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Transcription
In this episode of Seek Professional Help, the hosts introduce their first guest, Jenny, who is a medical doctor working in Ukraine. They discuss the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and how it has been overshadowed by other news. Jenny talks about the generosity of people providing aid and the determination of Ukrainians to defend their homes. She also shares her personal experience of stepping on a landmine and the injuries she sustained. Despite the risks, she remains committed to returning to Ukraine to continue her work. Welcome to the seventh episode of Seek Professional Help. Now, today is definitely the most exciting episode we've done, because for the first time, we've got a guest with us, a real person. So we know that at least one person listens to what we're talking about. And to be honest, I thought we'd start with our guests being relatively mundane, but I actually think as podcasts go, we've peaked, and I don't really know where we're going to go after. So a lot of pressure. I'll introduce Jenny briefly, because I've met her and worked with her for a little while, but then I want you to take over and go for it. So Jenny has allowed me to use her name. We haven't, we're not going for Sarah. Sarah Smith. I don't give away all my secrets in the first five minutes. Jenny is a fake Kiwi. She's actually born in London, despite sounding like so Camden. I can tell by the accent. Very, very awful London accent that you've got there. And she, to put it briefly, is a medical doctor who has been working out in Ukraine, providing relief to shot soldiers out there. Back in March, April, had a pretty horrific accident, which we will go into, and has been doing some fantastic rehab. And we thought, look, she's a real, she's been a real inspiration to me. And I just wanted to sit down, have a chat with her. And luckily for all the listeners, well, all three of you, Scott's not even going to talk much about finance this week, or give any tips. I know. We don't want to bore anyone, but we were just speaking off air, and the main finance tip that we're going to take away is don't go to war, basically. It's really expensive. Terrible for your financial health. So that's going to be my financial tip. I'm stealing it from Jenny. That's it, we're done. The financial segment's done. So, let's get into it, I think. Thanks for having me on, guys. Really appreciate it, with my funny half-Cuban accent. Yeah, so, I'm in the, well, I'm in Ukraine, as a doctor. I went over as a civilian doctor, and I've ended up helping out a wee bit with the army here and there, and just anyone who's injured, really, and needs a bit of help. Obviously, it's a pretty horrific situation, still. I don't know if you're seeing that on your TV screen, still, or? Do you know what? I think, yeah, which is really interesting, because it's obviously still going on, and it's still kind of in full force, but it does seem like everyone's just talking about Russell Brown, these days. It's kind of moved on, which, I guess it does happen, doesn't it? It's like, when it's no longer on front page news, which is a sad reality. Sadly, when it's not affecting a lot of us directly, the British media can, you know, preach about it for ages, but very quickly turn back off to it. Yeah, yeah, and I mean, the fact is, the need really hasn't gone away. If anything, it's grown since last year. So, one of the things we found was that the Brits are some of the most generous people, giving us medical equipment. You know, obviously, your government's giving us aid and weapons and everything else, which is, you know, really what we need. But ordinary people will come out with a SUV full of food or medical supplies or, you know, and normally leave us the SUV as well, which is lovely, because we always need cars. But, yeah, no, that's still going on. But everybody is tired, you know. I think, obviously, you guys are tired of it. Everyone's tired. Ukrainians are really tired of it. But what hasn't changed is people's spirit and determination to defend their homes and carry on through and win. So, I guess that would be my biggest message to the British public, is the Ukrainians are not getting... I mean, everyone's tired, but nobody's about to give up. So, yeah, keep the help coming. We met a little while ago, and we've been discussing how much I wanted to get you on the pod, because I think you're going to be a really interesting guest. Obviously, being a doctor, and fitting in with that health profile, and also, you know, talking to somebody who's seen it all firsthand, because you never get the info firsthand. The reason we've pushed forward and kind of got you on now is you are hoping, touchwoods, to go back. Fingers crossed. I've got most of my fingers. I'm missing one. Yeah, the other ones I can cross, thanks to some amazing hand therapy I've had here as well. But I'm hoping to go back and hopefully be useful. I've just been fitted with this amazing brace, and David's been rehabbing me, and, you know, sometimes I think it crushes his soul, but he's stuck with it. Made some gains here and there. It wasn't very much fun for him watching me walk up the stairs for the first couple of times, eh? He had the shit out of me. I've never sweated so much. I just said, well, if I fall down, I'll