Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, it's Steve Indig at Sport Law.
[00:00:02] Speaker B: Leave me a message, I'll get back to you as soon as I can.
[00:00:06] Speaker C: Hey Steve, it's Dina. You aren't going to believe what just came across my desk. We need to chat. Give me a call.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: Foreign.
[00:00:39] Speaker A: Welcome to the latest episode of Sportopia. We're so excited to share our knowledge and have conversations about healthy human sport today.
[00:00:48] Speaker C: We're so pleased to have Cody McKay, a competitive cyclist and founder of Project Heart, with us today. Before we introduce him, Steve, what is coming across your desk today?
[00:00:58] Speaker A: As usual, I just like to look at my weekly schedule to see what calls I have scheduled, what calls I have coming up or. And what are those topics related to. And today I did want to talk about the continuing evolution of SafeSport.
I have a few meetings this week to talk about alignment and understanding the different.
I'll call them silos of alignment. So of course there's Abuse Free Sport. There's the new CCS undertaking of Abuse Free Sport as of April 1, which really relates more to the national level type of complaint. But then how do we align provincial and local clubs into that system?
Also knowing that the province or territory may have their own mandated system. So it's really just about trying to juggle the policy development, the understanding of jurisdiction and what complaint goes where.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: So.
[00:01:50] Speaker A: So it is an ever evolving space. It's something Dina, we've been talking about over five years easily, and it does keep changing.
But we do have to keep our finger on the pulse to make sure the policies align with the proper jurisdiction and the proper entity is hearing that concern. How about you? What's new?
[00:02:11] Speaker C: There's a few things, Steve, I just wanted to acknowledge the use of the word evolution.
You were talking about Safe Sport and its evolution.
I really appreciate that. Hopefully for our clients and listeners, they can maybe rest in the fact that this dynamic environment that we're in is supposed to be evolving.
I think that's what's coming across my desk this week is I've been hired by and part of a group of a pool of coaches and therapists who are consultants with the federal government.
And for the last two weeks I've been immersed in a supporting client through job restructuring. So I'm helping people evolve towards what's coming next. And I really love that space of being like a companion to someone who is scared, who's frustrated, who's angry, who's uncertain. And so I think there's something here, both at the individual level, at the group level, but also at the world level, where everybody's experiencing a mixture of fear and sorrow and anger at what is happening in the world. And that does bleed down into the everyday conversations that we have with people.
So maybe there's a, there's a lesson in there for all of us.
[00:03:36] Speaker A: It's almost how I ended up here, Dina. I was not hired back from a job. I had an extensive student loan to repay and my first inclination was fear. Oh my, how am I going to pay this and where am I going to work and what's next? And then after getting through that process, it was about, okay, this is an opportunity for me to try and find something I want to do and will continue to love to do. And here we are.
[00:04:02] Speaker C: Here we are. Well, that's actually a beautiful segue because, you know, one of the grief theorists and her stages of grief, if you will, have been debunked a little bit by herself. I'm talking about Elizabeth Kubler Ross, who, who spoke about when you've been diagnosed with a life limiting illness, you might experience any of these stages. Right. And so the first is denial, then it's anger, then it's bargaining, then it's grief. And then if you do all this work, you're going to move towards acceptance. Now, we now know that it's really less about that and more about an experience of what just happened and how do I want to be when life is just happening. And, and I think that that's, you know, a really beautiful segue to our guest today. So, Kody, maybe share a little bit more about you and, you know, what happened to you when, when the inconceivable, you know, was, was knocking on your doorstep. We just really want to acknowledge the amazing human that you are. We're really delighted to be supporting you as you, you strive to bring this project heart to life. So maybe share a little bit more about this project and, and why this matters so much to you.
[00:05:17] Speaker B: Perfect. Well, first of all, thanks so much for having me here today. It's, it's a real pleasure to be here.
So a little bit of background of, of how my story came to be.
I'm a competitive cyclist, race in, across North America in road racing, gravel racing, mountain biking, et cetera.
