Between Milestones: S1 E1
Building a Business While Battling Health Scares and Hospital Stays (ft. Wesley Bradford)
Robert Christian (00:04)
All right, welcome. we are happy to be here today, with Wes. I just want to do a quick intro on Wes. today we’re, we’re going to be talking about resilience and relationships and, some, some tough things that can happen when we’re least expecting it. And you got no other choice than to just, move through it and find the best way to keep your head above water and keep showing up for those that depend on you. But Wes, he was that for me, and he may not know this, about, I think it was about 13 years ago, maybe 14 years ago, Wes and I went to church together. And in our church, in our faith, I had some responsibilities. And when people would move in and out, I was in charge of making sure that was done and that they received the help they needed. Well, guess how many 20 something year old kids want to show up and help each other move? Not many.
Robert Christian (01:09)
But one thing that I knew was I could call Wes and he would be there. And that was a big deal. And honestly, that was the beginning of our relationship of trust. I know Wes is somebody that I can rely on and he’s there for. all those who depend on him and he’s been great. But that being said, life isn’t always easy. Even for those, maybe especially for those who are showing up consistently for others. But Wes, I’d love to have you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about, yeah, what’s been going on the last few years.
Wesley Bradford (01:47)
Yeah, you bet. It’s fun to think back that it is that 13, 14 years ago that we’ve already, we’ve known each other and see a little bit more of each other nowadays. But yeah, so maybe my background, I…
Robert Christian (01:56)
Yeah.
Wesley Bradford (01:59)
I don’t know exactly where to start. guess kind of who I am. just go from there. I have a family. That’s the first, I think the most important thing that I am. I have a wife. I’ve got four little boys between two and ten years old. yeah, it does. It brings a lot to life, a lot of joy and a lot of unexpected sometimes.
Robert Christian (02:13)
That’s busy.
Wesley Bradford (02:25)
We are owners, Robert and I together, of SymTec. So that’s also big part of my life, of running SymTec, doing kind of the business operations. I call my job everything else. So if somebody isn’t directly assigned to it or it’s not their job responsibility, I’m the one that handles that.
Robert Christian (02:42)
We’ve joked that your title is everything else, right?
Wesley Bradford (02:46)
Yep.
And I mean, in all reality, it’s kind what I do. I come in and I figure out how to do what we need to do. The best of my abilities, willing to kind of jump in and try anything. And when we get a little bit bigger and a little bit stronger, we hire somebody that knows a lot more than I do. And we replace that part out and I move on to that next task and what we need to handle.
Robert Christian (03:06)
Yeah, and that’s our business has changed a lot over the last few years. It seems like we’re reconstructing, reevaluating quarterly, but then it feels like we’re constantly evolving, right? and they’re in, the 10 years that we’ve been business partners, I really don’t feel like there’s just been a
Robert Christian (03:26)
Yeah, we’re just going to stay right here, right? Like we’re always looking to improve and grow and develop.
Wesley Bradford (03:29)
Yeah. It’s right in our core values. Progress is one of those top things that we’ve chose to focus on. And some of it’s that life blood to the business. keeps it exciting and fun, but in all reality, we’re working for something bigger, right? We have a purpose to what we’re doing and it motivates us to do the best we can.
Robert Christian (03:51)
Absolutely. Absolutely. So yeah, like I had, I had mentioned, just kind of leaned into it a little bit that life hasn’t been very easy for your family specifically. Can you tell us what’s been going on with with your kids?
Wesley Bradford (04:07)
Sure, One thing I would say is that it’s all perspective, right? We’ve had some kids with some heart complications, and we’ve had two different ones that have had heart conditions, that we had them in and out of the hospital, both with surgeries. But I tell you, everybody thinks they’re concerned about us and says, wow, look what they’re going through. But I promise you, every time we were there,
We saw people that needed to help a lot more and we’re in a lot worse shape, right? And so, yes, we were going through a lot and in all reality, I didn’t realize how much stress I was really going through until after we’ve been through a lot of the ordeal. But at the same time, I always realized that a lot of people have it worse and there’s always somebody out there more, right? But at the same time, it’s about that resilience, right? Of how do we get up and keep going and one more day? But…
Wesley Bradford (05:00)
Part of that lesson too was that even though we can make up excuses and we can say, I was going through a lot, there’s a balance that we need in life, right? There’s things that are important to our health, there are things that are important to our relationships, to our finances that they also need to be taken care of, right? And that doesn’t stop when life’s challenges come up, right?
Robert Christian (05:20)
So it’s interesting you mentioned finances because it’s one thing to worry about your own personal finance But as business owners, it’s quite another to worry about the finances of a hundred other people that depend on Us making payroll, right?
Wesley Bradford (05:36)
Can you imagine if we hadn’t been trying to progress, right, to keep up with the inflation over the last couple years and be able to pay employees what they’re worth and be able to take care of their needs? Like, it’s been a challenging business environment for a couple years here.
Robert Christian (05:42)
Yeah. And, on top of all of the medical challenges that you and your family have had, then we had, you’re right, COVID and then making sure that our employees were getting raises and bonuses and that they were taken care of during the same time period. Yeah, there’s been a lot of stress, but go on.
Wesley Bradford (06:08)
Yeah.
So, kind of, I think kind of the reason we were talking and why we decided to even do this podcast was that just six months ago, last summer, I was on vacation. We were out touring with my family, having a great time. And after I’d been on vacation for a few days, my eyes started going blurry.
And I didn’t know what was going on. And I just thought this could be maybe a migraine. I’m just dealing with the short-term thing that’ll go away, drink more water, and maybe it’ll be fine. But it didn’t go after away for two or three days. I was stubborn enough not to to the doctor right away, especially on vacation. That’s the last place you want to go. And you don’t know anybody around. But it was at that point, this is I need to go to the doctor. I need to see what’s going on.
Robert Christian (06:52)
Yeah.
