The Truth On The Inside with Adienne Tichy

Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Hope Without Sight with your host Saylor Cooper, and

this is Tyler Evans,

Episode 27. And we're live streaming on Facebook. Woohoo.

How about that?

So, on this episode we have Adrienne Tichy. She has had a lot of challenges in her life. Basically, her story is a miracle. She had a softball accident when she was very young, and of course did a lot of damage. And she spent years and years and years in the hospital, and she was not expected to survive. But without further ado, let's have her tell this incredible story. Please welcome my good friend Adrienne Tichy. How you doing this morning?

Oh, Saylor, it's so good to see you. I'm so I'm doing really great. It's a wonderful Tuesday.

Awesome. Yeah. It's a wonderful, wonderful Tuesday for me as well. Embarking on my entrepreneurship journey, only just growing and growing more. And what a milestone we're accomplishing. Because we're not just on Zoom. We're on Facebook. We're on Facebook streaming today. Yeah. Oh. Okay. So um, so let's get started. So tell me about yourself, as who are you? And what stories do you have to overcome that allowed you to overcome challenges in life?

Yeah, well, sure. That's, it's such a great topic, Saylor, because what I have is an invisible disability. So when you look at me, you can't tell that there's anything wrong with me. Everybody, in fact, thinks that that life has been pretty easy, you know, because from the outside, I've got a great marriage, we have a great business. But they don't know the challenges that I've had to overcome, to get all these things. And it's been, I was born actually with a congenital problem with my pancreas that we didn't know about until that softball fall that you mentioned. And after I got taken out by the runner playing coed softball, he was rounding the corner of first base coming towards second and I was stretching for the catch from third. And instead of running over the base, he ran into me on purpose. And I went up in the air and I landed on my side, I kind of felt like I had the wind knocked out of me, you know, but I was so mad that he broke the rules, that I was like shooting darts out of my eyes. And he finally was like, Oh, are you okay? He said, Yeah, of course. I'm okay. But I wasn't okay.

You pretended that you okay?

Yeah, I thought that I was okay. And and, and I pretended that I was okay. But three o'clock that morning, I thought I was dying. I had the worst pain I've ever experienced in my entire life. It felt like I just had something inside of me that felt like it was eating me alive. So I went to the hospital. And they told me I'd had a pancreas attack. The doctor looked at my mother. He said he had his hand on the door. He never even took a step close to us. You just looked at my mother with his hand on the door. He said, Your daughter's had a pancreas attack, it can kill her. She can have the attacks the rest of her life or she'll never have another attack again. And he turned on his heel and left the room.

So even the doctor was just in total shock then yes.

They in fact, they wanted to. They accuse me for a long time of being an alcoholic. Because alcoholism causes pancreatitis. But I actually was born with a divided pancreas style even have these pancreas issues since both but the softball accident basically made things worse. It really exacerbated it. Yes.

Wow. that's crazy

And so you were just in so much pain. And so I do remember you told me because we met previously before this episode, it never knocked you unconscious. You were just in a lot of pain and just had a lot of right health issues. The only time I went unconscious was when I had unfortunately by doing that, that infusing of liquid nutrition every day, you get infections and you get septic so I was in to comas. And I was actually paddled back to life in 2016.

Wow.

Wow. Yeah, it's it had so many far reaching implications that I had. I had no idea that day on the softball fall that my world was going to change so drastically.

And I'm sure, I mean, since you didn't expect it. You had to face life, head on and adapt.

I did. And Saylor, i'll be honest with you, like, I don't think that I adapted very well, for the first seven years that I was sick. I think that I wanted to believe that I was okay. And I was trying to outrun my illness. I don't know if you can relate to that.

No, cuz like, I've, I've always accepted myself, for who I am now know about you, Tyler, I'm sure it's been the same for you. Right?

Well, I do remember being younger wanting to see, because I can drive being able to see and I was kind of, you know, jealous of sighted people to a point. Because I'm like, Oh, I can't drive Right. Exactly. Other than that, no. But yeah, I feel it's just interesting that her story just, it had altered her life. Probably more mentally than anything. I mean, physically to, but it sounds to me. It altered your life a lot more mentally than it did. Otherwise.

It did alternative life mentally. And I had to learn how to be sick, if that makes any sense.

