Empty Nesters Talk Medical Procedures...some necessary, some elective E145

Rick Denton (00:00)
This week on the loud, quiet, empty nesters talk medical procedures, some necessary, some elective.

Clancy Denton (00:07)
Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of The Loud Quiet. We decided to do this recording on the fly today. My my hair looks like I have no hair today because this is about as good as it's going to get for her. Why? I can't lift my arms very high. I can do certain things, but I can't. I had surgery

Rick Denton (00:25)
Why is it? What are we talking about?

Clancy Denton (00:36)
On Tuesday, it is now Sunday, which for you know the surgery I had, I'm doing I'm doing very well physically. Mentally, I'm going crazy. I I do not do well not being able to do the things that I like to do, but ⁓ so many women in our age category probably had

Rick Denton (00:48)
We'll talk about that. Yes.

Clancy Denton (01:05)
A mommy makeover, maybe got implants after they had their children.

Rick Denton (01:10)
⁓ I know what a mommy makeover is. What's a mommy makeover?

Clancy Denton (01:13)
Okay.

I had a mommy makeover eighteen years ago.

Rick Denton (01:18)
It was after the birth of our second yeah.

Clancy Denton (01:20)
Tan well, Tanner was in first grade. Tegan was three. So not right after. But but I had gotten my body back to where it was and there were some things that weren't happening the way they were supposed to happen. And my personal trainer said that's not gonna fix itself. So so yes, I went in and had implants put in and had a tummy tuck. So they remove skin and they pull you tight. So

Well yeah, you're hunched over for like, you know, a week or two. You have to sleep in a recliner because you can't lay all the way down. So yes, I had that done eighteen years ago. And and I remember at that time, I mean, there were so many of us in my exercise classes that we were all going to either the same surgeon or we were all trying out different surgeons to see who we liked best. So it it was a thing, especially where

the area that we lived in. So probably, you know, five, six years ago

As the body does, things started to shift again, gravity happens, and I just didn't need well one, these implants needed to come out because they're supposed to be come out or be replaced at ten years. Well it has now been eighteen.

Rick Denton (02:47)
know that that's something that is at least ⁓ and I didn't I don't have implants, I didn't get implant right, you know, that's not something the guy does, but I didn't know that going into it, that they had a lifespan.

Clancy Denton (02:56)
They tell you that. They did nobody but nobody does that. I mean, because one, when you have it done, usually our kids were all younger when we had it done. So then you're in the thick of raising kids. And two, at that time you may not have the money to be able to go back in and have it done, have the procedure done, or the downtime to be able to do it. So yes, they are supposed to be

according to the medical professionals replaced at ten years. So it had been eighteen. And I've been wanting to get this done for several years. So finally, you know, we were like, okay, it's time. So that is what I did. And I just went and had mine completely taken out. I didn't want any new ones put in. I just went in and I said, I don't care what I have left. Just work with what you've got. Okay.

Rick Denton (03:54)
To hear you say, Yeah, I'd I work with whatever you got, that sort of thing, how did you decide not to get implants in? Because I I remember the surgeon when we were doing the pre op or and even afterwards, he's like, Yeah, implants allow you to get kind of exactly the results that you want. When you're talking about a human body and you don't introduce an implant, all bets are off.

Clancy Denton (04:20)
I just didn't I didn't like the way that they

what they were doing for my body anymore because I had gotten smaller than I had been in other areas of my body. So when you have these places in your body that are bigger, clothes tend to hang off of you and make you look a lot bigger than you really are. And so I just didn't want I didn't want that look anymore. Right.

I d I didn't, you know, yes, they looked great in a swimsuit. Well, they looked great into a swimsuit until, you know, years ago when you're having to like lift them up into your swimsuit top. But so I was just done with them. And why put something foreign back into your body? I mean, yes, I do the Botox. Yes, I do all that stuff, but

Why introduce something else into your body that I know they are completely safe? And even my surgeon, you know, he was like, I feel so conflicted every time I'm doing, you know, I see you who wants them removed, and then I'm telling the next person, ⁓ yes, let's do the implants and let's do he said it's it's even a conflict for me, but he said, But I want to do what my patient wants to do.

