Sports Center while she was writing a paper.

And I thought, this is a little lopsided. I think I'm going to re-engage in school. And it's led me to some of the best victories I've had in my life. And I feel like I'm right where I need to be now. Would you say that your life was flipped upside down when you were 10 years old? Yeah, it's kind of like the reverse Benjamin Buttons. Like, I grew up really fast, and then I got younger as I went along because kind of like you said, when you hear about cancer, if you don't have it or someone close to you doesn't have it, you have these conceptions in your mind. You have, okay, you lose your hair, you get sick, but you don't really understand the nuances of treatment, of the prognoses.

And so, yeah, thrust into it at 10 years old, I was just looking forward to a soccer game that I had on Saturday. And it was a Thursday night, October 13th of 1995, that they're like, you know, he's going to have to stay. We're going to run some tests. We think it's leukemia. And Saturday morning, they confirmed it. What made you have to go into the hospital? I had flu-like symptoms. I was experiencing sore throat, fever, nausea, and we just thought it was the flu.

And I was in soccer. And one night, you know, when I was younger, I was an elite soccer player. And I know that leading up to like 10 and I played in high school a little bit, I felt like I was the best. I always made all-stars, always the fastest, strongest kid. And I didn't want that taken away from me. I wanted to pursue sports in high school, college, and beyond. And that night, I just didn't have anything. I didn't have any energy.

I couldn't kick the ball far. And I thought, okay, something's wrong. I'm sick, but I'll get over it quickly. And that turned into a blood test, which turned into more blood tests, which turned into a hospitalization, which for the next five months I was in the hospital under your own chemo for leukemia. Man, that's just like flipping your life upside down. Absolutely. It was, again, do you have these conceptions of what cancer is until you get it?

You don't know how rigorous, how painful, how frustrating it can be. And we were thrust right into it without warning. So what was after you were diagnosed with leukemia when you were 10 years old, What were those first steps in terms of recovery? And then how long did it take for you to recover from cancer the first time? Well, immediately they started chemotherapy. And I learned really quickly how that feels. So it was very toxic chemo.

And, you know, lost my hair immediately. Nausea all the time. Mouth soars wasn't hungry. Couldn't sleep. So that's when, you know, the intravenous pain med started just to keep me comfortable. And like I said, from October to February, five straight months, I didn't leave the hospital. They saw that my counts were coming back up and I was leaning towards remission. And so I got out of the hospital in late February, 1996, and went back in June for a three-month checkup and they discovered that the cancer was back.

And so I had only recovered about three months, but I did feel strong again. I was eager to get back in school. and instead we went down the path of bone marrow transplantation. We thought if chemo didn't work the first time, we need to completely erase his body's, the bad blood that had been circulating in my body, and erased that and then replace it with good bone marrow. And luckily, they found 32 perfect matches for me,

which is not really unheard of, but we were just very fortunate and blessed to have that many matches. they picked one. You're not allowed to know who the donor is, which I think protects both the patient and the donor. Should any relationships be formed and the patient not make it, it just adds undue stress. But we met a little over a year after.

That's the timeline that they give you. So I made it. We met his name is Steve Gerting and his family, Sue, Connor, and Kendall are like my family now. We travel places together. They're in Chicago, the Chicago area. But yeah, Steve gave enough marrow to give me two bone marrow transplants and literally saved my life. And you think about the things that happen in your life, the events that transpired are bringing you where you need to be.

Obviously, I wouldn't wish that I had cancer again. But I would do it all over again if it meant meeting Steve and his family and leading me to a greater appreciation for life just because I almost lost it. What does that process look like in terms of bone marrow transplant? How do they do it? Sure. So the beginning stages are more chemotherapy and total body radiation. So I had four rounds of each in August of 1996. Bone marrow transplantation took place on September 5th of 1996.

And the transplantation itself is easy. It's just a blood transfusion. The marrow is kind of like a pinkish red. and it just goes in intravenously. Now, once the side effects start kicking in from the chemo and the radiation, that's when the suffering really begins. So I would have gone fever every night. My body was rejecting all these meds that I was taking, rejecting the marrow.

So they're giving me anti-rejection meds on top of, you know, antibiotics and supplements to keep me nourished and IV fluids to keep me hydrated. and I had mouth sores. I was literally pulling out flesh from my mouth because the tissue was falling off. I would regularly, apologies to the listeners, if you have queasy stomach, but I would throw up blood regularly

just because my esophagus was so torn up. One night, I started running a fever of 107.1, and I started to have a seizure. And I looked up at my mom, and I thought, I don't want to do this anymore. I just let it kill me. I'm done. I can't fight.

And my mom is five feet tall and the strongest woman you've ever met. So she's like, I went through labor with you for 24 hours. You're not going to give up this easy. And so push through. What are you at this point? Like 11 years old? I was 11. Yeah.

And coming to grips with the fact that I might not make it to adulthood, that I might not get to go back to school. That became a reality for us. And I didn't want that. I wanted to live. I wanted to one day be a dad. one day, be a husband, get back to playing sports, go to school, do all the normal things. Change your oil, mow the lawn.

Like, I just wanted to do those normal things. And still, to this day, I appreciate those because they were almost taken away from me. And so, yeah, bone marrow transplantation was quite literally transformative. I've got a different blood type now, which is crazy. And like I said, my relationship with Steve is just incredible. We're family now. And luckily, after the first transplant, I relapsed one more time from leukemia 14 months later. And in January 9th, 1998, I had a second bone marrow transplant that was saved.

The marrow was saved frozen, like cryogenically, Austin Powers, frozen from the first time that Steve gave. So they had enough to give me a second transplant. And that's the one that nipped it in the bud. That finally erased the leukemia and I made it, you know, past the five. your mark for that and at that point you're considered cured and then you just have to go back every year or a couple of years to get a blood test to make sure you're not having another episode. So what was it that, you've had over 75 surgeries? Yeah.

What is it that has caused and been the source or reason for the 75 surgeries? Yeah, so most of it's been on my jaw. I experienced one more cancer. The fourth bout was osteosarcoma. It was a malignant bone tumor and my jaw that formed. Doctors said it was caused by radiation from my first bone marrow transplant. So obviously frustrating to have a form of treatment cause a side effect, in this case, a life-threatening one.