just get back up. It'll be fine. But that didn't seem to be that reassuring, eh? No, you've got that spirit where you're like, it'll happen. What'll happen will happen. Give it a try. Why not? It probably can't be worse than what you went through. Do you want to go into, obviously, I know all about it. Do you want to go into detail about the accident and what happened? Because I think that's pretty... Yeah, no problem. Some things I can't tell you, but I'll tell you what I can. And so what happened in April was I stood on a landmine. It's a type of mine called an anti-personnel mine. They're put down all over Ukraine by Russia. The Afghans know all about it because they left, I think, 26 million landmines in Afghanistan when they were there for, I think, about seven years. So then the same thing, unfortunately, is happening to Ukraine. So we really can't operate without taking that risk at times that we might stand on a landmine. And so I was working somewhere with a couple of my guys and I took one step forward. You can't see these things. You can use some techniques to try and walk in places where they're less likely to be, but you can't actually completely reduce the risk to zero unless you don't go anywhere. That's impossible. So I took one step forward with my right foot and just felt like a... The next thing I knew, I was on my arse. Can I say arse on your podcast? Yeah, you can say a lot worse than that. For fuck's sake. For fuck's sake, she just said arse. So the first thing I noticed was I landed on my arse. I wasn't knocked out, but obviously it really rings your bell. It's like sort of cocking a punch to the head. And nothing hurt, amazingly. I just sort of felt a little bit stunned, realised immediately what had happened. My first thought was, well, thank goodness I didn't get blown up by one mine and then fall on my back and hit another one, because that happens. Unfortunately, they cluster them together pretty tightly and that can happen. And then of course, you're there, but you can't move around. You can't even put your hands down to try and sit up because there might be another mine there, so you have to check around yourself. And your buddy's, the natural reaction is to run to you, to help you. It's obviously the absolute worst thing you can do, because in doing that, they could blow themselves up and then you've got a really serious situation. So yeah, I still had some decisions to make, so that distracted me probably from the pain. And I managed to clear the space around me, sit up, looked at my foot, saw daylight through my heel, where my heel should be, and I thought, man, this is turning into a really bad day, isn't it? That's the statement of the year, isn't it? You know, for goodness sake, what's going to happen next? And then, yeah, but obviously, it's a pretty serious situation. And my left hand was, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, David, but the correct medical term is like fairly munted. Yes, that's what would have been written in your notes. Fairly munted. No, so I still had my left index finger on, but the knuckle was completely destroyed, so it wasn't useful. There wasn't a great deal of bleeding from my foot, but because of the explosion, and an explosion cauterises the ends of blood vessels, so it lessens the bleeding, which is one less problem to deal with, you know, in the field of problems you've got out there. And then the sort of, the little finger side of my left hand was quite fairly blown up as well. I lost a bit of bone from there, and quite a bit of skin, and my, you've seen the photos, my friends call it the lizard hand, very kindly and lovingly, the lizard hand. So, yeah, so all of that happened, and then, of course, the next thing is wherever we were was a bad place to be, so we had to get out, which involved quite a lot of crawling, which wasn't very pleasant, but we got there, and despite the odds, we managed to all get out, and then that started this journey that will be familiar to, you know, although it was a fairly dramatic injury, but to any of you who've had any kind of injury of, oh, okay, well, this is my new reality. I start this journey. Where we're going, I don't know, but everything, all the priorities I had before that day, you think about things that are important to you, suddenly fall by the wayside, and once you're out, you're safe, and your guys, like your team, are safe, the next thing is, okay, well, all I have to do now is just get better. Simple, simple, right? Simple shit. So was it just you and your team that stepped on one, or was it multiple people? It was just me that day, yeah, yeah, but there have been other, you know, there have been other guys around and about, you know, close friends. It's not an unusual thing. It's not an unusual thing. We don't, obviously, you'll know from the press, we never release any numbers or anything like that, but it's a fairly common problem, unfortunately. I mean, the feeling of going to work, having the risk of, and you full well know that there's a possibility you're going to step on a landmine. How do you, like, even, do you even think about that? Like, when you wake up in the morning and it's like, right, off to work, how does that sit with you? It's an interesting question, because Dave and I were just having a conversation about how the vast majority of normal people, you