And back in 2021, I had had a chest X ray ordered. There was a suspicion of maybe a lung infection, something like bronchitis or pneumonia. I had been dealing with a little bit of kind of shortness of breath and some congestion and things like that. And so a very innocent chest X ray Ended up leading to a chain reaction of events that was really quite life altering. Sometime after that X ray came through, I got news that the, the X ray kind of cleared my lungs, but had suggested that my heart was casting a bit of a funny shadow on that X ray. And so they wanted to do a follow up to, to rule out any, any concerns that that shadow was casting. At the time, I was 29, you know, as a, as a healthy individual, competitive athlete, feeling quite invincible and didn't really think much about it. So I went to the University of Ottawa Heart Institute and got an echocardiogram, essentially an ultrasound of the heart. And some time went by, you know, nothing, didn't really hear anything, and thought, you know, nothing of it again. And then I got news. Okay, well, we've, we've got the results and now we want to do a CT scan. And that was when the alarm bell started to kind of ring and say, this seems to be like a lot of testing for whatever non issue you seem to think you've discovered. Well, lo and behold, it wasn't actually a non issue. What they had discovered is that I had an ascending aortic aneurysm. And so for listeners that aren't familiar with that, the aorta is the largest blood vessel in the body. Think of it as like kind of the 401 or the superhighway of your blood vessel network. As it leaves the heart, it kind of arches like a candy cane down the spine and splits into all your other major and minor blood vessels. And so that particular blood vessel, the aorta, was ballooning up in the upper region where it exited the heart. And so, you know, basic math, larger surface area, same amount of material.
That aorta in its ballooning was getting thinner, more delicate and more risk. The risk being that it could tear or rupture. Aortic aneurysms are very life threatening often because they are a silent killer. They go undiscovered until the tragic happens. And when they are discovered, a plan of action is put into place to protect the patient from that.
So certainly in those early stages, going from having a bit of an annoyance of a shortness of breath, to suddenly being told life as you know, it has to be put on hold.
You can't ride your bike the way that you were, you can't be doing any intervals, you can't be lifting any heavy weights, because all of these things are risk factors for that dissection or tear, which is more likely than not going to be a tragic outcome for you. And so I sat in that.
That fear, that denial that what is this world that I'm now experiencing?
Flash forward about a year and a half, I end up having open heart surgery to have that aneurysm repaired. As complicated as the surgery is, I always kind of frame it in a simple term as a basic plumbing repair. If you have a leaky pipe under the sink, you would shut off the water, you would cut out that leaky component of the pipe, you would put the new piece in, glue it all into place, and then you'd restart the water. And much in a similar way, that was essentially what had to happen with the heart. I had to go on bypass, have the heart stopped so that blood wasn't flowing, and that they could work on that section of the aorta, essentially cut it out and replace it with a synthetic graft, and then the heart's restarted, and you're sent along your merry way. Thankfully, my recovery was, in medical terms, unremarkable. I would say basically the opposite. It was quite remarkable.
Within six weeks, under medical guidance, I was back on the bike, on the stationary trainer inside. And by three months, with my stress test, finding no big concerns on that stress test, I was cleared to do structured training again, push the intensity again, and I returned to racing shortly thereafter.
But the. The whole experience just left me with a. A deep realization that my appreciation for the heart as an athlete was severely lacking.
I always felt that that heart disease or heart conditions would be something that you could see in an individual, and that as an athlete and as a young individual, those were things I wouldn't have to worry about. And what I learned throughout my own journey is that while active individuals may be protecting themselves a little bit more, they also may not be entirely immune to the things that can happen. In my own instance, it was a congenital birth defect that we just never knew I had for 29 years. Other individuals may have those types of birth defects and not know about it. Other instances, things may develop over time, despite all that rigor and effort put into taking care of the body and, you know, training and treating yourself and your body like an incredibly expensive piece of machinery.
So I came to that realization that all of us stand to learn a little bit more about our hearts. And equally as a. As a heart patient that didn't expect to be a heart patient, I really struggled in that isolation. But in that year and a half between the diagnosis and surgery, I ended up connecting with so many other individuals that were feeling the same way, and that common element that we all felt was that we were holding our cards close to our chest, not necessarily sharing that information, but equally feeling like, you know, I'm the only one going through this. And so I felt if I could, you know, just share my story, the real human side of it, if a future version of myself came upon that in the early days of diagnosis, I would have felt a lot more comfort because that's what was lacking for me when I got my diagnosis is there's no one else really in that age group that I'm finding stories about. There's no one else that has that athletic history.
And all those pieces made me wonder, what would life look like on the other side? You know, what will I be doing two years from now, three years from now, if I even get there?
And so those were the types of changes that prompted me to return to racing with goals greater than just results, aspirations, things like that. And that's what led to the eventual founding of Project Heart.