And the only way that they could get a big enough margin was to completely reconstruct the lower part of my jaw, the right side. So they use the fibula from my left leg to create a template. and I have a metal plate in here that acts as a guiding line. I have two dental implants that hold my prosthetic in and help me look a little bit more normal and preserve the integrity of my face. But yeah, most of them have been jaw surgeries

where it's just like little tweaks here and there, cutting tissue out. The other bulk of my surgeries was actually during my first bout with leukemia when my counts were down. I developed a fungal infection. It was called aspergillus. It's the second deadliest fungal infection in the world. And if you want a fungal infection, I guess you don't want the most deadly.

I think you want the second or third. Aspergillus certainly didn't have the attitude of a one. So I was able to beat it. But I had two surgeries per day for two straight weeks. Every single day I'd have surgery in the morning. then I'd spend an hour in the hyperbaric chamber pumping oxygen in as aspergillus cannot thrive in oxygenated environments and would have an afternoon surgery. So that was my two days where all my friends were playing football and going to practice twice

a day. I was having surgery twice a day. And so that amounted to close to 40 surgeries on its own during that period. What were they doing during these surgeries? Like what was the goal? Little by little excavating my entire nasal cavity. So removing my septum, my turbinates, scooping out the infection, finding the infected tissue, and making sure it's all gone.

So my nasal cavity is wide open. I don't have nostrils. I mean, I do. I have openings, but it just goes to one big cavity. Luckily, you know, I don't have clog nose and congestion or anything like that. So there is a bonus to it. But I can, you know, I can stick my pinky all the way back in my nose without any trouble. My mom wanted me to go on David Letterman when that show was still around and go on stupid human tricks because I could put spaghetti up one nostril and out the other and do a little floss.

And we learned to make light of a bunch of the situations that we faced. And that was one of them that one day after all the surgeries and after I healed, I had, you know, a bugger that I needed to get out. And I felt like if I pushed from one side and got the finger in the other side that I could oppose it. and get enough grip on it and my fingers touched. And I go, mom, I can touch my fingers in my nose. What's happening? And she's like, yeah, they took everything out, Mike. And I'm like, oh, okay. Somebody could have explained that to me. So I didn't freak out whenever my fingers could touch. I thought I broke some tissue in there or something. But yeah, we, you know, learn to learn to get through all that. And I'm used to surgery now. It doesn't scare me at all, obviously. The rest of them were minor

surgeries, little adjustments here and there, putting in central lines, and, you know, just mainly making sure I was out for any traumatic experience. And the one thing I'll tell you about the facial reconstruction, the one time that I told my mom that I did want to die, that I didn't want to fight anymore. March 16th of 2000 was the facial reconstruction at MD Anderson, most renowned cancer center in the world. Two weeks after that, I developed an infection around one of the implants. And so they went in and they needed to clear out the infection. And so picture this. I had my jaw wired shut. I had tubes running out of my neck and out of my groin to drain the swelling. I had staples in my left leg where they took the fibula out. There's also a big ring of tissue

that they had taken out. That's actually now my gum on the lower right side. So I actually grow hair in my mouth. It's my leg hair. Pretty trippy. But picture. that kid, you know, 14 years old, strapped down to a surgical bed, jaw-wired shut, staples in the leg, catheter, and down in my cash and prizes, you know, central lines coming out and just immobile. The only way I could breathe was through a trache in my throat, so I had a tracheotomy. And they decide that they're not going to put me out for this particular surgery. They were going to keep me sedated, but awake. So they gave me a cocktail of Demerol and Versaed, and they started to operate.

Now, what they wanted to do was remove a feeding tube that was going up through my nose and into my stomach. Take that out and put it directly into my stomach because it was causing nausea. It felt like I had a hawk alugie all the time. And whenever they put nutrition in there, it was cold. So I could feel cold down the back of my throat. So they thought, all right, while he's under or while he's sedated, we'll go ahead and inflate his stomach and put it directly in. unfortunately I woke up before the surgery ended and I was strapped down to the table so I couldn't move to tell them that I was awake. My head was strapped down and on my eyes was a wet cloth so that my eyes didn't dry out.

They couldn't see that I was awake until I started like moaning and screaming. Then my jaws wired shut so I can't open my mouth. The trache was my only breathing source and I couldn't get enough air. and they inserted the feeding tube into my stomach after they inflated it and it made me throw up. So I threw up into my trache and it blocked my only breathing passage. They hit me with sedation immediately. I went back under and three days later I woke up and on this little whiteboard, it's your symptom management.

And at the bottom it has smiley face for one and a sad face for 10 to rank your pain scale. and I crossed them all out and I wrote, just let it kill me. I was done. I told my mom, I didn't deserve this. If I were to go through something that's traumatic again, I'm not doing it.

Just kill me. And again, she was there for me. Her strength carried me through. My dad, my sisters, they all were rooting for me. And I thought, okay, I want to live for me, but I definitely want to live for them. my mom has made it through these four cancers already, five years in the hospital,

the least I can do is fight a little harder. And at that moment, she brought this case, this box full of over 700 letters from my high school that students had wrote saying, we miss you, we want you to come back. And my best friend at the time, his name was Mark Gistel. Mark and his sister Sarah, Sarah was the senior class president at that time. she decided to put up a vote and all of the seniors voted to have their prom at the school and they saved whatever money they would use on the hotel to give to my family for whatever we needed meals travel prescriptions paying for treatment and again when somebody does that type of gesture

it makes you fight a little harder so at that point i said okay i feel like the worst is over let's let's get back to it when you when you woke up during this surgery, could you feel all of what was happening? I could feel everything. I could feel, you know, they had already inflated my stomach to, you know, allow my stomach easier pierce, easier insertion of the needle for the feeding tube. Because I kept trying to open my jaw to talk, I didn't realize my jaw was wired shut. So that was excruciating. And remember, the swelling is out to here. I had staples all the way down. I mean, I can show you a picture, but I looked unlike myself. I did not look like me at all.

Was that that picture you posted on Instagram? Yep. I saw that. Yeah. And I mean, I post that picture to show, you know, that was an incredibly traumatic experience for everyone involved. And the 12 and a half hour reconstruction, you know, two and a half hours to remove the tumor, 10 hours to use my fibula to reconstruct it all, I was only the second patient that had gone through that type. And, the kid I saw before, you know, he had some pretty bad scar tissue. He looked fine. But I was like, okay, that's what I'm going to look like. That's what I'm going to prepare for. And when I was that swollen, I thought, this is what I'm going to look like. And luckily, everything kind of

settled down and, you know, tucked underneath my new jawbone. So they did preserve the integrity of my face. I still have trouble talking and trouble chewing. But I'm alive. And to me, nothing beats that. And how old were you at this point? I was 14. It was my fourth cancer, fifth year of fighting it. And I was 14 years old. It had just become a freshman in high school. And March 16th of 2000 was that surgery. And my dad, he said, you know, we love the final four. And he said, you just got to get to the championship. If you get to the championship game, if we watch it together, you're going to make it. And Tom Izzo's Michigan State Barton's won that year. and we didn't have any investment in the team, but we filled out of bracket.