Wesley Bradford (06:56)
and while I was there they says my average blood sugar, A1C, was 11 and a half, which would average about 200 and… So yeah, A1C is part of… They can test your blood cells and they can see how… What your sugar levels have been over like a three month window.
Robert Christian (07:05)
I don’t even know what that means. does that mean?
Wesley Bradford (07:17)
Your body replaces those blood cells every three months. And so every three months you get to see where your average blood sugar’s been. And so an A1C of 11 and a half isn’t just diabetic. It was almost double the threshold of what it would take to be diabetic. Going from not even knowing I was pre-diabetic or any problem before that.
Robert Christian (07:23)
Okay.
So have you experienced any symptoms or any health issues like this previous or was this just completely out of the blue?
Wesley Bradford (07:43)
It was almost completely out of the blue. I had somebody mentioned that you look like you may be losing. I had somebody just mentioned it looks like you’ve been losing some weight, like you’re looking really good, but I mean, I’m pretty skinny. I don’t have a lot of weight to lose. And so I’m like, I don’t know what we’ve been by that maybe because I don’t see this person in person all the time. It’s a slimming of the camera kind of thing. So I kind of blew that off, but that was the first comment that somebody had made to me that maybe something was going on probably.
Robert Christian (07:47)
Yeah, I was gonna say what does almost mean
Wesley Bradford (08:11)
a couple weeks before that.
Robert Christian (08:13)
Okay. so, what, what did that do when you heard that news? What went through your head?
Wesley Bradford (08:13)
So. We almost laughed about it at first, right? I’m 38 years old. I’m skinny as a beanstalk. You know, I’m usually pretty active and healthy. Um, I didn’t think I was a candidate for, for diabetes, right? I knew I do have a family history of diabetes. And with that, you know, I figured it later in life that it could be a challenge or something that I might have to deal with, but.
Robert Christian (08:44)
Sure.
Wesley Bradford (08:45)
I also kind of felt like, with genes and things, I don’t fit that profile. don’t have excess weight that would make me a higher risk of developing diabetes, even if it was in my DNA. So I kind of ignored it.
Robert Christian (08:58)
So they’re probably wrong. Their tests are off. It’s not me.
Wesley Bradford (09:01)
Right.
Or is this just a temporary thing? I just, you know, I’ve been on vacation. I was down in the South and a lot of fried food and not a lot of vegetables, right? Maybe it could just go away after a couple of weeks of eating better.
Robert Christian (09:05)
So that was.
Did that work?
Wesley Bradford (09:19)
So I learned that lot of life choices can make it better and I can manage it. Part of the problem is just knowing it exists, right? I was completely oblivious to it. I wasn’t doing the things that were healthy for someone with diabetes. I had a lot of snacks that I liked to eat. In my mind, I didn’t…
Robert Christian (09:34)
What’s your favorite snack?
Wesley Bradford (09:36)
Just at night, right? I just love to snack. So I just get I’d get like crackers I’d get you know, some popcorn I’d get some you know, yeah chocolate or some yeah, right? In my mind it never occurred to me that sugars and carbs You know, we’re in the same category, right? Right. They turn into the same thing in my mind That was two different food groups and as long as I was avoiding I wasn’t eating too much of the sugar I was okay, right?
Robert Christian (09:38)
at night. cheese and crackers at night is delightful. Yeah. that carbs turn to sugars.
Hey, I’m not I’m not I’m not downing marshmallows and ice cream. It’s only crackers and cheese.
Wesley Bradford (10:06)
Yeah, right, that’s what you thought.
When they draw the food plate pyramid, there’s a place for grains. So it just felt like that category.
Robert Christian (10:13)
Yeah, we learned that that’s all a bunch of baloney anyway, isn’t it?
Wesley Bradford (10:18)
Things have changed, right? And that’s where health is. It adapts over time. Our knowledge gets a little better. We change a few things and kind of figure it out as we go.
Robert Christian (10:24)
Yeah, okay. so obviously you’ve made some changes to your diet that have helped. So you just have diabetes now or or can you get through it?
Wesley Bradford (10:37)
It so I have had tests.
I’ve had tests now where I was under the diabetic realm, even below the pre pre diabetic. So I still have a tendency to have higher blood sugar if I eat things. So they now have continuous glucose monitors. So blood sugar monitor that you can get non-prescription. And actually I did this with myself and two of my brothers that both had the
Robert Christian (10:46)
Okay.
I was going to say Trevor walked around with that little patch.
Wesley Bradford (11:05)
He did, yep, Robert knows trevor and also my brother Andy that all at the same time and even while we were together on a family vacation, we had these glucose monitors.
Robert Christian (11:14)
So were you like, okay, let’s all eat this food and see who metabolizes it better.
Wesley Bradford (11:20)
We did exactly that, yeah. Let’s do the exact same thing. Let’s record what we’re eating, messaging things back and forth. You get these little graphs that show this is how high I wentand we’d send them to each other.
Robert Christian (11:23)
So, Who has the best metabolism?
Wesley Bradford (11:31)
Trevor was actually the lowest and he’s the oldest of the three of us. So, little brother would spike a little bit more than he would, but it wasn’t even a question. Anything I ate, I was double what they were on blood sugars and things. It would come back down, but if I’m eating really healthy, I could maybe maintain where they would be out on a normal day.
Robert Christian (11:33)
So, do you think there’s any part of that being the middle child and just wanting more attention? I won.
Wesley Bradford (11:57)
I’m the winner, right? gotta take a win. It doesn’t matter if it’s bad health. I was the highest on that graph.
Robert Christian (12:03)
My number is the biggest number.
Wesley Bradford (12:05)
Brotherly competition. We did have the competitions, but unfortunately it was I couldn’t compete with them, you know Some of the things that just like surprised me is you know, just like a little thing of nachos I’m like I’m these little square tortilla chips and a bunch of salsa right like how much does that affect me but Just chewed up off the chart. It didn’t matter if it was rice beans, you know grains whatever that that all Affect me and I’ve got to learn to
Robert Christian (12:23)
That’s rough.