know, their number one concern is safety in all aspects of their life, but it really limits you in so many things. I guess what you would talk about is in the financial sphere, where if you just go safety, safety, safety, and I don't know, I don't know anything about money, I just went to war, it's really expensive, but, you know, if you're 19 years old and you put all of your money in, like, the most conservative, kind of, low-earning fund there is, then maybe that's not the best thing. I don't know, you tell me, but safety can sometimes be your worst enemy, so you've got to consider the risks, but at the same time, if you truly woke up every morning and thought, today my foot might get almost blown off, it's going to hurt like hell, it's going to put my friends in danger helping me, you'd never go anywhere or do anything. That's a really good point, because I think that's in, I think you can compare it, even though it's a completely bizarre situation, you can almost compare it to most walks of life, what you said there about, we've got to have a fine balance, and it's the same for you, but a fine balance between having an awareness of the worst case scenario in any given moment, but obviously if you focus all your attention on the really unlikely shit, then you've got no attention or resources for what's going on. Yeah, absolutely, and you can get paralysed by fear, you know, in some ways, I mean, somebody's changed career before, and in some ways you can easily get that when you're stuck in a rut, and you really need a change of career, but you're afraid of what the consequences might be if you get it wrong. Obviously using example of war is like the extreme end of that in some ways, but I think the central message is you can't allow fear to rule your life, and if it does, you're not going to get very far. But yeah, so did I wake up every morning and think about that? No, but I think it's always in the back of your mind, and I was very aware that I'd been in Ukraine for maybe about a year by that point, I wasn't there right after the main invasion in February, but I arrived a little after that, and I sort of end up thinking, I've been here for a year, and nothing that terrible has happened, and I've watched really bad things happen to really good people who are probably much better than I am at what they do, and some of it is just luck, and I guess it's how you deal with that, and how you rationalise it, and so yeah, but it's obviously quite a high-paced kind of, I mean, it's boring, soldiering is 98% or 95% total and utter boredom, and then 5% sheer terror, so I mean, compared to that, when you go, I've had what, nine surgeries, so I guess I skipped a bit of the story, because I ended up, very thankfully, I ended up in London through various means, which I won't go into, but the amazing plastic surgeons here, who fixed me up, and orthopaedic surgeons, and shout out to the amazing physios, and hand therapists, they're studying the carpet right now, thanks mate, you know, sort of started this journey where I've had nine surgeries, and like rehab is kind of, 100% total boredom, I would say, mainly, 100%, there's been some good chatting there, give me 2%, I'll give you 2%, there's been some great, it's a good playlist sharing, yeah, good playlist sharing, yeah, good, about New Zealand music a little bit, yeah, yeah, what's your favourite New Zealand artist, do you reckon, um, I like the Fat Freddy's Drop, yeah, we've done it, I've basically been tortured to the sound of Fat Freddy's Drop, it's going to be a really hard session when that playlist goes on, I feel like I need to hear Fat Freddy's after this, it could become our new show, exit music, you know, something like that, yeah, we'll get it on, we'll look into it, yeah, we have had some good times, but I think psychologically, you know, going through that journey of how to fix yourself, and particularly for me, patients as well, they're like, so frustrating, you know, when you can't even sit up, you want to run, I remember when I was first in bed, like after the first operation, and before they'd done the definitive surgery to pin all the bones together, and then they took a piece of my right thigh, and they put it in, basically, it looks like a miniature bum, they took it from my thigh, and they put it in my knee, you've got quite a cute name for your foot, should we say, a nickname, Frankenfoot, Frankenfoot, or the Franken heel, yeah, it's had a bit of a chop chop job done on it, and then it does look like a little buttock, and it grows hairs, I now grow hairs on my heel, it's quite freaky, Scott's looking like he wants to see it, no, I don't know if I do, but I think you will have to, maybe, show and tell, I'm going to show you later, you know, yeah, yeah, we will spare you guys the before photos, I guess you probably will get banned from Spotify if we put those up, but possibly, yeah, you had no trouble dropping them into my inbox before we had them, that's right, by the way, this is what you're getting yourself into, have a foot in essentially two halves, but no, it's a, obviously, it's taken a while, and it's been a journey, and they've done some really cool creative things, and of course you're supposed to be really grateful every minute of every day, but that's not how humans work, is it, you know, that's just like, sometimes you're fed up