And that was kind of what cemented my love of the Final Four even more. And so I've been able to do some interaction, engagement with the Final Four, the National Association of Basketball Coaches in the NCAA. It was just one of the cool facets of my life that started back with my surgery. But we can dive into that later. But yeah, 14 years old. And I had already been through more surgeries, more treatment, more cancers, than, you know, most adults had.

I think I was explaining to you before we started recording. I think these stories are so powerful because one of the things my wife says all the time, Steph says, sometimes people don't need advice. They just need to know that what they're going through, they're not alone. And I know for a fact that there's people listening

on the other side of this who, if they're not going through, something similar to this. They know someone who is. Could be a mom, a dad, a spouse, a daughter, a son. So I'm very interested and curious because, I mean, me and my family went through this for six months, but your family went through it for five years. What impact?

What was the result of your family going through this for five years? What was that impact, what it looked like, and what was the other side? The first thing I'll say is, Steph is absolutely right. You know, when you're fighting cancer, the worst thing that you can hear is, you know, oh, everything happens for a reason or, you know, you're going to get through this. It's like, you don't know if I'm going to get through it or not. You know, don't give me false promises. Perfect example of my experience and how I can help others is my friend Andrew,

who our friend Jimmy introduced me to. Andrew is battling and doing very well against testicular cancer right now. And I had an hour and a half conversation with him the first time we ever talked. He's in Pennsylvania. And Andrew, what's up if you're listening? But, you know, luckily he said, you know, everything was good. My body's responding well to it. The markers are shrinking.

But I told him, you know, you're going to have people that kind of coddled to you. You're going to have people that, you know, everything happens for a reason. and like you're going to get through it and you just pray. And I've got a different outlook on spirituality now. I grew up in the church. And so I was familiar with prayer, but then I realized, you know, sin happens in this world. Doubt happens in this world. There's evil.

And you can't always rely. I mean, you certainly pray, but you can't always rely on just that. Bedros and Kass were talking about being motivated versus being disciplined. and throughout that time, I was disciplined. I took my meds on time. I drank water. I got up and did PT because I knew that it would carry me through much better. And doctors said, because I stayed up with that, that really improved my chances at life.

And so in terms of the impact on my family, everything becomes commonplace after that. I mean, any struggle that people go through, you remember the second hangover movie? Mr. Chow, he does some drugs and then he dies allegedly. Yeah. So they put him in the freezer and then they go open it and he wakes up. And, you know, he's like, Chow, I can't believe you did this. Like, why didn't you tell us? And he's like, oh, I'm sorry.

I made you bad. Did you die, though? Like, he's talking about, like, the worst thing that happened to me is I died. And for me, if I hear, you know, some of my undergrads talk about, like, homework or, you know, being stressed out. Like, absolutely, but just know everyone's in the same situation. And if you just buckle down and put your nose to the grindstone, then you'll get through it. And so for my family, everything kind of paled in comparison to that challenge of, you know, fighting cancers.

Like, like, if we can beat this, we can do anything. And we have. And we did. Like I said, my identity, more than half of my life, two thirds of my life, actually have been spent in survivorship. So for me, it's kind of truly is all I know. know, it's what I lead with. And kind of like Bedros and Cass were talking, they talked about being comfortable with discomfort, you know, thriving in pain and suffering. And I feel like I've been able to do that. I feel like suffering makes you grow stronger. It sharpens your competitive edge.

And while I wanted to join the military, I wanted to be a fire pilot when I was younger. I'm 5'3, 130 pounds. I'm a smaller guy now. Cancer stunned my growth. Well, the treatment did anyways. But that kind of ruined my dreams as a military, but I was fighting a completely different battle while both of my brothers-in-law were in Iraq and Afghanistan,

one a Marine and one in the Army. And so I was fighting a much different battle, and everybody is fighting a different battle. And if, like I think Cash said, if you focus on getting through that suffering and you turn that into something profitable and you share that experience with others, that's where true value is found. And so that's what I feel like I'm able to do now is just shed light on what is possible if you put your head down.

Stay motivated, yes, but stay disciplined more than anything. And you can accomplish anything. I'm a big fan of the saying in the mindset that hard is relative. And we all have a definition, a different definition of hard. What is hard for you might not be hard for me. And what is hard for me might not be hard for you. And some people like yourself, you don't choose all the suffering. That suffering is just, it just happens.

Yep. You have to go through it. And you have to go through it to get to the other side. some people don't always go through that kind of adversity. Yep. And they have to search for moments of suffering and raise that relative level of what is hard. But once you go through something that is hard, your threshold of what you can take on in life is like bring it on. I'm ready.

Absolutely. If you want to test me, I've been tested. Test me again. 100%. weightlifting, Ironman training. I actually haven't met you yet, but if Demi Bagby is listening, you know, she's like, I think five feet tall and she's one of the strongest people I've ever seen.

And so, you know, while she might not be able to like pick you up with one arm, she's capable of doing whatever she wants with her own strength. That's what I wanted to become. At 5'3 foot three back when I was in my Iron Man days, I was 119 pounds. So I thought, all right, I'm never going to bench press. a Buick, but I can go run fast. And you talk about what's the definition of hard. I think about working out that it doesn't get easier, you just get stronger. It doesn't get easier, you just get faster. You're putting in the same amount of effort, but your body is performing well.

And that's, I think, kind of like the bare performance nutrition should be that mantra of, it's not easier, but you get stronger and faster. And that became my mentality that if I can get through cancer, I can do an Iron Man. If I can get through cancer, I can climb, you know, a mountain, climb Kilimanjaro. And I did all those things selfishly because I wanted to experience them, but I also knew that I had to do something to give back. So I raised money for cancer organizations, make a wish type organizations to give others a fighting chance at life like I had.

But you were told you aren't going to live past 18. correct. If I relapsed after the first bone marrow transplant, they said I would likely would not make it to 18. It would not make it into my late teens. And I'm 36 now. And with the tumor, that was probably the most dangerous one because if that had metastasized to my brain, lungs,

other parts of my body, then I absolutely would be dead. And so luckily we caught it soon enough. And from the time that we discovered it to the time that they removed it. It was the size of about a marble that grew into the size of a peach. So I had this huge, you know, protruding mass on the right side of my jaw that was very apparent. And it was growing rapidly.