Wesley Bradford (12:28)
You maintain all that in balance now. It’s not that I have to cut it out completely, but it’s realizing that I’ve got to get more vegetables and more meat and other things in my diet that are more important for me.
Robert Christian (12:33)
Yeah.
And we kind of touched on your kids health as well and their heart issues. Have there been any special dietary things for your kids?
Wesley Bradford (12:48)
No, they’re actually diet was completely fine. And that was part of what I do feel like lifestyle kind of caught up to me, right? And I do feel like that, yes, maybe I was predisposed to diabetes, but I also feel like, you know, I had a couple of years where I really did break down a lot of the habits. Part of that, I’ve got a desk job.
Robert Christian (12:50)
that’s great. So Yeah.
Wesley Bradford (13:14)
And I think I’m realizing how unhealthy a desk job is, how much your body depends on exercise to get things rolling and moving.
Robert Christian (13:17)
Hey, do you have your desk treadmill right there?
Wesley Bradford (13:23)
It’s under my desk right here, my foot’s on it.
Robert Christian (13:26)
I love it when you when you’re like walking in the video call. It’s just I love it. It’s getting steps Yeah
Wesley Bradford (13:28)
stand in a meeting, right? So many meetings, so we’re just talking a little bit. You don’t have to have a lot of details. And so, just whip out the treadmill and put in three or four miles in an hour long meeting, hour and a half or something.
Robert Christian (13:42)
So you’ve got, I mean, desk jobs, man. It is rough because we’re just sitting here on phone calls, writing whatever we’re writing or just building at our computer, and we sit a lot. And you look at the end of the day.
And it’s like, how do I only have 2100 steps? Like that’s a, that’s not good, right? And so what other things have you found that bring you the balance? Cause I mean, diet, obviously, um, America as a whole needs to do a whole lot better on diet. So we have diet and I mean, I’m teasing about, I’m teasing about your treadmill.
Wesley Bradford (14:05)
Yeah. I mean, I had to go back and learn this.
Robert Christian (14:27)
I’m make, you know, I’m, you know, your head bobbin. I honestly think it’s great. I think more of us need to do that, but what are
Wesley Bradford (14:35)
It’s amazing.
I have a day where I’m out and about and doing things all day, I’m hiking all day, I’m out playing sports or whatever, there’s a significant difference in how well my body handles the blood sugar, how quickly it comes up or down the balance, because it shows me the long-term average and things like that. And so that is what I started realizing.
Robert Christian (14:41)
Yeah that’s interesting. So you metabolize, you metabolize sugars better when you are more active.
Wesley Bradford (15:01)
Sugar is energy, right? And the reason it is going through your blood as diabetic is because the insulin is now not opening the doors. The insulin is the signal for your muscles to absorb that sugar. And if your body is no longer responding to the insulin in the same way, then the sugar stays in your blood instead of getting stored.
and it actually becomes damaging to your body if it doesn’t know what to do with that extra sugar in your blood. So when you’re active and you’re using it, actually, your muscles are using that sugar. Again, I’m not the expert on the health piece fully here, but you’re using that sugar, right? It’s needed for the energy and your body knows what to do with it and it gets the benefit out of it.
Robert Christian (15:28)
Right.
Yeah, your body’s not just trying to dump it somewhere. It’s being used up, burned up. So…
Wesley Bradford (15:53)
Mm-hmm.
Your body does a good job storing what itneeds for later, right? But if it’s needing it right now, it’s also going to pull the resources it needs to meet your energy demands.
Robert Christian (16:03)
Yeah, and I know your wife and I know your kids and I know they your your kids keep you very active, right?
Wesley Bradford (16:13)
I would, yeah, would think so, right? You think, I already did a little bit after work, but at the same time, you gotta realize a lot of that’s an hour or two before bed, right? After, in the wintertime, it gets dark early and kids are finishing up their homework or sitting down for a meal. There’s not a lot of time that’s always building up and getting exercise, even though you think you’re chasing the kids around.
Robert Christian (16:17)
But…
So, you know, what else is working is to stay physically active as a business owner, all these stresses. I mean, so many things that just come out of left field and you’ve got to handle it right now. You can’t just wait. So with so many interruptions in your day, where are you finding consistency in physical activity?
Wesley Bradford (16:59)
So one thing that I think benefits me a lot is we are past the heart surgery stuff. It’s no longer the stress that it was. We actually was able to get a full repair, not that there won’t be future surgeries needed at some point, but the serious condition was taken care of. And because of that, my stress levels have come down a lot, but I’m also home more.
Robert Christian (17:12)
It’s such a blessing.
Wesley Bradford (17:20)
or not at the hospital. Those times of travel are just the hardest to have any habits, right? You build up good habits at home of exercise, of eating well, of anything, and then go travel. It breaks your habits and you have such unhealthy options available to you when you’re just grabbing food quick between trying to get back to the hospital or off to your next meeting or whatever it is.
Robert Christian (17:25)
Yeah.
and you’re in survival mode.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, hospital food is good, though. The times that my wife and I have been in the hospital, usually when we’re having kids and it’s good, but it’s very high in calories.
Wesley Bradford (17:55)
Yeah, some of this is that journey and I feel like we’d maybe understand more if I kind of startback at the beginning of some of this heart surgery stuff.
Robert Christian (18:03)
Yeah, yeah, take us back there.
Wesley Bradford (18:05)
Because up to that point, mean, there’s a four year gap between my third child and my fourth. They’re all boys. But we were getting to that point that as a family we could get out and do more. We kind of were out of the baby phase a little bit. And I felt like in a lot of ways we were in pretty good habits. We had a lot of activity and a lot of things. And obviously this is before I’d had any problems with diabetes.