Rick Denton (05:48)
And that's that's kind of the question that I'm asking is not not so much how did you come to it, but you've come to this point where you're willing to accept what may be some imperfections. Implants allow you to get closer to and by the way, the word perfection, right? yeah. No, I was going a different direction and that is there's all sorts of different dire

Clancy Denton (06:06)
Yeah,

Rick Denton (06:11)
definitions of what ideal is. And so I I'm not trying to get into that, but for you, what you had chosen, you're giving up a lot of control by going down this path.

Clancy Denton (06:22)
And I even told him and if this I said, I don't care if they're ittybity titties. I I will be a part of the itty body titty club because I just I don't want the I don't need the big boobs anymore. I just that's just not my look that I'm going for anymore. And so I'm very pleased with the size that they are. I'm very happy he also did a revision on my

tummy tech scar 'cause just scar tissue just builds up. So no, I'm I'm very pleased with how things came out and very happy.

Rick Denton (07:04)
And I think that's what a lot of surgeons would say is that's what they want. It's not necessarily that they want a a certain aesthetic design or ideal. They're going for the best that their patient wants.

Clancy Denton (07:22)
And especially when it's what I was doing because like you know, you said with the implant, they can play with them while they're in there and they can make them different sizes and make them completely perfect with the going from taking the implants out and using the tissue that's left, you're kind of having to move tissue that's, you know, there and and mold it into places that

It may not move to. I am very happy with the results. Do you

Rick Denton (07:57)
Okay, so but you've had to put up with some recovery. And you had to put up with recovery when you did this the first time.

Clancy Denton (08:02)
Well,

and recovery's not done yet. Well yeah.

Rick Denton (08:05)
Absolutely. In fact, y you your compression, you're you're almost walking having to walk hunched over to some degree because you are so compressed up top. I don't want to ask the question, is it worth it? But this is all elective. So do you does that ever come into your mind of I'm choosing to do this to myself?

Clancy Denton (08:28)
Well yeah, I mean I am choosing to do this to myself. And I I told you that going into it, you know, people are always so Are you scared? Are you nervous? And even, you know, the doctor called me the night before the surgery and he was like, Hey, take a volume, you know, if you need to, if you're nervous, I'm like, I'm not nervous about the surgery. This I I've never been nervous about any of the surgeries that I've had. I know that I

Suck at the after part. I would agree with that. Yes, and I know, and I but ⁓ I know I'm not. But I I hate sitting around. I get so bored. And for those of you who know me, I love to exercise. That is my outlet. And when I can do that, it drives me crazy.

Rick Denton (09:02)
You are not a good patient to take care of

'Cause you've got a pretty severe limitation that for six weeks you can't get your heart rate up, you can't

Clancy Denton (09:32)
In two weeks I can start doing cardio. Okay. Two weeks I can start doing cardio. I just can't start lifting weights for six weeks. And so that's fine. Once I can start doing some longer cardio, then I will be okay. It's just this not being able to go for my longer walks or just just getting

You know, like today I said, I'm just gonna go to the mall and walk because they do want you to walk. They don't want you just sitting. But like yesterday I was like, I am gonna go crazy because I am not one of those people. Yes, I can watch TV. I've talked about how much I love TV, but ⁓ I yesterday I had hit my limit. I was like, I'm done. I can't I gotta find something to do because all I'm doing is now just sitting here eating. I'm like

Rick Denton (10:25)
Well, hey, it's a little bit of a sabbatical and just enjoying that time away. It was it I forget exactly which day it was, but it was day two or three that I was at the gym and I hear the ring alert go off and I'm like, She did she did it. She left the house. She's g she's gonna break the rules. And I knew at that point I can't

Clancy Denton (10:45)
Around

the block. All I did was walk around the block and I walked around the block slowly and it was fine. They just don't want you to get your heart rate up because of the healing process and it was fine. So yes.

Rick Denton (10:47)
I came back and asked you.