and frustrated, and you feel sorry for yourself, and it's like, that's the human condition as well, you know. You say that, but I feel like you kind of ooze this positive energy, just from the moment I met you earlier, and just the way you speak about everything, it seems like your mindset is very much, I'm going to get back, I'm going to, no matter what, obviously you're going to have your up and down periods, but like, is this, is that just you, or is this something you've learned over time, like, where does that come from? I'm not really sure, I think, I think when something happens like this, even though it's a bad thing, and if you could turn the clock back, you know, I'm not sure I believe these people who say, if I could turn the clock back, I'd do it exactly the same again, I'd be like, no, I would have stepped, you know, five inches to my right and not blown my foot off, thanks very much. I'm not going to lie, but, and of course, you know, disclaimer to everyone out there, everybody's experience is different, and I completely appreciate that for some people they don't feel that way, and for some people a catastrophic injury has turned their life around and made them think differently about the world, and I don't feel like I've had that sort of epiphany, but it does, it does teach some things, and for me as a doctor, like as a health professional, to become a patient, like become, you know, the most immobile, dependent patient, short of being paralysed, you know, I mean, once they do this operation to put, it's called a free flap, where they've taken that massive chunk of my thigh, slotted into my heel to remake that soft tissue, and it's then all about keeping that area, it's a sacrosanct thing, you know, so they come in every hour and they check the baby's heartbeat with an ultrasound, like is it still alive, you know, they made a frame that they pinned through my tibia, through my shin bone, just so my heel wouldn't touch the beard, because I can't feel that area either, so it's all about taking care of that, that sort of precious piece of skin then, which makes life really boring, you're really immobile, they wouldn't let me out of bed for the, not even swing my leg over the side of the bed for five days after they've done the definitive operation, and that was, you know, as a 40 year old woman who's fit and well and healthy, to go from running around a muddy field and helping people, to lying in a bed, having another woman toilet you, you know, like it's a big change. I actually can't take a shit without calling for help. Seek professional help. Seek professional help, that's a good way to end that whole thing. No, Scott, I think, I think Scott's actually really picked up on something there, I probably forget it a little bit because I know you pretty well now, and the, I guess the impact of your personality is less now to me, because it's like, oh it's just Jenny, but she's just mad, she's just nuts, yeah, no, the people around this Until Gym that we work out of, and you know, different personal trainers, different people that see you, you know, and know that I'm working with you, and you've got another physio who we definitely should shout out in Lucy, who's doing in your hand stuff, yeah, I'm focusing on the foot, she's done an unbelievable job, but between, you know, between the two of us, we kind of work in different, different areas, but every person that comes into contact with you, notices that positivity, that, you know, you know, what, it would be very easy to go, woe is me, life is rubbish, what strategies, and you might not have any, and it might be inbuilt, but do you have any strategies that over the last six months, or you know, how many other months it's been? It's a great question, and I think the key, and I think this is probably so personal as well, each individual person would be very different, but the key for me has been to be, I wouldn't say happy with my situation, but get comfortable with it, and just accept that this is my reality, there's always an, there was always opportunity in everything, so I reckon I must have read more books over the last four or five months than I've ever read in my life, maybe even at medical school, but you know, probably shouldn't admit that, should I, but what's been the favourite? That's a good question. Yes, so the favourite is probably the one I was just discussing with you actually, David, that I'm reading at the moment, which is, we get this right, The Men, The Mission and Me by an ex-Delta Force commander, Peter Blaber, I think. Is it any biography? It's, yeah, it is a biography, but it's almost, I wouldn't say it's a self-help book, but it's a way of approaching life, it's quite interesting, you know, just some interesting approaches to, you know, his theory is, if you kind of have your pattern recognition dialled in, you can be a lot more successful at whatever you're trying to do in life, you sort of, oh, yep, yep, well, I've never been in this exact scenario, but this, this and this relate to it, and of course, the field that we both work in, in medicine, is exactly that, you do a lot of pattern recognition, even though we pretend we're diagnostic ninjas who keep, you know, encyclopedias in our heads, but it doesn't really work like that in real life all the time, at least not for me. I think, sorry, I've got in where you're