But we got the news that when my wife was pregnant, we found out that he, was actually, theycall it a two vessel umbilical cord. And is where the normally there’s, I can’t remember if it’s two arteries and one vein or one vein and two arteries, but in that scenario you’re restricted, right? There’s less connection between mom and baby there. And that there’s likely potential out, you know, health complications because of that. So they were looking carefully on the ultrasounds and they says, we found a heart system, know, there’s something going on here. I don’t know what it is, but it’s a little bit abnormal. I’m going to take you over to a specialist.
Robert Christian (19:06)
So they didn’t know if it was a murmur, didn’t, they couldn’t really tell, just that there were abnormalities.
Wesley Bradford (19:10)
This was on the, it was on the ultrasound where they were seeing like, is not quite where it should be. There might be like a twist in some of the arteries or something there. And went to that next one and they’re like, we think this is what’s going on. We don’t know. We’re going to send you to down to the primary children’s hospital and have you meet with their team. We’ve got down there, met with their team. And that’s when we finally were told the condition that he had.
Robert Christian (19:19)
Okay.
Wesley Bradford (19:36)
single outlet right ventricle. And it meant that his heart was a little bit bigger on one side and both the arteries out of his heart, one that typically goes to the lungs and one that goes out to the body, were coming out of the right side of his heart and there was not one in the left side of his heart. But then they have what’s called a VSD and that’s a hole between the chambers of the heart. And so they knew there was the hole, they knew there was these things.
And it was kind of a waiting game, As you were getting closer, my wife had a lot of appointments, a lot of doctor visits already at that point before he was born. When it came closer to time for him to be born.
Robert Christian (20:13)
And, I was, I was just going to say, I can’t tell you how many phone calls and meetings that we had. And, and then I would hear from urine, Hey, I’ll call you right back. The doctor’s coming in. Right. So you’re talking, you’re talking about this experience of being in the hospital a lot. it was a lot. And I, I mean,
Wesley Bradford (20:26)
Yeah.
Robert Christian (20:34)
as your business partner, it was like, man, I didn’t realize you were in the hospital room right now. And I’m calling you about this other thing that I think is important, but in the grand scheme of what’s going on in your life, the thing that was bothering me and or worrying me about whatever it was, wasn’t nearly important as what you were dealing with, right? And, hey, I’msorry, the doctor’s coming in. Let me call you right back. It’s like, gosh, what am I doing? these little things that we think are important in life. And we put something like this into perspectiveand we recognize.
Wesley Bradford (21:04)
Yeah
Robert Christian (21:13)
And I think you mentioned it at the beginning. It’s just all about perspective, right? There’s always going to be somebody that’s dealing with something that we perceive to be more challenging than whatever it is we’re going through.
Wesley Bradford (21:17)
Yeah.
We sometimes really get little glimpse into other people’s life, right? When we see just a little spark, you know, wow, they’re dealing with a lot and it seems like a lot, but I’ve also heard that rarely would we ever want to change spaces with somebody else when we knew what they’re really going through and what their challenges are. Even if mine seems harder than somebody else, it’s something I’m also maybe more equipped to deal with and I’ve prepared for and I’m aware of the scenario. But in those scenarios in the hospital,
Robert Christian (21:50)
Yeah.
Wesley Bradford (21:53)
My perspective is there’s a lot of waiting too, right? There’s unknowns, you’re waiting for tests, you’re waiting for doctors. So yeah, that’s when I could squeeze in the work, keep checking the emails, checking in with the team. Fortunately for us, we’ve grown enough that we have a great team and it was mostly coordinating and checking in and answering some questions to keep things moving.
So I mean that that definitely helped balance things out and helped me have less stress right now. have to worry about if a paycheck was going to be coming in still because we could still meet clients needs.
Robert Christian (22:20)
That’s true.
That’s true. We had our business at a point where you could step away and take care of your family.
Wesley Bradford (22:26)
Yep.
Robert Christian (22:29)
And so that’s part of the balance, As business owners that we look for, we wanna replace ourselves as business owners so that we can free up more time, right? And then we can choose the things that we actually want to do and like to do. And the monotonous is covered by another team. ⁓ But…
Wesley Bradford (22:40)
There’s always somebody else that enjoys that side of things or at least more capacity, right? There’s different thought processes, different ways that people look at it, and we’re stronger as a team. And somebody having to do what they hate doing all the time doesn’t help you progress quickly, it a lot of ways slows you down. When you get past that and it’s more freeing and you enjoy what you’re doing, you have a passion for it versus just meeting the need and the minimum you have to get done.
Robert Christian (22:53)
Yeah. Yeah. So.
So what? Yes.
So it’s easy to be critical of yourself and see all of the things that you need to do better. But I think we’ve done a lot right. And what, in your opinion, did we do right to prepare our company so that you could just step away and focus on your family in those moments?
Wesley Bradford (23:34)
A lot of it is on an employee level, we didn’t just tell them here’s a task that you need done. We really helped them to understand the big picture. This is what we’re accomplishing together and this is your role. This is what we need you to be able to accomplish. And so it wasn’t micromanaged. It was not something that somebody had to stand over somebody’s shoulder and tell them what to do all day. It was a common goal that we were all working towards.
Robert Christian (23:58)
It’s isn’t it a lot harder to actually teach that than to just say here’s your checklist, get it done.
Wesley Bradford (24:05)
People are a challenging part of the business, right? You can’t just flip the switch or set it up right and then deposit and be done and think you’re ready to go. It takes repeated effort and training and even team members with awesome capacity and great attitudes. It takes a while to learn those processes and to train them up and to do it right. So it absolutely is a big effort and some days are frustrating. We’re like, I thought we had that working and why is this not working? And things fall apart and you have to revisit it.
Robert Christian (24:11)
Yeah.
Hahaha
Wesley Bradford (24:34)
A lot of times, even though it would be easier if it just worked, we come to a better solution when we realize that fell short because of this. And now let’s continue to progress. So let’s come up with the next better idea.
Robert Christian (24:42)
Yeah And we do it as a team, right? When team members feel empowered to introduce their ideas so that we can grow and develop as a company.
Wesley Bradford (24:48)
Mm-hmm.