But it was so as soon as I heard that ring alert I thought she's not just going to get the pay

Clancy Denton (11:03)
And I totally forgot about that because I wasn't gonna tell you and then I forgot about the ring alert. So anyways.

Rick Denton (11:10)
There's not a lot that you and I can really get away with. Not that that's what we're trying to do, but yeah, the ring alert went off and

Clancy Denton (11:17)
But it's, you know, again, this, you know, now, like when I had this surgery done eighteen years ago, you stayed overnight in the hospital, you know, this was outpatient. I was home, you know, ⁓ by twelve thirty and in your own bed, which was nice. But yeah, but it got us to thinking about, you know, yes, this was elective, but

It also needed to be done because I wanted those foreign bodies out of my body. So it just got us to thinking about all of the things that we have been doing lately because of our age, because of the stage of life that we're in, that, you know, there are some medical things that we are now having to add to our plate.

Rick Denton (12:05)
We were talking about was it the week before the surgery? I think it was where it was like there was a medical

Clancy Denton (12:12)
It

was right when we got back, yeah, from bringing her back from Arizona.

Rick Denton (12:17)
Day. And I know we have a few young listen you know listeners in the in in their twenties that listen to this. And I remember what it was like in the 20s to hear my parents you know talk about different appointments and that sort of stuff. And I'm like, man, they're doing a lot of that kind of stuff. And it feels weird to be at that stage that, man, we're doing a lot of that stuff. I I am sitting on it it's off, I guess off camera here on my right side.

But I've got a shiny little scar over here, and it's the second thing of pre cancer that has been removed. I didn't, you know, shoot. When I was growing up, you're out there in the sun. You don't get sun, you don't put sunscreen, or you do, you're like, well, let me get the four on there, which four is basically rubbing butter on your body. And I didn't even think about that sort of stuff. And now I go in quarterly to have my body checked and

Now it feels like I'm getting bingo punch cards of yeah, no here's another one. Hopefully by the fourth or fifth one they'll remove it for free so that I can at least get some sort of discount. But the these are the things that we're dealing with.

Clancy Denton (13:25)
Yeah, and even to the point, you know, that we haven't really been in our pool much and yesterday I said, ⁓ you should go out there and he said, I don't know, the sun kind of scares me now, you know, it's just we don't

Rick Denton (13:40)
And some of that specifically the I went for my run yesterday. a Saturday I always go out for a a long run and it is upper nineties right now and the humidity is Costa Rica esque humidity. It is swampy here right now. And I wore long sleeves. And it actually went all that bad. But the thought of ⁓ I c I I never could have imagined choosing to put on long sleeve in that weather during a run.

Clancy Denton (13:42)
You're still here. I know.

Rick Denton (14:09)
But I'm thinking, well, I can protect my arms and I'm wearing a hat now. I mean, I definitely am that old guy out running as opposed to what I think of myself, which is not the old guy running.

Clancy Denton (14:19)
I mean, I wear a visor, a hat, I wear something to protect my face like even early morning when I go out. Yeah. I always have something when we go to Mexico, yeah, I make sure I have the whitest brim hat like Rachel had in Friends when she comes in that ginormous hat. 'Cause yeah, I y you

Rick Denton (14:44)
Well we're always looking for shade. We're trying make sure we got the chairs at the

Clancy Denton (14:48)
I know when back when we went to Mexico, what when we were twenty one? Out in sun, we were like

Rick Denton (14:55)
There was an

umbrella out there. Like hey, hand me that reflecting thing.

Clancy Denton (14:59)
Yeah, it's just things like that. You know, I was even thinking about I took our d I our daughter started down her path of, you know, she had her first Pep smear because now is the time that she you start that. And I was like, Okay, it's just the time now. Well, I had a bad one last year and then I had to go in and have all these cervical biopsies done. And I was like, God

haven't had to have that done. And so, you know, thank goodness they all came back the negative. And it's just, you know, things like that that

Rick Denton (15:38)
Okay, that word. Those two words. In your twenties, cervical biopsy. You don't even know what those words are. I mean, you were in the nursing profession, so perhaps a little bit, but the idea of that is just so foreign.