about to go, I think, but you actually saw me for your knee a little, a few weeks back, and you can get that thing of people being like, oh, you're magic, but it all, again, comes from pattern recognition of like, they've got pain here, they're probably weak here, they're probably tight here, and some patients are like, how did you know I was going to be, and then you're like, oh, do you wear these shoes a lot, are they worn here, and they're like, like, you're some kind of magic psychic, but yeah, pattern recognition, I guess, comes up everywhere, probably in finance as well, though. Yeah, yeah, no, I think it's, as you were saying there, you kind of almost, in your head, have a mental model of like, go there, and it's like a tree of, it's almost a decision tree, it's like, that's a yes, we'll go that way, no, you go, and you finally get round to the, kind of, the way, the place where you want to be, but yeah, I guess it's a good mental model to have for daily life. Yeah, and I think it's really different to a protocol, and I think protocols have their place, you know, protocols and checklists, but in, you know, what you're describing, decision tree is a lot more cognitively involved, I think, and sort of, you know, you've got a lot more options, so yeah, it's fascinating, because pattern recognition works really well on the battlefield, it works really well in combat medicine, it works really well in civilian medicine, so I'm kind of, I suppose I'm reading a book about something I already thought was a thing, so maybe that's not the best example to pick, but it's, it's well written, and it's interesting, and I think, but yeah, you know, I never read that much before, but when all you can do is lie on your back for weeks on end, it really is, you know, some days I was too exhausted to read, it's just, nobody tells you this when you get hurt in some sort of bigger trauma, well, even, even something small, you know, sort of fall over and break your wrist, or whatever, you know, it's, of course there are all different types of wrist fractures, we're not going to go there, but some of them are really horrific, so I'm not minimising anyone's broken wrist, but it doesn't matter what insult the body has, it takes a lot more energy, it takes feeding, it takes watering, and it takes wristing, you know, to, to start getting over that before you can get anywhere near some stimulation, and so the rehab stuff, but I don't know, maybe you'd disagree with that, Dave, but I just felt like the money shot for me was in wristing and recuperating a lot initially. Massively overlooked in rehab, obviously, I work not exclusively, but a lot of my work is with either quite high achieving individuals, or um, sports people, who are generally pretty intrinsically motivated, and actually, you've got, you've got to read the, you've completely got to read the patient, you know, I've worked in the NHS potentially with some people who are less intrinsically motivated, so it's a complete scale, exactly, rehab can't have a protocol because it's got to fit, almost like that decision tree, how does this person respond to x thing, let's go this way, how does this person respond to y thing, and with people that are highly motivated, you definitely fall into that camp, you know, anybody who's got a medical degree has had to push themselves pretty hard, anyone who's got into, out of choice, to go and be on the front line working in Ukraine, there's got to be a pretty special person mentally, you're a prime example, and other people I work with are prime examples of, no, more is not always more, actually, you can't spend 19 hours a day doing rehab, and thinking that you're going to get better quickly by doing that, you've got to go, I've kind of reached my ceiling of how much I can do today, now I've got to rest and let my body do its thing to repair, and then I can go again on another day, rather than exhausting myself fully, and pretty recently, like within the last couple of weeks, and I'm not going to, I'm going to take no blame for this, because it was while I was away on holiday, but you've probably pushed yourself too hard and have ended up taking a backward step in your rehab a little bit. Yeah, for sure, and I think, you know, initially once you have all the surgeries and the operations and they say to you, you know, rehab isn't a flat progression, you know, sort of a linear progression, sorry, if it's a flat progression it's really bad, no progression, but it's not a linear progression, it's, you know, you have plateaus and you have peaks and troughs even, and things get worse before they get better again, and sometimes it does feel like you're just getting worse and worse and worse before you hit a real sort of growth peak again, but yeah, you can definitely push yourself too much, and I think the, you know, the good adaptations, it's exactly the same as building muscles in the gym, right, so when you, you know, you don't build muscle when you're doing your bicep curls, it's when you are eating protein and resting after your gym session that you build, and they know a lot about big biceps, so ... You're just jealous, Dave. Yeah, sorry Tom, I couldn't help. And everyone's jealous of the Frankenheel, you know, yeah, it looks like a little bicep on the back of my foot, it's the weirdest little thing, but I've still got a foot, so I'm