You hire good people, right? They really care and are engaged and not just present, right? They’re really caring about the results and…
Robert Christian (25:06)
Yeah. So, I, I think we, we redirected a little bit, but I want to go back to your, your kid in the hospital and we’re talking about the things that matter most. So, so you were, you were in the hospital again. I heard a lot. Hey, let me call you back. The doctor just came in. So
Wesley Bradford (25:17)
Yeah.
Robert Christian (25:27)
How long did that take until your boy was able to get the actual support he needed and the surgeries were successful? What led up to that?
Wesley Bradford (25:36)
Yeah.
So almost every time we met with specialists, they’re like, this is kind of what we should expect, right? He was born down at the University of Utah Hospital, so they had specialists on hand. He was passed through the NICU. He was the giant of the NICU, because he’s this 7-pound, 12-ounce baby that’s in there. yes, he was.
Robert Christian (25:55)
That’s huge. That’s huge for the NICU. I actually, had a NICU baby and he was just over four pounds and yeah, seven pounds. That’s a big baby. Yeah.
Wesley Bradford (26:05)
Seven pound baby in the NICU, yeah, but it was because out of precautions they had to see is he going to be able to get oxygen or think, know, how is he he going to be able to breathe? But fortunately, he could function fine on his own. The blood would actually mix back and forth. And so part oxygenated blood would go back to his lungs and part of the oxygenated blood go back to his body.
Robert Christian (26:25)
So even with that hole, did you say it was in the center of the heart?
Wesley Bradford (26:29)
Yes
Robert Christian (26:31)
Okay. So even though there was that, that hole or leak, enough blood was able to mix and get oxygenated so that his blood oxygen levels weren’t too low.
Wesley Bradford (26:43)
He floated at a lower level. He was averaging mid to low 80s, where normally you’d be close to 100 most of the time for normal level. And the doctor says he might look blue, and that’s just gonna be normal, and that’s gonna be okay. And we’re gonna just watch him, because the bigger he gets, the more space we have to work with to do the surgery.
Robert Christian (26:51)
Yeah.
As a parent, what went through your mind? Hey, he’s, he’s, he’s gonna look blue, but it’s cool. It’s fine. It’s, it’s, everything’s fine.
Wesley Bradford (27:12)
It’s a little bit terrifying, right? Because you’re like going away from the hospital. I don’t have all the special tools. I don’t have all those things. What if it does go a little bit lower?
Robert Christian (27:17)
It’s like middle of the night and you’re looking at your kid and you’re like, is this purple now or is it still blue? I don’t know.
Wesley Bradford (27:25)
haha
So we had a baby monitor that happened to be able to give us the oxygen levels where he was at. And… Uh-huh. Yes, it was, so…
Robert Christian (27:36)
Was it, was it the sock one, the owl sock thing?
We wanted to buy that for our baby, but at the time I was like, I’m not paying that much money because, but in your case, yeah.
Wesley Bradford (27:47)
For us, peace of mind, that’s what let us sleep at night instead of rolling over and be like, is he okay? Like we had an alarm and it was awesome. It was a scenario where they were in testingand they couldn’t even call it a medical device.
Robert Christian (27:56)
Maybe… What was the name of it?
Wesley Bradford (28:01)
The owlet, I don’t remember which of their socks, but owlet monitor here.
Robert Christian (28:02)
Owlet, if you’re listening, you are a possible sponsor of this video.
Wesley Bradford (28:09)
The funny scenario is they couldn’t even call it a medical device, right? They were not approved at that level and not at that point. And actually they were looking for candidates that were lower on their oxygen levels in order to prove their product, trying to get it towards that medical device approved option. And Declan was one of their…
Robert Christian (28:13)
Okay. So there, there wasn’t any FDA approval at that point.
Wesley Bradford (28:31)
candidates that they came up to our house and they did a test of several different socks and monitoring the levels of how it performed.
Robert Christian (28:36)
Hey, I just did a quick search. Owlet is now cleared by the FDA in its latest pulse oximeter device. Way to go Owlet.
Wesley Bradford (28:47)
Yes, that’s what I was talking about actually is Declan was part of that medical trial to prove, because he wasn’t just 100%, right? If you put it on a normal healthy baby, it just reads 100%. How hard is that to match and prove if it’s working? But with Declan’s difference in oxygen levels, they put multiple monitors on his feet. They tested him for a couple hours and monitoredevery up and down and everything that way on a medical level approved device.
Robert Christian (28:53)
he was?
Wesley Bradford (29:14)
on a secondary one that was like a sock that was also approved as a medical device, but was kind of more of a baby monitor. And then the outlet one, and they were able to have their computers, know, watching him for the, I think it was two hours while they ran that test and yeah, tracked perfectly with the medical device. And so it wasn’t long after that, they actually were offering the medical level of it.
Robert Christian (29:17)
Yeah. Well, that’s pretty awesome.
So fast forward, there was a lot of back and forth with these specialists. Yeah, he’s good to go for surgery. Just kidding. Not quite ready for surgery. And that’s stressful, right? Trying to figure out. Yeah. And well, his brother got a cold at school. Sorry, he got a delayed surgery.
Wesley Bradford (29:50)
There’s different pieces to that. He had to be healthy. They had to be able to test the pressures in his heart through the cath lab. And even a cold threw that off.
You know, we originally thought he was going to have surgery at about six months of age, at which point they said, we found some complications and his heart has it’s, we’re not able to do that surgery quite the same way. And if it didn’t go how we were supposed to, we couldn’t do the backup plan. So we’re going to wait longer until we can do the backup plan. They then they did a surgery just to put a band around,
Robert Christian (30:02)
That’s rough. That’s rough. So
Wesley Bradford (30:28)
his arteries so that it wouldn’t have too much oxygen going to his lungs and damage his lungs. So it was just a preventative one that bought them more time. And we kept thinking, you know, how long can he be okay, you know, without fixing this? And the doctors are just like, the more time, the better. waiting, we’re waiting. And they would still do additional CAT scans and map his heart or look at different things. And they would realize,
Well, this isn’t how we thought there’s additional holes in some of the arteries. Some of this is deteriorated. This muscle seems to be in the way where it was almost bad news. Every time we got another test and every time we thought we were going to get fixed, it was kind of, but we’ve also got to get to this level. And I didn’t mention much about my first son. My oldest also had a heart scenario. We got life flighted as a 10 day old baby up to
Robert Christian (31:16)
Right.