Clancy Denton (15:49)
But you

know what? What's interesting is that back then you might have thought of it more because back then we didn't have the HPV vaccine. Whereas her age group has. And so, you know, luckily they came out with that to help prevent those things for them. You know, we're we're doing all this research now on things that we've heard, okay.

Maybe microdosing GLP ones can help with Alzheimer's, you know, different things that can help with Alzheimer's.

Rick Denton (16:24)
And all of these are things that we're like all of us are trying to find out. To be real clear, we are not experts. Don't listen to a word that we say and offer any advice. Like we're not offering any advice. It's we're like all everyone else that we're trying to figure these things out because having had a mom that went through Alzheimer's and watching that, you want to avoid these things. Anyone who's seen any other sort of disease, you are trying to avoid these sort of things.

Because we all say we want to live longer, but the reality is we really just want to live better. And I have no interest in living longer if I'm living worse. And a lot of it what we experienced with my mom, we talk about there in the book. And if you want to read about that or anything else from that first year, the book is available with some free bonuses at theloudquiet.com. Those stories really began to shape this empty nest and it have shaped a lot of

our approach to health. Now, I will say that there's a lot of things that I know I should be doing, but I haven't done as much of those yet.

Clancy Denton (17:31)
I know and I did one of them, you know, that had been on the list and is not so much fun, but I did it and you need to do it. But yes, I did the colonoscopy again in that week that we had you had your pre cancer cut out. I did the colonoscopy. And though okay, that was one I was not nervous for my about to get sliced open.

But that one I was nervous for because you don't know what they might find. You know, I was nervous for the prep, which, you know, that was not fun besides losing six pounds. But Okay. But

Rick Denton (18:07)
Hmm. Okay.

No one no one says that is a benefit of a colonoscopy.

Clancy Denton (18:25)
everyone says that. I guarantee. I guarantee. But that one to me was more nerve wracking because you go in blind. You don't know, you know, you're not I wasn't having any symptoms. You know, ⁓ we have a friend who also wasn't having any symptoms and then they found something that, you know, was not great. And luckily they found it and got it taken care of, but

Rick Denton (18:28)
All right back.

Clancy Denton (18:56)
You you don't know what they're gonna find and thank goodness mine was very clean, but it it is, that one to me was more nerve wracking than going under the knife for, you know, what I just had done.

Rick Denton (19:11)
Interesting because I think that's something that's different between us because it's it's equivalent, it's not quite as invasive, obviously. But when I go in for my body scans and they do the skin cancer screening on and everything, I'm not worried about them finding something. I'm almost relieved if they do find something, because if they hadn't if I hadn't gone in and it hadn't been found, then it would be worse.

And so I I I go into them almost not that I'm rooting that something get found, but I'm glad that I'm doing it so that if something's there, it does get found.

Clancy Denton (19:48)
You know why? I think my thinking, and it's totally wrong, that's external versus internal. Even though the external can be internal. It could be, well, yeah, I know. And Hey, I didn't I did not like the way that he did your stitches. ⁓ Luckily it's looking a little bit better. When my plastic surgeon saw it, he was like, yeah.

Rick Denton (19:56)
Interesting.

Okay, we're not talking about this.

Clancy Denton (20:18)
It looks better now. Thanks. But for some reason that's external and you and you can see that stuff already. It's the internal that I don't know, for some reason it freaks me out more. But no. And so yes, like you haven't done your colonoscopy and I haven't gone in to have my body scan. I gotta go do that.

Rick Denton (20:41)
Yeah,

and I why aren't we getting so the things that I know that I need to get done is I need to get the colonoscopy and I need to get the shingles vaccine. Supposedly the pneumonia one. I don't know about that. But and again, we're not recommending anything for anybody. I have to stress that. I have just been told by my my physician to go do those things. You seek your own medical counsel. I

Clancy Denton (21:02)
Because they're just nuisance I know. I mean we are really but we are very good about getting our physicals every year. We we go to the dentist every six months. I mean we are clockwork with that stuff. It's just these added on things now that we are in our fifties. Maybe that's it. That it's like, ⁓ I gotta go do this now. It's just these

Rick Denton (21:03)
Yes, they're not part of your daily rhythm.