Yeah. In other words, accept the sickness

Accept it, and then learn how not just to accept it and be like other people that had my situation. And I'm not judging them. But a lot of people in my situation, take a lot of drugs, prescription drugs for the pain, and it really disables you. Wow, it does and not to take any. And I'm sure you went through a lot of depression and whatnot. I did it was I what they called it was situational depression, because I don't have like the clinical imbalance but just life circumstances thrown at me. Right. It's not understood because environmental factors can determine depression as well. Not just absolutely,

absolutely. Yep.

Yes, of course, it was. I was a regular girl. I was hanging out with my friends. We go out after work. And then nobody wanted to come see me because I was in the hospital. And there's no beer at the hospital. Real friends were like, I'm out of here. Yeah.

Oh, wow. So how did you? Like, when did this accident happened?

It happened on Palm Sunday of 1995. So it was an April and April afternoon on a Sunday in 1995. I was 23 years old.

Oh, wow. I was longing for?

I'm 52. Now.

Yeah.

You were only four?

I was.

I was two.

Yeah, I was I was that sometimes guys, if I've thought of that a lot, actually, if I would have fared better if I would have known since birth, that I had a problem. So I could make different choices, you know,

you probably would have fared better because you were used to that condition or your life where you know, me and my friend Saylor, were listeners on here. We're used to being blind all our lives. We didn't have to adapt to anything more than we had to. In other words, we just learned braille, we learned, you know, how to adapt without sight. All our lives growing up. Whereas someone who let's say they went blind later in life, or they went disabled later in life, in the case of you, Adrienne, they have to adapt.

And it makes sense Tyler really does it. I like your point there because you've had to adapt. And the fact that you you've adapted well, and like you said from the Outside you seem happy. Now no so much from the inside that it's pizza rights.

Scres, from head to toe, you know, but you can't see they're under my clothes. So it's it's often it's, you know, when I really felt the most discrimination was when I was in a wheelchair in 2019. And I, I went on a cruise with my husband in this in this wheelchair, this motorized wheelchair. And I was in it because my my muscles were had atrophied so much that they and my I had so much weight loss because I can't absorb and digest food that I couldn't carry my bones around. Wow. And the difference in the way people treated me like you see me now, or the way people treated me in the wheelchair. I mean, I had people that they just had their mouths gaping open looking at me, people falling into my chair asking me what's wrong with you? That's disgusting, stupidest thing. And we need to change that way people treat people with disabilities, especially in the workplace has a 70% unemployment rate out there. That is not like, ladies and gentlemen. Ah, no. And that's one of the reasons why I'm getting into entrepreneurship and speaking because this discrimination business needs to stop now we change. Absolutely, yes. Because we can do anything that anybody else can do we just do it in a different way.

Exactly. And I like your philosophy on that.

Yeah, well, you're a big inspiration Saylor, I tell you.

Thank you. So let's go back a little bit. So you were in the hospital. Tell me like all the details. You went through in the hospital? Like did you go through a lot of surgeries? Or?

Yeah, well, I've had five surgeries with my intestines outside of my body. And then they have to just put them back in. And so yeah, you know, so I went through a lot of surgeries. I went through a lot of comas.

What did they have to do that for that take you and test was that? Because of the pancreas issue?

Yeah, it was. So what they did was that very first surgery that I had, they actually don't do it anymore, because they found out it doesn't work. But they took my the first part of my small intestine and they attached it to my pancreas. So it was a total every time I've had surgery on my intestines. It's like a real plumbing. You know how plumbing works?

With water?

Yeah, yeah. And so if there's a blockage or like the, the plumbing is tied up in knots, the stuff can't go through. The liquid can go through, but the food can't.

Right.

So they had to do a surgery to correct that. Wow. So yes, it was it was surgery after surgery after surgery. And a lot of infusing, I had to infuse that, that nutritional liquid through my IV. And it was an IV that went into my heart. So you have to be very sterile. Know what you're doing? You can't have shaky hands. You know what I mean?

Wow, so I'm sure when it came to eating, you had to be fed Food Tube and IV and not in through an IV, right?

The food went through the IV. I've also had tubes that went into my first part of my small intestine and fed straight through that I actually am missing so many intestines now that they can't do that anymore.

Because yes, I was wondering how you will be if he if he couldn't digest food. I mean, it goes through the bloodstream. Wow, the bloodstream instead?