grateful for that, but no, so I reckon to go right the way back to our original question, I think it's been, I've managed to keep a fairly sunny disposition on most days, just because I can understand that I have to learn patience, this is my new reality, live with it, look for the good in it, look for all the good stuff, you know, read some books, I have more time for my friends, I can, you know, even certain things, I've been working with a really good personal trainer as well, shout out to James, when I first went to see him, I did email him and I said, look, I know you've said you've got an interest in injury rehab and you're up for this and everything else, but when I walk, or rather kind of crab crawl, shuffle through the gym doors, please don't be put off, give it a go, give it one session, because at the time, I called myself the broken crab, because I could only move from station to station in the gym by doing some sort of bum crawling crab thing, you know, with one good hand and one crook hand, like a little broken crab claw, and you know, he sort of stuck with it and helped me out with that, but, and even, you know, doing things like that, where you think, I know I can't push myself too much, but there really are very few people who cannot get in the gym and do something, you know, you might need guidance from somebody who knows a lot more than you, but at least you can do something, and for me, I really enjoyed, I could have gone one of two ways, I could have seen the guy who's sort of benching the same amount I could bench before, and I could have been really gutted and sort of wanted to leave in floods of tears, but actually being in that environment where people are pushing themselves and it's sport and, you know, everyone's healthy and having a good laugh, and I just, it really motivated me. Would you say that you're almost enjoying the process as best as you can, like, it's, you kind of see where you want to get to, where you are, it's almost just like, let's just do it and enjoy it whilst you do it? Yeah, yeah, I reckon, I reckon, like, one of the things I worked on in the gym with James is, I reckon that, you know, before I lost, like, literally all my muscle mass and got a bit fat sitting in sitting in bed for two months, I was quite, like, tight and quite restricted in some of my movements, you know, particularly in my shoulders and my lower back, and by losing a lot of muscle that was stiffening all of that stuff up, I actually become more flexible, probably for the first time since my teenage years, so like, oh, all of a sudden I can move a lot better, and then there's this challenge of, okay, so I can start to try and rebuild my body but not lose that flexibility, like, for the first time in my life, actually learn some good form and do things properly. Continue with the yoga. Yeah, you know, and I think, I think there are opportunities, there are opportunities in everything, you just have to look for them, and some days I cannot see them at all, and I feel sorry for myself, and I want to lock the world away and fuck everything and everybody and just leave me alone, and that's okay too, you have to have those days. 100%. That's just being human, isn't it, I think. Yep. But, you know, I think overall the thing that motivates me more than anything else is to get back to Ukraine, because there's so much work that has to be done there, you know, my friends are still there, they're all still in harm's way, you know, with whatever job and role they do, you know, with the civilians, military, like, nowhere really is truly safe, and no job is truly safe there, so the motivation to get back there has really helped me as well, having that bigger goal. Where did your motivation first come from? I don't know if you can speak about it, but just, like, not every person will wake up one day and say, right, I'm a doctor, I can give something, I'm just going to go. Was it quite a snap decision, or did it take a bit of, kind of, thinking about, how did that come about for you personally? That's an interesting question, because I think it didn't take that much thinking about, but it did take a bit of planning, because I was living a pretty charmed life as a locum, doing my thing. Sounds like you had the best life, floating around in boats. Yeah, that's right, yeah, boats and mountains, and, you know, having a real good time, and it was wonderful, and I enjoyed my role as the doctor who let other doctors go on holiday, was the way I put it, you know, everyone's like, oh, locum, you're just after the money, but actually it's not really any better when you take into account all your expenses and tax and all of that sort of crap, it's about roughly equivalent, but I just liked being the doctor that could go there for two weeks and, you know, give someone some time off and say good day to everyone, and, you know, before I got grumpy mean Jenny out, you know, I'd be gone, so everybody'd like you, and it was a great, great time, but there was one particular day, and I was on a plane taking off, going to work for another different hospital, and I looked down and saw my little floating home, and it just looked perfect, and the beautiful sunshine, and I'd been thinking about going to Ukraine, and I'd been slowly sort of sorting my things out. It was about, I guess, about a month and a half after the full-scale