And they got it out just in time. And then when you had the face reconstruction surgery and it took your fibula out, putting your jaw, you were told that you shouldn't expect to play sports or compete or even exercise. Right. Running would be difficult. Probably, you know, the fibula supports a sixth of your weight. So your tibia is obviously the weight bearing bone. But in terms of functionality and, you know, movement and pivoting, that's gone. And they said, you know, running is going to be challenging for you. So playing soccer out of the question. You can maybe play baseball, but you're going to have to be careful and wear a guard on that left leg. Because if you get, you know, a ball in the dirt or low. fastball hits your tibia, boom, broken. And so I just kind of didn't listen to them. Now, of course, I went through six years of pain medicine from essentially 2002 when they did a botched nerve block until late 2008. Not a day went by that I did not consume, you know, 10 pills of narcotics and six pills of neuropathic pain medicine and muscle relaxers and other psychotropic drugs like Xanax just to like calm me down.

I mean, I was a pharmacy full of drugs. Where was the pain coming from? Like, where was it at? It was the jaw and the leg. And, you know, if anyone's out there listening, you know that long-term use of pain meds, you get dependent on it. Your body literally craves it. That's the addiction side. So as you're taking more medicine, your body's creating more.

more pain receptors. And if you don't fulfill the need of those pain receptors, you feel much worse. So every time that I try to stop taking medicine, I would, you know, get chills. I would get headaches. I'd get nauseous. I'd get diarrhea. Again, sorry for the listeners that gross you out, but that's what people go through when they're on long-term pain medicine. And there was no other option to me. I literally went to MD Anderson once a month and got, you know, 500 pills of different types. and I would come back home, I'd take them, and I'd go back a month later. And that was pain management. You know, that was really the proliferation of the Purdue Pharma's of the world.

And, you know, just spewing these, not necessarily falsehoods, but like everyone on pain medicine, you know, they need to take this. It's highly effective. Now we know that it's a primary cause of addiction and drug overdoses. And it's unfortunate, but luckily I learned about all this and the clinical setting and not everyone's lucky to have that. So at one point did you say, fuck this, I'm going to do Kona Ironman and then I'm going to climb Mount Kilmajoro. Well, it wasn't until I got off all the meds that I really had that I call it my rejuvenation of passion for life where I could

feel emotion again. I actually went to a detox center. I was in a rehabilitation center for a month in Kerrville, Texas. And it was a very, you know, medically sound, very, you have these preconceived notions of what rehab is. And there's been movies that they've made about it that kind of poke light at like the different types of people that are there, whether they're addicts or fiends or whatever. And I met incredible people. I met firefighters and cops and doctors and nurses and lawyers that for some reason or another developed substance abuse. problems. And they're all normal people. And it just shows that humans, while we can cope with a lot, we are fragile. And it taught me a lot about addiction. And it taught me a lot, okay, what I went through

is no fault of my own, but I can control this. And so when I got off the meds, I started walking, class running again, and I thought, I'm not going to listen to them. I'm not going to listen to the doctors that said I couldn't run. And I decided to join up with the Leukemia Society of America. My dad had done a bike ride with them in Tucson in 2000, actually probably 1999. And I was the honored teammate back then. I was, I think I was 13 years old. I spoke in front of like 800 people in Tucson and shared my story and they loved it. So, you know, 15 years later, here I am about to go on stage in front of America's most beautiful bike ride riders in Lake Tahoe. So 2,500 people in this amphitheater that Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. had performed in.

And here I am, again, sharing my story. And that training, getting ready for a century bike ride around Lake Tahoe, developed enough strength in my leg and enough stamina and endurance in my body that I thought, okay, I can do this. and I segued right into running after that, and I was recruited by the Leukemia Society triathlon team. And I thought, I can't swim. I've got a really short lung capacity from chemo,

but let's try it. Let's see if I can do it. And I had watched, you know, Iron Man clips of Dick and Rick Hoyt, the father's son duo. Rick Hoyt is the son. And he was born with, a neurodegenerative disorder and he was paralyzed and his dad pushed him in a wheelchair,

swam with him, rode with him, and ran with him at the Kona Ironman. So I thought, if he can push two people, I can push one. And so again, I wanted to use that as inspiration to say, I beat cancer, now I can do this. And so the Hawaii Iron Man for me was the pinnacle of endurance sport. And I thought if I can get there, if I can make it, if I can complete that, that's to set me on a trajectory of life that I can't turn back from to say that I've done the world's toughest race. And so I got to do it in 2012. I actually submitted a video to get there.

I had already done a couple Iron Man races before that, but the Kona Inspired campaign was released and I created a video that was voted on 250,000 times to get to go. So I got to compete on the world stage in Hawaii, and I raced my butt off. I ran so hard on that marathon. I finished with a smile on my face. I think I did like a 340 marathon after all that. And I just felt phenomenal. And I thought, okay, I already beat cancer.

I knew anything was possible, but now really anything is possible. Would that feel like crossing that finish line? I can't explain it. To the people that have done it, you know how it feels. It's kind of like when you're in it, you can't explain it. When you're outside of it, you don't understand it. but my roommate at the time Rachel knew the announcer Mike Riley and he's the voice of Ironman.

He's what you want to hear when you cross the line. He's legendary. He's legend in that space. And so about 100 yards out, he says, all right, ladies and gentlemen, I need you to turn your focus to the shoot right now. This young man, Mike Thompson, is a four-time cancer survivor. He is Kona inspired and he's here to cross the line.

at the Ironman World Championship, Mike Thompson, you are an Ironman. And the crowd went nuts. And I took like a little mental picture of the finish line just to remember that moment. And Rachel had set all that up. And so to give me that welcome, you know, my family was waiting there. My best friend Jack was waiting there. And it was just this monumental experience. And, you know, afterwards I cried realizing what I had done.

And it's an experience I'll never. forget. They gave me chills, man. Yeah, it's pretty, it gives me chills when I talk about it still. So after, you know, Tim Grover has his book called Winning. Yep. And I reference as part of the book all the time, but it's very applicable to people who are high achievers and go out for the next thing.