Yep. Yeah. And do you still do that to this day, right?

No, they in fact, what happened was about two and a half years ago, they told me I had to go back on TPN. That's what it's called the liquid nutrition was called TPN. And I didn't want to turn my house into a hospital again. You know, it's just your houses your home, your safe space. Your safe.

Yeah, right. Hospital. Hospitals are wonderful, but you shouldn't be in there unless they can really kill you. You know?

Yeah. Because I think I think they try the best they can. But since they don't have a cure for what I have, just like they don't have a cure for diabetes. It's the same organ. They don't know what to do with me.

Right? It's just trial and error.

Now, I do know, they're working on cures for all sorts of things even further. I point out the type one diabetes as the one they're really trying to work on top two, through diet can be, you know, can be reversed. But it needs to be maintained through lifestyle. And sometimes it takes, you know, medicine and all that. But

yeah, it's right now they, they have medicine just like for pancreatitis, right? You have medicine that you can take, you can take digestive enzymes to help with the absorption. Sometimes they work sometimes they don't. They don't. Again, the doctors don't know enough about the pancreas to.

Yeah,

fix it.

So does that mean, since you have to do the TPM? Can you not enjoy the taste of food?

I didn't for a long time, Matthew. It was like a business transaction. Right? You have to eat so many calories to survive.

Wow

yeah, yeah.

And I had to do things like, there's products out there, like, ensure and boost and boost breeze, that add calories to your day. So I relied heavily on adding calories to regular meals, though, to make sure I understand you can have regular meals now. You just have to be careful. I do. And I'm sure none of us know how I'm absorbing right now. The doctors included because I've had doctors look at me and shake their head and say, you know, I don't know what you've done, because it's nothing we've done.

Wow.

And I really I attribute a lot of my healing to God.

Oh, yeah, Indeed, God. There, you go. Yeah

That's right.

And I might not be cured, but I'm healed.

You're healed. You might not be in this life, or you'll be in the next for you. You're healed for now. We're only here for a little while. Right. And that's another point. I wanted to bring up what even endured? Life is very short. You just live out your best life. You can I mean, what message do you want to leave? To someone very similar? Who's going through a situation like yours?

It's it's really, really essential that you hold on to help. Hope is it without hope. You're just you're dead in the water. I think that it's, there's always a chance for things to be better tomorrow.

Oh, yes. Yeah,

that's right.

And

it is wonderful. Yes. And so of course, you're, you're not cure, but you heal. But, of course, your condition is still ongoing. You're still having to manage.

That's correct. And, and in my life. It's been like, since I was diagnosed, it goes like a good six years, and then a bad couple of years. And then a good couple of years. And then a bad like a roller coaster. But I'm changing the narrative now. I'm going to have good days from here on out.

Yes, you are.

Yeah. And so it's

right.

You just want to again, it's called what

It is pancreatitis? From? Yeah. From pancreas to VSAM. Wow, duh. Yeah.

Divided pancreas makes sense. And so of course, you're married. And did you ever feel that you would not get married? Because of your situation that you wouldn't have a husband who wouldn't support you? Did you ever feel that?

Absolutely. Absolutely. I remember my mom saying just not too long ago Saylor that. She remembers me asking her one night. You know, Mom, is anybody going to want me?

That makes me sad.

Yeah.

And I felt that way.

Because even because since we're blind, you know. I mean, our attitudes are good. But there's a lot of people out there who don't understand us and don't know what to expect. And we question whether anybody's gonna want us.

Well, I can. I can go I can tell you this. There are blind people who are dating other blind people. Oh, for sure. Yes. Look at my friend Evelyn and her fiance, Victor. You know, yeah, they're dating. They're blind. Now Victor. He went blind in life due to his diabetes, but yeah,

Yeah.

So yeah, it can happen. And I'm not against dating a sighted person.

No.

And that can go to the other side,

a person could drive me or. Yeah. But I'm also not against a blind person, either, either or whatever. Yeah. But I'm also okay with. If it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. I'm okay with that, too.

Now, does your husband have any condition? So is he perfectly fine?

Well, my husband is a recovered alcoholic for 23 years.

Wow.

And we actually, that's what we do. Together, we run a recovery residence community that we created. And honestly, you know, my background with having a chronic illness has really prepared me to help other people through addiction.

That's good.