Schedule a massage, it's not part of my daily remaining.

Clancy Denton (21:30)
added on things that are pains in the butt. And yes, I know. That, you know, but now that I got the clean bill of health, you know, she said ten years and I was like, ten years. I was like, well maybe five. But, you know, yeah, it's just

Rick Denton (21:48)
I think that is it for the colonosomy 'cause it is it's a two day affair. Like it kind of takes you at least a day and a half. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And that's part of it. And we have established us a rhythm. And I'm such a rhythm guy in my weeks that I don't want to deal with that. And you have to plan it so far in advance, but I'd rather go take a trip and all the th yeah, all the things that go into that. The vaccines, I just don't want to feel like crap.

Clancy Denton (22:12)
I know, that's my thing. I'm scared I'm like that shingles one. Everyone's like, my gosh, you feel horrible and I'm like, I don't wanna feel horrible So I know.

Rick Denton (22:23)
I think it too gets into because, you know, we've approached our our insurance approach that we have skewed more towards self pay. It's one of the realities of being in business with for yourself that we skew more towards self pay and we absorb more of the medical costs. And we aren't gonna get into, but this gets into a whole healthcare discussion that I know that part of my reluctance is if I were just showing up and dropping twenty bucks down or something like that.

I probably wouldn't be thinking about it, but instead I'm thinking about what the cost of a colonoscopy is as a self pay patient. You know what really comes up is when I think about it in the the vaccine I'm like, I I wanna I don't wanna pay f two couple of hundred dollars to feel like crap. I can do that with a few martinis. Like I don't

Clancy Denton (23:08)
I guess though when you do when you when you look at Sofar it has.

Rick Denton (23:14)
Again,

don't take medical advice from the level of why.

Clancy Denton (23:17)
⁓

I will say though, I guess if you look at the colonoscopy over ten years divided it

Rick Denton (23:23)
Well, and it's a ⁓ I'll make sure we avoid the ex explicit flag. It's a lot cheaper than

Clancy Denton (23:29)
And

yes. Not any yeah.

Rick Denton (23:32)
Discovering something and getting having to deal with that.

Clancy Denton (23:35)
Yeah,

so I I mean this this was just our PSA episode of

Rick Denton (23:40)
If you haven't scheduled it, get it scheduled. Now, the problem is with issuing a PSA, I'm talking to myself. We should do that we should just require that I get on the phone right now and requ book the appointment.

Clancy Denton (23:54)
Yeah, so there are things on our list that we do need to get done and

Rick Denton (24:02)
And y'all probably do too. So gotta go get your things scheduled. Yeah, because there are so many things that have to get done, it can be hard to get motivated for that. Well, the reason that I got my body scan is because a friend of ours had to go through cancer treatment. And that ⁓ put it very real to me of this isn't some sort of theoretical

It's in books. It happens to other people. It happens to people we

Clancy Denton (24:35)
No same reason I got my colonoscopy. Exactly.

Rick Denton (24:37)
Exactly.

And so that's what I might suggest is no, you don't need to tell your deepest stories or that sort of stuff. But if if there's like I'm sitting here talking about how I got the the pre cancer removed that would have gone bad, you know, if there's stories that you are willing to share, share that on the Facebook group. That's the point of this empty nest living Facebook group is for us to kind of share and encourage each other. And who knows, you might be the reason that someone gets that screening that then

allows them to call it a pre cancer as opposed to something a lot deeper. So that's over. You can get there, the the lao quiet.com. There's a button that takes you there and then you can get on over to the Facebook group. But yeah, go get those go get those scans, y'all. It's it's important. Have I belabored that point enough? Can can everybody go get those scans? So we do hope that y'all enjoyed this run through a little bit of a medical experience and medical history and and hopefully

A little bit of medical future as we get our own things scheduled. Thank y'all for listening to another episode of The Loud Quiet.