Wesley Bradford (31:19)
Primary children’s, we were living down in Cedar City at the time.
Robert Christian (31:21)
And yeah, I was gonna say, think, yeah, we were connected at that time. We weren’t business partners yet, but that was the beginning of our friendship. And I remember that was a very stressful time for you and your wife.
Wesley Bradford (31:26)
Yeah.
It was a very different experience though, because he was completely fine. And then we thought he had pneumonia. And then all of a sudden it was like his body was struggling to breathe. His chest was caving in. They’re trying to get IVs in him and life-lighting him up to primary children’s. And his scenario, they call it a coarctasium where the aorta narrows like an hourglass. And so his heart had to pump really hard to get the blood through that section of his heart.
And it doesn’t, there’s actually a valve called the PDA valve that closes off at seven to 10 days, I think of age, at which point it, we, he, that conditional of sudden then became apparent before that it is, there was no sign or symptom whatsoever. So no, no awareness of the issue. All ofsudden he’s getting life flighted, but we got good news that, this is something we see often. This is a quick repair. Got him stable. Waited a few days and then they did surgery. Everything went great and has been really good since. We got this impression that they’re amazing, know, miracles happen and everything’s good, but in all reality, these doctors just fix every baby, right? And they’re
Robert Christian (32:34)
Yeah.
So did you feel like there were miracles with your oldest child?
Wesley Bradford (32:49)
Yeah, I mean, just being there in the hospital already, we’d caught it early enough that we were right there ready for help when he was struggling and got answers. And we had the supportive family where we needed to be and just kind of almost felt a little bit too carried, like it was easyand things were just great and then fixed and done. Right. It was a one-time thing. And we came into that, the second child having a heart condition with that same kind of attitude like, yeah, the doctors just know how to fix it. They’ve seen every condition out there and this is how things are taken care of.
Robert Christian (33:18)
Yeah, yeah, well…
We’ll say some prayers for the doctors and for our child and everything will walk out just like we did before.
Wesley Bradford (33:26)
Yes.
But kind of the end of the story, I we’d had all these delays, he’d had sicknesses, he’d been life-lighted down to the hospital just to wait out a cold or something, because his oxygen would drop down into the 70s with the cold and they’d watch him really close and have him on oxygen. As it had progressed, he’d been on oxygen for about six months prior to when he was supposed to have a surgery. And that surgery didn’t happen because of…
They ran the test and they says, actually don’t know if we can do the surgery or not. So then few months down the road, we are going into surgery, but they says, we don’t know which option we’re going to be able to do. Option A would be that we would repair his heart, but the surgeon in conversations before the surgery had said,
What I’m seeing is this specific muscle that controls the rhythm of the heart. And I’ve been told as a surgeon to never cut that muscle. And if that’s the muscle, then we won’t be able to do the repair. And it will be the plan B. Plan B was a route that they called a single ventricle heart. It’sthe Glenn procedure. And the Glenn procedure, they reroute some of the valves so that you’reblood goes out to your body, back to your lungs, back to your heart, and only pumps in one cycle instead of two different cycles. And that could be reversed if there was something they felt like they could do later as you got bigger, but it is the path down towards, they do the Fontan procedure and then they do a heart transplant would be the next step after that and would even learn that a heart transplant, they look at it as a 7 to 12 year solution. So even that’s not a permanent fix or just a happy ending.
Robert Christian (34:59)
So I mean, so it’s, it’s challenging though, because did you go to medical school? Did you even have a biology class in the university level?
Wesley Bradford (35:08)
No, I learned this because I don’t think I did even at university. It’s all back to high school.
Robert Christian (35:15)
So, so as, as you’re going through all of this, were you thinking, I should have paid more attention in biology in high school or,
Wesley Bradford (35:23)
By this point, the doctors are saying, hey, did you have a medical degree or whatever? Because we’d seen the charts as much as they had, right? We’d been talking to a lot of different other providers and we kind of knew that. They sounded like they thought they were talking to expertby this point.
Robert Christian (35:37)
Well, you were you’d put enough time to become an expert, right? But so that’s that’s rough Going through all of that but finally What I mean we we addressed it earlier that your son he’shappy healthy running around with his brothers now so Where where was the miracle?
Wesley Bradford (35:39)
So.
The outcome of the surgery, it wasn’t until an hour into surgery that we found out what they were going to be able to do. And we had no idea that they were going to call us and just give us updates. They kind of said, he’s in there, we’ve put him, know, the anesthesiologist has been here. Trying to remember, probably like six hours would be my rough guess. Yeah.
Robert Christian (36:09)
How long, how long was the surgery?
It’s kind of a big blur, some of those.
Wesley Bradford (36:19)
And there’s the time before it, the surgery of getting back there, getting the anesthesiologists and getting everybody ready.
Robert Christian (36:23)
So about six hours surgery for a baby. That is a really long time to have a baby under anesthesia.
Wesley Bradford (36:28)
Yeah.
He was about a year and a half old at that point. But he went into surgery and…
Robert Christian (36:35)
So, so what was going through your mind during the surgery? Like, well, you and your wife are just sitting there. What was going through your mind? Were you just thinking about all the spreadsheets you had to update?
Wesley Bradford (36:48)
We’re running through the things the surgeon had told us and honestly we got to the point that we says either outcome is a good outcome. It’s still a good life. It might be a shorter life but we’re gonna do everything we can for this baby and we’re gonna be happy with either outcome. We kind of embrace that this might be a lifelong heart journey for him.