And Tim Grover talks about that we chase his first win. and I'm sure I'm assuming, but correct me if I'm wrong, after cancer, you felt defeated. And you need to get that first win. When you get that first win, there is sacrifice involved in that first win. However, once you get that first win, it builds confidence. And then after you get that little win, it's like, all right, what's next? And to get that next win, there's more sacrifice, but it builds more confidence. And I'm sure crossing the finish line of the Kona Ironman built a pretty big amount of confidence.

After that, was it, okay, now I'm going to climb Africa's tallest peak, Mount Kilimanjaro, bring it on. Absolutely. And I listened to Toto growing up, so love that song, Africa. I'd played on the drums when I was a kid. I love watching, I still love watching David Attenborough documentaries. I watched Discovery Channel. I watched Nat Geo. So I was very familiar with the African landscape and the wildlife that lives there and really just Kilimanjaro in general.

And the Lipsong Foundation had this event called the Survivor Summit where you had to raise money. You had to raise a minimum of $10,000 for the foundation. and you got to go on this trip to Mount Kilimanjaro. So 14 of us went. They were all related to cancer somehow. Some survivors, some family members of survivors. Some were just there to support the cause. And we all went.

We summited together. I actually summited twice. I went up with the first group. And then there was a second group that went up a little bit later with a young lady, my friend's staff, who was having some altitude issues. So walked her up. She said that she didn't remember anything. Steph Zimmerman, if you're listening, love you, girl.

But being up there on top of the world, literally like looking down into Tanzania, looking down into Kenya, like wondering, where are the elephants? Where are the zebras? Where are the gazelles? It was, again, like Kona, it was an unreal individualized experience.

And being on top of that mountain, you realize just how small you are. are. Me, I'm a small guy anyways, but the world is a huge big place and it can seem daunting. It can seem impossible to try and influence people, influence movement. But when you do things like that, I think it becomes a beacon for other people. And that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to climb the tallest mountain to show, you know, like Kona, anything's possible. One foot in front the other. When you're at the top of the mountain, which is 19,300 feet, and you're looking down and you're surrounded by these people and other survivors, did it almost feel disconnected from

what your quote-unquote previous life was where, I mean, you look at years previously where you're in the hospital for weeks and dozens of surgeries and you're defeated, you're broke down. Fast forward, you're on top of the tallest freestanding mountain in the world. How disconnected does this feel? Do they feel like the same life? There's a concept or I don't even know how to describe it, but Survivor's guilt is a thing. And I lost a lot of friends, Billy Rutledge, Emma Duke, Kelly Davidson, like all these were kids that I battled cancer with that didn't make it.

and, you know, I feel like I owe it to their parents to live an inspired life. I feel like I owe it to them because they didn't have a chance to live. And I thought, what did I do to deserve Kona? What did I do to deserve Kilimanjaro? Why am I fortunate enough to be here? And I racked my brain over that, and I thought about it. I tried some introspection, and I couldn't put my finger on it. all I thought was, you know, I'm going to focus on three tenets in life.

One is I'm going to take care of my body because it's taken care of me. And I feel like you can't give 100% unless you are 100%. So first and foremost, I'm going to take care of my body, take care of my mind. The second thing is I'm going to surround myself with good people. Always looking up. Always trying to find people that uplift me. Certainly being there for those that need help, but always surrounding myself with people that are positive, people that are successful, people that are driven, people that are disciplined.

And then finally, the third tenet is leave the world better than I found it. And that means taking care of animals. That means eating right and sustainably. That means, you know, hopefully inspiring some movements to happen, whether it's political, social, ideological, just getting people in harmony with the world. And that kind of goes back to the whole David Attenborough piece where, you know, we're talking about things like climate change. Like, that shouldn't be controversial. Like, there's 8 billion people on the planet. Obviously, we're going to sap some resources.

So it's just being aware of those little things and more than anything being kind. But those three tenets, taking care of your body, surrounding yourself with good people, and leaving the world better than you found it is what I live by. So for me, yeah, there was a moment of being disconnected, of thinking, I'm so detached from this now. strengthened my leg. My jaw still hurts, but not near as much as it did. I can chew. I can talk. I'm married now to my dream woman. That was something that was threatened. You know, I didn't know

if I would ever meet a Kindle. And finally I did. And so, yeah, at times, I get bogged down with grad school and with teaching and with work. Everyone does. Everyone gets frustrated. But it does take long for me to kind of write the ship. And one thing that I keep with me all the time is a little blue heart stone that my mom gave me before my very first surgery. And I've kept it. It went with me to Kilimanjaro, went with me to Hawaii. It's made it through every single surgery, every single operation, every single blood test. And it's a reminder to never forget where I've been. And so I keep that with me pretty much at all time. So whenever I get frustrated, I look at this and I say, it was worse.

It was worse than it's never going to be that bad again, hopefully, knock on wood. But that's it for me. That's what keeps me connected to my past. Are your parents still alive? They are, yeah. My dad is remarried to Lucy, my stepmom. She's amazing. My mom is remarried to my stepdad, Charles.

Absolutely love him. and, you know, what it puts, what cancer puts on your family is debilitating stress. And so I know that my parents endured it a lot. It wasn't until I was healthy that they realized, you know, they just weren't happy. And it's likely that the cancer caused a lot of that, a lot of disagreements about what I was going through and how to cope with it best. And, you know, my mom had to quit her job to take care of me. So my dad was the sole breadwinner. and luckily he had, you know, already like 20 years with the city of Austin.

They reached out and raised 160 grand for us in one day. And so, you know, really the whole town kind of rallied around us. But like I said, it wasn't until after I was cured and healthy that my parents, you know, finally split up. And then I think about my sisters all the time. My oldest sister, Tara, she had been moving, her husband, Bill, is a Marine. so they lived all over the world, Hawaii, Japan, Yuma, Arizona, California. And then my middle sister, Amanda, one of my best friends in the world, she had to take a backseat. When I was going through my facial reconstruction, she was on her senior class trip to Europe.

And back then there were no cell phones. There was barely Internet in the late 90s. And she used all of her calling cards, calling cards from Europe to call my mom to make sure that I had made it through Canada. So she really took a back seat. And that's another reason why I, you know, will continue to work hard and strive to inspire others because I don't want my family thinking it wasn't worth it. And for a while, it wasn't. For a while, I was living a dispassionate life. I, you know, being hooked on drugs, damaging relationships, lying to people, just so I could, you know, get out of hanging out with them or, you know, whatever. It's just, it changes who you. are. And I promised them once I ended all that lifestyle that I wouldn't go back there. And so every day to me is now a tribute to not only the people that are no longer with us, but they're surviving family members and my family as well. Well, it sounds like over the course of a lot of years, you had a lot of people rooting for you and helping you. And now from what I see is you live this life

of a selfless servant. And kind of going back to what you're doing now with Texas original and helping people with pain and being a spokesperson for how do I help people who are going through something similar to what I went through over the course of the last couple years of my life. Yeah. So obviously the pain management thing is my direct tie to, the need for something more effective and something more sustainable. And it's actually a kind of cool story how I got involved with this company.