That's good. Is that what motivated you? Is that what motivated you to start the alcohol?

It was my it was my husband's

idea. He actually we wanted to raise the bar on recovery residences in our community. Because it, it was getting pretty shady, to be honest.

It was my husband's idea, but I think I brought a perspective that nobody else could because I've recovered from my own physical illnesses many, many times. And recovery from anything is the same as recovery from everything. Absolutely. So

Right. So besides these the injury that you sustained you still have hobbies like to go have fun, maybe hike, fish, whatever. And stuff.

Oh, yes. I, I love to travel.

Me to

my mom and dad got me into that. I love to you'd like to travel to Saylor?

Yes, I do.

Yeah, I like to visit new places and really meet the people in the in the new places that I go to. I, I have other hobbies. I mean, I like to volunteer my time. I like to hang out with friends and family, especially as I'm getting older, I like to hang out with my family more. That's good. That's really good. We do too. Now. So I still, I I know what you're doing entrepreneurship. Besides running a recovery facility that you and your husband operate, you're basically inspiring others, you know, to just carry on and live life to its fullest regardless of what life may bring knows that you you know what my philosophy is, you guys is that? No matter what happens to me, I don't have the right to sit on the sidelines of life. Oh, that's right. I don't none of us do, right. I mean, but we can all we all have to come to that conclusion at our own point. Like I can't tell you to go and and stop living on off the sidelines.

No,

you've got to not only that,

well, not only that

we as believers are called to a mission and it's to get the gospel to every creature in the world, every person in the world so that they can know that there is hope after this life, and that there is a choice to be made for those who want to believe there's eternal life.

For those who don't, you know, there's judgment, you know, unfortunately for for people, because that's what our Bible, that's what the Bible teaches. Now, not everyone believes that and that's okay. You're getting crazy. Yeah, that's right. But yeah, beer. Amen. Yeah. So we have a mission, you know, and it isn't just, oh, just speak, I was through how we live and stuff if we live well, and, you know, live a good life and have good examples of good examples and, and stuff then people will see and they'll be like, Oh, wow, this is pretty cool.

So yeah, I agree. So yeah. So

other than that, what are your future goals in life?

Oh, gosh, I'd love to get to Ireland and England and Scotland. Oh, that would be cool things on my bucket list.

Do you want to speaking

I do want to get into speaking. In fact, I'm doing my first speaking engagement on the voices of women with our favorite girl Kimberly.

It's so cool. And yeah, I'm gonna get into speaking to you. Of course, we are podcasting on radio station. I don't know if you've heard of Frank King. Yeah, I signed up for speaking program, he's gonna work with me. He says he's gonna work with me until my speaking career is where I want it. Or until both of us die. He says, I like that. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna land. I'm gonna get paid speaking gigs. Landed TEDx. Have you landed a TEDx yet? Was that your goal? Oh, that's on my list, too. And I'm working on the book right now. Called recovery comes home.

connecting families affected by addiction as they heal together. Wonderful, wonderful. Good deal. And so um, well.

I don't believe I have any other questions for you. And so Tyler, do you have any other questions? Or should we wrap up?

We can go and wrap up. So our customers ending? Don't? Yep. One thing we always ask is

what advice would you give to those who feel like they don't have hope?

I would say that that you need to get help from someone else then if you don't have it yourself, then maybe you can believe that, I believe. But there's hope for you.

All right, there you go. Because the fact that you wake up is hope because another day.

No, it's not.

So every day is a miracle. Every single day, every breath every you know, every moment every second that you live, it's just a miracle. It's amazing. It is it's

that's really what I what I why I think I live fully into life. And I don't myself sit on the sidelines is because nobody should be letting life just pass him by.

No, we don't even I don't even

No That's why I have respect for you guys so much.

Well, thank you.

Thank you. Well, honestly, this is my very first time going into business. I've only mainly worked for one W two jobs. Right? The nine to five corporate America. Yeah, it's good. But this is my very first time starting a business myself and entrepreneurship. And I've been like I said, I've been excited. But at the same time, I feel like I've been on a roller coaster because there's just a lot of unknown that each time as I go, I'm gonna figure stuff out.

That's right.

Well, if nothing else, Adrienne, thank you so much for being on hope without sight.

Thank you to Saylor and you too, Matthew. I've really enjoyed hanging out with you guys and talking a little bit more.

All right,