Robert Christian (37:08)
How do you, how do you come to that point where you just accept that either outcome is a good outcome? Cause I, I don’t, I don’t think that most people are just saying, okay, my kids in surgery, I get it might not be a, you know, long healthy life, but that’s okay. How do you get to that point where you’re like, you know what? It’s a good life either way.
Wesley Bradford (37:31)
I think this is where faith comes in a lot, right? This had been a spiritual journey for us of seeking God’s help and praying. And, you we talked to a lot of others. We’d built up a kind of a network of friends in the hospital that are all there going through different things. And, again, we’d seen a lot of other people in worse scenarios and, and harder challenges and kind of, kind of going back to that.
You know, we all have challenges and sometimes it’s hard for us to deal with our, or we see other people’s challenges and we think they’re so hard, but maybe we become equipped and are ready to handle our own challenges. And so that’s easier than some of the others. And I think that was our perspective of, know, we’ve seen what some of these others are going through and, and, and all reality life’s going to still be good. If, if he gets the single ventricle heart, he can still do normal things and, and, and have a relatively normal childhood.
He’d probably get winded earlier and wouldn’t be as athletic or things that way. But I mean, it’s not like a child that can’t see or that’s dealing with cancer or that had brain tumors or things like that. All of which were things that we’d seen from friends that were in the hospital that they were supporting each other and going through it together.
Robert Christian (38:40)
Yeah, so you mentioned faith there.
What has that faith done for you in in your child’s Circumstances in your circumstance because honestly if I woke up tomorrow and The doctors well actually I’ll give you an example. Do you remember when we got all that life insurance done? and my labs came back as I was in complete renal failure
Wesley Bradford (39:07)
Yep.
Robert Christian (39:14)
Do you remember that?
And I had to run down and they, took some additional labs and they found that the lab had made a mistake. But I remember driving on the way down thinking renal failure. Okay. So if my kidneys go, then what? Okay. I need a transplant. What if I can’t get a transplant quick enough? Then what? you die. And golly, you really do. in those moments,
I think for me, like that hour, right? It wasn’t very much time. It wasn’t very much time at all that I had that going through my mind. But for me, it really did like put everything in the perspective of where am I at with God? Where am I at with my wife? Where am I at with my kids? How do I treat people?
I feel like a lot of those things just kind of came to a head, but my number one concern was haveI built up enough of a relationship with God that I’ll recognize him, that I’ll want to be with him, right?
Wesley Bradford (40:11)
Yeah, sometimes we talk about the, you what’s in it for us side of religion or faith or whatever that way, right? And I think the hardest thing about faith is sometimes trusting God’s will above our own and having to say, you know, we’ve spent almost two years at this point praying for this miracle and just looking for what outcome we wanted to have. And we hit that point that maybe a little bit more peace and just saying, you God knows what he’s doing. He’s the creator and this is his plan and we’re a part of it, not vice versa. And let’s trust him.
Robert Christian (40:45)
Yeah, that’s, I heard recently and it’s easy, what do they say? It’s easy to believe in God, it’s harder to believe him.
Wesley Bradford (40:59)
Yeah.
Robert Christian (41:00)
right to believe that yeah, he is watching out for us and as much as we love our own kids, if we really believe that we’re his children, how much does he have invested into our lives, right?
Wesley Bradford (41:02)
Yeah.
We had faith that a miracle could happen, but we also needed to have faith that we’re going to follow God and we’re going to trust in Him even if it doesn’t happen.
Robert Christian (41:21)
Yeah, and I think sometimes, you know, we say even if it doesn’t happen, how many times there’s catastrophe and, you know, the question is where was God? And he’s there. And as we look even in those catastrophic moments, right, all the people that their kid didn’t come out of surgery so well.
But yeah, they’re still able to identify those moments where he showed up for them, right? And I think that’s part of, know, what we were talking about earlier, just the balance of life, right? Just a balance in perspective as well, that what we experience is a perfect balance. And…
And we’ve just got to figure out, you know, what, what am I contributing and what I am contributing? Does it serve my purposes? Does it serve God’s purposes? And if not, then what am I going to do about it? Right.
Wesley Bradford (42:16)
We got to realize that what God really wants for us is for us to have the experiences that are going to help us grow. He doesn’t want us to be comfortable. It’s not where we become our best selves. And it’s through the challenges and through the hard times where we have those opportunities to get better, right?
Robert Christian (42:29)
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so your son comes out of surgery.
Wesley Bradford (42:39)
Yeah, we, I mean, we got the best outcome we could have ever hoped for. we honestly just hit that point. We didn’t believe it was going to happen. We just as accepted that we’re okay with this other plan. And then we got that call. And I mean, I don’t think I’d realized up until that point, the stress that I’d been carrying, it just kind of become a normal load that had been on my shoulders. But, when we heard that they called and they said, we’re going to be able to repair his heart. It’sgoing to be a full repair. It was just like the lightest I had felt in years. And I think that’s what, know, the stress had become normal and the levels that we’d been, you know, dealing with, but that’s, think what it became apparent to me that, okay, you know, this has taken a tax on me and my wife too, and not just the baby. And we have been going through a lot and, and, you know, the story we were kind of talking about diabetes was, it was unknown at that point still.
But this is the timeframe that we’d be talking about when my A1C would have been through the roof. so that’s, I don’t know, yes, that lifted, but there were still pieces that I hadn’t reached the same.
Robert Christian (43:33)
Yeah.
So, so I think, I think the takeaway, the takeaway is this, right? Like we’re, have these peaks and valleys, like that’s life, right? We’re always hitting these peaks of doctor calls, full recovery. Yes, we did it. There’s it’s amazing. Right. And then, bam, nope, just kidding diabetes. And you hit these peaks and valleys and there’s, there’s constant
Peaks if you look for them, right? It’s not all valleys, but without the valleys we don’t appreciate the peaks, right? Then we’re just complaining that there’s not as much oxygen up there, right? They’re like we’re gonna be complaining and whining even in the peaks and and I think If we’rehonest with ourselves All of us can see I was you know at the peak of whatever moment I was still finding things to complain about. Right? And so those, those peaks and valleys are always going to be a part of life. And so what, what brings the balance, with all the ups and downs, what, what’s the thing that, that we can choose to bring that peace and balance?