So in 2017, I was back in school, finishing my bachelor's, and I had a writing class called Writing for the Media and PR. And one of the assignments was to write a 20-page paper about a controversial topic in society. And I just started doing research, and I thought, all right, I'm going to do this on medical marijuana and figure out why I can, cannabis is not more prevalent in healthcare spaces when in Israel, in Uruguay, in Portugal, there's all these other countries that have adopted these less stringent drug laws, and they're seeing a rejuvenation of prosperity in that part of the world.

And obviously, the demographics in America are vastly different than those countries, but I saw some value in that. So I wrote this paper, and at that time there was a press release that said Texas opens its first medical cannabis dispensary. And I recognized the name immediately. Our CEO Morris Denton, who has become an absolutely just incredibly invaluable mentor for me. I asked him if he'd go to lunch and I just learned all about cannabis. And I went in there thinking, you know, why isn't marijuana illegal, this, that and the other?

And he's like, Mike, in the state of Texas, you need to realize that the state is being very intentional about it being a medical program and understanding the efficacy of the plant of the medicine. And that was his focus and our focus now is to get people to understand how truly impactful the medicine can be. And we stay in our lane with medical cannabis. Obviously, the lawmakers, it's up to them, how they want to expand it. But in other states that have a hybrid program of both medical and recreational, they're not seeing the improvement that Texas is seeing in terms of patient reported outcomes. And so reached out to more, and I told him that day, you know, someday I'm going to come work for you.

I'm not ready yet, but someday. Finish my bachelor's degree, got into grad school. And then last year, my wife and I were part of the lobbying effort to expand the conditions so that I could once and for all qualify. So in 2019, they added cancer to the bill, but only terminal cancer. That argument for me was always frustrating because you're basically saying, okay, we're only going to give this to people that are terminal. Only with people that are in a palliative care state

or have a death sentence deserve relief. It makes no sense. No sense at all. And in your situation with mom, you know, obviously that had to be so frustrating in the last week of her life to not have anything. One of my roles, one of my,

the areas that I oversee at Texas original is physician education. And we gave a webinar a couple weeks ago to a dementia advocacy group. And there was a woman who had recently lost her husband and she said the last week of his life he was on medical cannabis and it changed who he was. The morphine made him angry. The Ativan made him tired and loopy. But he started taking medical cannabis in the last week and she felt like she had an amazing week with him before he passed. And she thought, how many more months or days

or hours could I have had with him had he had access to this sooner or had we got? gotten him on it sooner. And so going back to how I got involved and really getting into the lobbying legislative effort, Kendall and I knocked on 11 offices of senators in the last legislative session in May 2021. And our partner in that, Michelle Wittenberg, called me that next week. And she said, okay, we've got a bill. And they added PTSD and they added all cancers, all stages to the bill. And so that was a huge win, not only for me as an advocate for cancer patients, but just to let other people know in general how impactful the plant is and how medical cannabis can really be transformative across myriad conditions and symptoms. Yeah, I remember my mom's last week where me and my brother were in Texas at the time. And my dad called us and said, doctor just said, you know, your mom has a week left.

we opted on a plane. We went right home, and she was put on hospice, so she came home with us. But we had to put fentanyl patches on her, and then morphine, put morphine under her tongue every couple hours. And she was, like, tired. She wasn't able to come to,

and it was tough because she was just so out of it. But that was at the time the only solution we had What is the big difference between recreational and medical cannabis in that space? Sure. Well, first of all, every time you talk about your mom, I, you know, I'm happy because she raised you and you're who you are likely because of her. But then I'm also, you know, sad and frustrated that I didn't get to meet her. And to know that she was under that fog the last week of her life is frustrating. And I want to make sure that doesn't happen again.

And so the main differences between recreational cannabis or recreational marijuana and medical cannabis, first of all, you know, there's no distinction in the name. Marijuana was, we believe, was actually a term that was invented in the 1930s and 40s to add more stigma to it, to make it sound more foreign. Before that, cannabis was used for thousands of years as a remedy for a broad spectrum of conditions and symptoms. And it was one man by the name of Harry Anslinger in the 1930s that, removed cannabis from the public. And it was at the same time that they prohibited alcohol.

So prohibition started that included morphine, that included cannabis. And the Teamsters started up, the Alcapone started up. And a few years later, they, whereas they passed an amendment to prohibit it, then they passed another amendment to get rid of it. They haven't done that with cannabis yet. So quite frustrating for the last, you know, majority of the last century. It's been stigmatized as the devil's lettuce, reaffer madness. And it's unfortunate because a lot of people have that kind of knee-jerk reaction to say like, oh, it's bad.

It's bad for you. It causes this, that, and the other. Well, if you believe that, then you're believing what the founders of the war on drugs want you to believe. They want you to believe it's evil. And unfortunately, it's disenfranchised minorities. It's hurt people, poor people that can't have access to, you know, high-quality medicines. And so back to, you know, recreational and medical. First of all, in the state of Texas, there's no flour.

So while we grow the plants from seed to solution, there's no smokable products. It's all tincture, lozange, or gummy. and that doesn't hinder us from, you know, reaching the efficacy that we want. We can administer whatever milligrams the patient needs whatever the doctor prescribed to get them that remedy. Recreational does not have rigorous quality control testing. You don't know often where it's grown, how it's grown, what climate it's in. If there's mold, fungus inside the plants, if there's pests or pesticides. if there's heavy metals like arsenic or mercury.

And so again, Texas was very intentional about keeping the medical cannabis program, the only really legal program in Texas for cannabis, is the compassionate use program. And for good or for bad, they have gone to great lengths to ensure that this is the highest quality medicine that you can find. So we go through rigorous quality control practice.

is there are three licenses in Texas, only two are operating and we're one of them. And so each dispensary, both of us have to go through that rigorous process to make sure that the medicine, and we would do it anyways, even if it weren't required. But that's the main distinction is that medical grade cannabis is free of toxins, free of fillers, it's a pure product that goes toward the endocannabinoid system and changing and affecting positive change in whatever symptoms or conditions you're experiencing. So you were using these pharmaceutical painkillers for years and years and years. What did you see when you transitioned from pharmaceutical grade medicine to using medical cannabis?