invasion at that stage, and then I read an email, somebody said that the Ukrainian Ministry of Health was looking for doctors to volunteer, foreign doctors, and that they'd register us or whatever else, and I just thought, no, this life's a little bit too good, isn't it, you know, you've got to, come on Jen, you've got to go work at something sometime, like go out and do something useful, so I sort of wound things up and went out to Ukraine, spent about a week looking for workers, not looking for work, but just waiting for Ministry of Health to get in touch with me as a civilian doctor, and then they sort of said to me, well actually, are you going to help out a little bit more on the front lines? Okay, that's fine, so I went and did that. So I guess that's how it started, and of course everyone asks that question, and it's a very good and relevant question, but the thing for me is what keeps you there when you, you know, once you get going. How do you want to go back after your foot's been nearly blown up? Yeah, absolutely right, there's one of the things I live in fear of is, you know, you've done all this work, Lucy at all of our hands has done all of her work, you know, Mr H, a plastic surgeon, done all of his work, like, well, I don't want to go and get it blown up, it'd be so embarrassing. All these characters, I mean, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, and I, you know, of course, I hope I'm not too scared when I get back out there, but you never quite know, you know, maybe this has made me petrified and I can't operate anymore, you know. That was a question I was going to ask, actually, just, you know, but you're not going to know, but, you know, are you going to be, we talked about this, I don't know, 20 minutes ago, didn't we, but that thing about fear and not being obsessed by fear, and you weren't initially obsessed, you know, you knew landmines were a possibility, but they weren't a reality for you, you know, devil's advocate with the question, I'm trying to scare the shit out of you, but, you know, it's going to play a bigger role in your brain, surely. Yeah, yeah, for sure, I think so, I think, you know, it's interesting, society always tells you that, you know, society's full of myths about getting older, I reckon, and one of the things they always tell you is, as you get older, you get more fearful of things, less willing to take risks, you know, that's the societal narrative, and I really haven't found that, I've found that, for me, I've, you know, you become more comfortable in your own skin, more comfortable with your body, so you know how, say, in the context of sport, how your body reacts to certain stimuli, or movement, or whatever, and then you could go try something new, and I've actually found, as I've got older, it's become a little easier to learn new things, because I know where my body is in space a lot better than I did when I was 19, say, and I think, you know, for me, am I more or less scared now than I would have been if I was 19? I mean, who knows, you can't really answer that, but I think the way the individual deals with fear is so different to each individual, I mean, if you take my example, I don't have any living parents, and I don't have a spouse, and I don't have kids, and I think that massively takes away a big headache for me, deciding whether this is okay, or that is okay, because I'm a really selfish gen, I only have to consider myself, so, you know, that plays into fear as well, and I don't know, people simplify it, and they say, well, after you've had a, you know, a terrible thing like this happen, you'll either be a lot more frightened, or you'll just go, fuck it, I don't care, but I don't know, I think it's more complex than that, and I'll just see how I go, and often in life, you can't really tell unless you leap, just go give it a go and see what happens. Just don't you dare undo my hard work, it'll be really embarrassing. So embarrassing, you would never forgive me, even more so than the coffee incident. Yeah, we were talking earlier about Jenny pouring the coffee down me, but I'm over it, as you can hear. There is no bitterness there, zero, zero. So I guess I still haven't answered your question, but anyway, in a very roundabout way, what I would say is the thing that keeps me there is the guy to my left, and the guy to my right, and that's your friends who are there doing the job with you and supporting you, and that also takes away a bit of the fear, because you're so worried about your mates, you don't think too much about yourself. I think that's how that works. Simple, in a way. Dave, that was an incredible episode. We're actually going to stop it there for a part one. I really enjoyed everything about Jenny. I think her mindset especially just came over as she's such an inspirational person. I think she's got such a great outlook on life. What do you think? Yeah, absolutely. I've known her a little bit longer than you have, but I've just always been in awe of her personality. She's been through such an unbelievably traumatic experience, and how she can be positive and a positive influence on everyone around her at the same time. So we've got still another episode's worth of chat to have with Jenny. Shall we wrap it up there and get locked and loaded for the next one? Yeah, let's do it. And remember, Seek professional help. Oh God.