Wesley Bradford (44:35)
Yeah.
I think one of the things that just comes to mind there is, even though we’re going through a lot and everybody would be like, yeah, you’re justified to eat whatever you want to eat and not exercise or whatever that way, everything still takes a toll on our bodies, right? It still all affects us. a lot of times there’s, occasionally there’s those extremes in life that just take complete and all of our attention.
Robert Christian (45:00)
Hahaha
Wesley Bradford (45:14)
And then, but we got to get back to as normal as we can or as stable as we can. Right. I, I didn’tget back into the health things right away. I did not come back and just fix my eating habits. You know, I kind of just kept eating junk food and not getting a lot of exercise, but it was summertime. thought I was getting some exercise and being out and about with the kids, but. But it’s a different level than realizing what it takes to improve your health maybe.
Robert Christian (45:18)
Yeah, I like stability.
Wesley Bradford (45:42)
Once it’s deteriorated, takes a lot more to gain it back than to maintain it, to begin with, right?
Robert Christian (45:43)
Yeah.
I mean, that’s, you and I both have a tonal, right? For, for those of you that don’t know what a tonal is, tonal’s it’s a exercise machine that goes on the wall. And for me, like that’s, that’s the thing that has brought, yes, that stability, but it, it’s constant, right?
Wesley Bradford (46:10)
It’s one of the factors of why you don’t go to the gym is the time and the distance that it takes, right? And that’s why when you told me about Tonal, I’m just like, I don’t have time to drive somewhere. I don’t have all these options. But if I can wake up at 6 a.m. while the kids are sleeping and get a workout still, that’s what’s actually really helped me to get back into good habits again. I’ve been able to start that back up and get into exercise routines and.
Robert Christian (46:11)
And I know that. Right
Yeah, there’s one of the coaches on tonal. I remember a workout I was doing. It was a leg dayand I hated it. And, and, the, so the day after the, the, the program after that late day, and I remember being so destroyed and sore and just miserable. And I thought, I don’t like this. I, this is not fun. And, He said something that stuck with me. He’s like, if you stay consistent with this, today will be the last day of your life that you’re this sore. If you just keep driving and pushing, you never have to be this sore again. And I, and I think that’s true with so many things in life, right?
where if we’re just kind of lazy about it and then we just put in the hard work and it’s hard and it’s not fun well it doesn’t have to be like that every time if we just maintain consistency it won’t be so challenging and difficult and and then that progress remains and we can build and grow and not be miserable at the same time
Wesley Bradford (47:41)
We can really think of all of these little things we’re doing are investments. They’re investments into our health, which what good does it do to work our entire lives, save up money, and then to have poor health and retirement, right? Quality of life is affected directly by how well we can learn to be healthy and maintain our bodies. And it affects the length of our life. affects, I mean, you the quality of our life. It affects what we’re able to do, what that entire experience looks like.
Robert Christian (47:54)
I’m ready.
Wesley Bradford (48:07)
And I mean, that’s a motivating factor to me, Of how long can I stay out of, away from medical places and stay as healthy as I can, right? Some things are out of our control, but some things are within our control and we can make good choices and affect our outcomes.
Robert Christian (48:26)
All right, Wes, thanks so much for sharing all that. I do have a question for you, though. If you can give us one piece of advice to And not I’m not necessarily looking for advice as far as likemotivation because motivation is an external factor, right? And we can use it as an excuse. So, well, I didn’t quite get my motivation, so I didn’t wake up at six to go work out. All right. Sowhat’s your best advice for creating real grit and determination to hit our goals and stay balanced? What’s the best way to maintain true determination?
Wesley Bradford (49:10)
So I don’t know if I have any secret for everybody else, but I know for me, I don’t want my eyes to be blurry again. That was a real wake up call, right? To be able to not see like I could normally see. Like it became real to me, it sank in and it was something that said this is, not just diabetes from a doctor telling me you should be healthy and do better, but from a symptom, from an outcome, I’m like, I’m seeing, yeah, I cannot see how I was.
Wesley Bradford (49:37)
I mean, I couldn’t read signs. I couldn’t see things as we were out touring places. And I kind of missed out on a lot of that enjoyment. And it was not the quality of life that I want to have. Right? And so it was a choice. Not just a, why am I getting up every day? But it was a, this is what I want life to be like. And this is what I’m, you what it requires to get there.
And it’s not fun and it’s not because I’m just doing it with friends. It’s not just because it feels good. It’s because in the end, I know what I, what I’m doing it for. Right. And I think that’s also makes it easier to stick with. It’s not just a fad diet that if I get down to my goal weight, then I’m going to be done. It’s a lifestyle. And I am looking at this as everything that I do has to be something I can do forever. Right. It’s about finding things that are manageable.
Robert Christian (50:17)
Mm-hmm.
Wesley Bradford (50:26)
and not taking on two extremes or not getting things that are too out of reasonable to do long term. I’m not out there doing three hour workouts. I’m doing 30, 40 minute workouts in the morning. I’m trying to eat some more vegetables. I’m trying to avoid those sugars, right? But little things can go a long ways when we make choices and we know why we’re doing that.
Robert Christian (50:49)
But you said something interesting. You said that you chose it. And I think we don’t give ourselves enough credibility to the power we have with our choice. And I love that you had that experience and then you chose into good health.
Right now you could be in a much different circumstance if you didn’t take care of yourself, but you chose it and I think that’s extremely powerful and Yeah, thank you for sharing your story.
Wesley Bradford (51:18)
We all have that choice, Yeah, we create our outcomes and everything we do is a part of what happens in our future. We get what we worked for.
Robert Christian (51:23)
We do. We create the life that we have and we know that because that’s the life we have.
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