Well, first of all, I met with a CMO of a, of a, of, a health care system a couple months ago and was just talking him about medical cannabis. And fortunately, this health system is working more and more towards making cannabis mainstream. And we're studying it. So in the last legislature, they approved institutional review board studies to allow us to learn more and get empirical evidence, not just anecdotal evidence, about what medical cannabis can do. Now, when I met with this CMO, I said, you know, we call it medical cannabis. You know, marijuana is a stigmatized term, but we say medical because of the distinction between medical and recreational.

We want you to understand that it is rigorous processes to make sure that this is good for the patient. And he's like, huh, that's interesting because we've been giving medical heroin out for years. And I was just dumbfounded. I was like, wow, I've never thought of it that way. So medical cannabis is to marijuana as medical heroin is to Vicodin. And because a doctor is giving it to you, you think, you know, this is what's best for me. So for six years, that's all I did. When I got off the meds, one thing I noticed is my jaw still really hurt.

My jaw hurts all the time. I get Charlie horses, you know, underneath right here. My jaw seizes and locks up. I have TMJ. Luckily, my wife, Dr. Berluson, is an acupuncturist, so she gives me a needle. whenever the pain gets too severe. But I was still in pain. I still have chronic pain in my jaw.

So it wasn't until September 1st of last year that I tried medical cannabis for the first time. Really cannabis at all in my life, I never smoked in high school, never tried it edible or, you know, vapor smoking or anything like that prior to getting it legally. And for the first time in 21 years,

I slept the whole night. It was Nick. It was, I mean, I cried the next morning. And I thought, 21 years since I've had cancer last, 21 years I've been living with this. And just now I have access to this transformative medicine. Who else is suffering right now that could benefit from it? Who are, you know, your mom, the last week of her life,

could have had more time with you. Like, how do we ensure that that doesn't happen again? And that's my role is just create awareness, talking with you, going on podcasts, making sure that people understand that this is different. This is not the devil's lettuce. This is not your swag that you find on the street. It's highly intentional. It's the highest quality you can get.

And it has the highest impact for patients across, you know, like I said, that broad spectrum of conditions and symptoms. Was it one of those moments where, I'll give an example, by no means of comparison, but you come across something and it's just like really, really good. So for example, this past week I found this really good chicken and steak fajita meat from this company here in Austin. And I had to tell everyone about it.

I was like, you need to try this. This will transform your life. Was it like that where you woke up the next morning. And after trying it, you thought everyone who's struggling through pain. in suffering right now, needs to have this right now to fix whatever they're going through. 100%. You know, for me, not having it before, I only had that anecdotal evidence from our patients saying, this is what I've experienced.

It's all positive. We had a PTSD study with veterans. It was a focus group. And 93% of them experienced a relief in their symptoms. 93%. And that's unheard of. And so I knew those things. and I knew how to describe, you know, how it makes you feel just because I've had patient feedback.

But it wasn't until I experienced it that I could really be that acolyte, that I could really go out and say, now I know how this feels, I know how it helps me. And yeah, I mean, I've gotten a lot of friends that have approved conditions and symptoms certified as patients. And I would say the majority of them, but probably all of them will message me and say, this is the best thing that I've ever had for sleep. Or I cannot believe how effective this is at helping my pain or my anxiety or PTSD or neuropathy or any of the approved conditions and symptoms. And it's not debilitating.

You know, we have different ratios. So it starts at 20 to 1, which always CBD first. So CBD to THC, the 20 part CBD. That's for epilepsy, major seizure disorders. It actually inhibits that from happening. Then you have a three to one, which is three parts CBD to one part THC, a one to one, which is the balance ratio, and then a zero to one, which is just THC. Now, the difference between medical grade THC and something that you, like, find on the street again is, like, you don't know how much dosage you're getting. You don't know the toxins, heavy metals, how it was grown, where it came from.

and so again, like even if you take a zero to one product, you're still going to get the benefit of that. You will likely experience the high or the inebriation, but at Texas original, we're not about the high. We're about health. We're about getting healthy and making sure the patients are returning to that, like as I call it, the rejuvenation of passion for life. And we're experiencing that in myriad ways.

What is the combination of CBD with THC do? So like a one to one, you'll probably feel a little bit of euphoria, but more than anything, it's just going to take away your pain. Now, for epilepsy or seizure disorders, a 20 to 1, you're probably not going to feel anything at all in terms of the high. But there's a good friend of mine, her name is Julia. And I can tell you that she's a patient because she speaks on behalf of us, so not break any hippilaws there. But Julia was diagnosed with a rare seizure disorder when she was five. She had 200 seizures per day. And she got on our medicine in 2018.

She hasn't had a seizure since. That is, I don't know how to explain it better than that. Before she took it, she had seizures. After she took it, she didn't. So what more, what more scientific evidence do you need? Does the healthcare industry need to say, this is beneficial, at least in these ways. What more could it be beneficial for? And so, yeah, that's the brunt of my job is to get awareness out there

and let people know about ratios, about administration, side effects, about how to get certified, how to get physician certified, what conditions, what symptoms can it treat, so on and so forth. At this point, when there's so much positive for it, and it's showing, because I've talked to a lot of veterans, too, that have PTSD who have seen massive improvements with medical cannabis. My question is, why is there still pushback? Why are we not able to help these people who are suffering or are not able to find relief through pharmaceuticals? Sure. Why?

Well, the first part is ideological. You still have people that think it's evil. You know, they don't want a proliferation of drug use, which we don't either. It's about getting healthy. And so there is that ideological part where more conservative audiences are just afraid of it because they don't know about it. The other part, or another part, is because of recreational and medical hybrid states, there's not a lot of studies that differentiate between the two. So if somebody has their medical card and say Colorado, they can still go get recreational if they want to.

So there's no real studies of the differentiation, the distinction between the two. And to be quite honest, recreational products that are not regulated can have more severe side. effects. If it's an edible and they have filler products, they can cause upset stomach. If it's a smokable product and it has toxins in it, then it can actually make you sick. The Texas Department of Public Safety is our regulator and we've got a wonderful relationship with them. They make sure that we're staying above board and doing everything correctly, but they are also great partners in the program helping people understand that they are in control and that is a very intentional and effective program.

But you don't have to be a veteran to have PTSD. You can suffer from domestic violence, a car accident, some traumatic experience when you were a child. And the medicine is helping those people. It's helping those people cope. And I'll say that I think we're close to that point, you know, putting together IRB studies and getting empirical evidence to show

the efficacy of the medicine. I think we're close. But there is still that hurdle of ideological opposition plus the misinformation, the unknowns of the medicine that are not regulated and not really intentionally focused on. I mean, it's a

tough hurdle to overcome because you know how it is. You talk to someone, you have a conversation with someone who isn't open and they go into this conversation, their mind is already made up. No matter what you say, no matter what facts you present, no matter what evidence you have, no matter how many people you've helped, they've already made up their mind before you go into that

conversation. They're closed-minded. And until it happens to them and they're searching for the solution, they don't care. Right. You know, there are a few lawmakers that are physicians and they do get into the nuances of the medicine and they are supportive of it. You know, that's the reason why we were able to expand the law. because lawmakers, even conservative ones, are seeing the value, the added value in that.

And, you know, Texas, I don't think is ready for recreational push. Again, there's too many things that have happened in other states that have pushed for it, that whether there's, you know, too many licensees or just having a negative effect on the market, no quality control assurances. Texas, like I said, for good or for bad, has done it the right way. for somebody that's a cancer survivor, chronic pain sufferer, it is helping people the right way. Do you think that if recreational was approved in Texas, it would hurt or diminish the work that you guys have done thus far? Or would it assist?

That's tough to say. We could probably pivot pretty easily, but we stay in our lane right now. We just, we focus on medical, we focus on our patients and making the highest quality product. So what do you work on right now? What is currently the big, the big push? Yeah, right now it's just populating our event calendar. We were fortunate to have a booth at the Austin Marathon a couple of weeks ago. That was our really first forward facing engagement exercise.

And we, you know, talk to thousands of people and let them know about it, let them know about the program. And those, those potential patients, like your listeners, if you do want to become a patient, you can go to our website, Texasoriginal.com slash patients. There's a new patient form there. If you select how you heard about us, the podcast, so just select podcast. If you become a certified patient,

you'll get 20% off your first medicine, and then buy one, get one half off your second order. And that's just, you know, our medicine is not covered by insurance. So you go and you pay a $10 copay for 300 Vicodin, but you're getting all the side effects.

you're not getting real relief. So while our medicine may seem more costly up front, sometimes cost prohibitive, it's doing much more for you, it's keeping you healthier and actually working with little or no side effects. And so I always have to justify that. Well, like that bottle of I can actually cost $3,500. So you're actually paying quite a bit more for that, but your insurance covers it. So eventually insurance companies will get on board.

and I think there will be a transformation of that. There's just a lot of moving parts to it to make sure that happens. But right now, focused on populating the event calendar, working on legislative strategy. We hope to expand the law once more to include chronic pain. As I told you before, you know, we have veterans that don't have a PTSD diagnosis, but they do suffer from chronic pain. combat-related injury, the stress of training,

just debilitating discomfort that oftentimes can be qualified by a physician, but because it's not an approved condition just yet, they don't have access to it. And so they're forced to go to a pain management doc to get pain pills or they're forced to go onto the recreational market in another state to Medicaid. And it's doing them a disservice by not having that approved. on there. So event calendar, legislative efforts, and then ongoing is our physician education, getting more doctors trained and onboarded. Our partner in that is Dr. Matthew Brimberry.

He's not only just an incredible human being, but he's a medical cannabis expert, biochemist by trade. And he is just so well-versed and so phenomenal at getting physicians to understand the endocannabinoid system, just how it really. relates to any system in your body. The immune system, your central nervous system, your digestive system, all these work in harmony with the endocannabinoid system, yet they're not teaching that in med school. And so, again, we still have our work cut out for us, but all these things are moving in the right direction. And then the last thing I'm working on is an IRB institutional review board study. Once we have that and publish that data, that's going to help us move in the right direction for

the next legislative session. And then hopefully beyond, after that, that. That's awesome. Mike, I appreciate the story, man. You were super well spoken. You're a great advocate for everything you're doing with Texas Original and people who are struggling with pain and suffering. And like I said in the beginning of this podcast, this story resonates with me because I watched my mom suffer those past a couple days. And if I could go back, I would change some things. Yep. But I appreciate you, man. Thank you for going deep and sharing some of the stories truly valuable. Well, and I appreciate you so much, Nick. I think, you know, if there's anyone I want to emulate, it's you, you know, being a good husband to Steph, about to be a new dad,

one thing that cancer took for me is the ability to have kids. And so, you know, I do look forward to my friends when they get that new bundle of joy. So I'm super excited for you in that regard. just looking up to you, whether it's your experience as a veteran, as an entrepreneur, business owner, you know, I want to emulate you as much as I can. And that goes back to those three tenets of taking care of your body. You are a perfect example of that. Surround yourself with good people. That's why I'm here talking today. And hopefully within that will leave the world a better place. And I just want everyone listening to know that, yeah, my job right now is focused on medical cannabis.

But yes, it absolutely works. But in your own life, just try to live inspired. Everyone goes through different suffering, whether you're a Navy SEAL, a cancer survivor, or a survivor of, you know, car accident or some trauma, everyone experiences a different type of suffering. It's getting through that suffering and learning to live in discomfort

so that one day you can live in comfort once again. you'll find that kindness and inspiration go a long way into helping you get there. And so thank you for being that beacon of light, not only on the podcast, but in your business and as a husband, I look up to you quite a bit and I can't thank you enough for this opportunity. Well, like Matthew McConaughey says, impress less and involve more. That's it. and I'm always thinking of that in the back of my head with decisions I make, especially about to be a father as baby girl,

is if we just focus on impressing less in this world and getting more involved and being known for the things that we are proud of, the people we helped, when we die one day and we take our last breath, we're going to be pretty proud of things we have done and why we've done them. Absolutely. And I think about this all the time. I shouldn't be alive right now, according to statistics. But if my life ended right now, I would know that I lived all I could. And that's what I want. I don't want to look forward to a day in life when I die. I want to know right now that I lived as much as I possibly could. And I feel like I'm doing that. I love it. Love it. Mike, thank you, man. Thank you, Nick. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Bear Performance Podcast. Please leave a rating and review on the platform you are listening to

to if you enjoyed it. It helps us to grow and reach more people with the intent of changing lives through the Go One More mindset. If you are ready to take your health and performance to the next level, head over to BPNSups.com to take the first step.