[00:11:36] Speaker A: Before you get there, Cody, and talk more about Project Heart, I do want to really dive a little deeper into your 18 month process. So you had a, a fabulous physical return to sport after 18 months, maybe unheard of in some sorts.
How did you manage the psychological side of it? You were this elite athlete and we all at one point felt invincible and there's a bit of a dent in the armor. How did you get through that psychology, that, that mentally?
[00:12:05] Speaker B: Certainly not alone and by no means successfully in those early days, I'd say those, those first kind of weeks and months, weekend, month, maybe there was a lot of denial in those early days thinking that, you know, maybe this will just somehow heal itself. But then the pendulum swung the other way. Like I said, I was 29 at the time of the diagnosis. 30 is always a big birthday year.
And suddenly thinking about having to prepare for a worst case scenario before you even turn 30 is really, it weighs on you quite heavily. I was, you know, medically managed. I had a team looking after me, and certainly I don't think my life was by any means in grave danger. But when you have this kind of ticking time bomb in your chest, you can't help but think about that worst case scenario happening. And it, you know, it really got as bad as thinking like, oh, my God, if I pick up the grocery bag the wrong way, or if I sneeze the wrong way or do some sort of activity that causes me to strain and temporarily shoot my blood pressure up. That can be that blood pressure that pushes through the aortic wall eventually. And my cardiologist saw that and ended up putting me through cardiac rehab, actually pre surgery, which is usually reserved for post surgery because I had a strong athletic history and because the amount of data I had on, on my riding and my training really helped paint a good picture of what intensity would look like for me. There was a high level of confidence that I would still be able to do most things that I was doing before. It was just some things that had to be removed. And certainly they saw that pendulum swinging for me, thinking I really had to wrap myself in bubble wrap and do absolutely nothing until an eventual surgery may come. And so the cardiac rehab pre surgery work was what gave me that confidence back to say, you know, it's really about the blood pressure and the intensity and those sudden changes in intensity that will be the risk factors. But gentle, steady, endurance riding is not going to be a high risk factor for you. You can still be doing that. You should still be doing that. That will actually help prepare you better for that eventual surgery that may come.
And as I started to work with the cardiac rehab team and gently start to reintroduce that riding, it really helped me regain that confidence and that ability to do life as I was doing before, albeit in a slightly different way. And so it took a lot of work, but it also, it led to a new appreciation for the bike in a way that I never appreciated it necessarily before.
A competitive background in cross country and track and field running previous to getting into cycling. And by extension, the bike, as I got into the racing side of things, became a tool to push myself, find that glass ceiling, break through it, repeat the process.
And so if I couldn't do that with the bike, I kind of, in those early months thought, well, what's the point of the bike at all? And what I came to realize in that year and a half is the bike offers so much beauty, so much opportunity. It's a means to socialize. It's a means for mental health. It's a means for kind of that meditation that comes with just those long, long days in the saddle. It became a way to see the beauty of the countryside around me on, on those roads that, that I wouldn't necessarily be taking if I was driving in a vehicle.
And, and so I, I embraced all those aspects of the bike, aspects that I didn't appreciate while I had the opportunity to race and compete. And that's really what carried me through those, those 18 months. By the time I was getting closer into the surgery date, like in that second summer of 2022, I felt like I was A whole person again, despite the fact that I was still living with that medically managed aneurysm. And that process was the one that has really stuck with me. And it's a story I really like to tell through Project Heart because I, I don't want to leave the impression that my story was only successful because I, I got the, the surgery done and I was able to get back to racing and things like that. There's lots of folks that still have medically managed conditions and, and have to live that kind of quote unquote, alternative lifestyle. I was living a very full life in those months leading up to the surgery. I was very grateful for, for what I had. And that is I, I think the really important message there.
[00:16:10] Speaker C: Yeah, I agree. It's so inspiring and, you know, change your mindset, you know, change your life. Right. And so many of the, I'm sure athletes who might be listening, leaders, coaches can understand that. We accumulate, you know, a series of befores and afters. Right.
The experience of this just happened and now what? I wasn't prepared for this. Why me? I'm otherwise fit and healthy, and now this happened. So when we accumulate these befores and afters, you know, if we've, if we've been lucky enough in a way to accumulate them, we, we have a body of historical experiences that can help us navigate, you know, what's happening into the future and how I choose to be in this experience of disturbance. Right. But in the case of you, Cody 29, you know, top of your game and having, as you and I have talked about, a more transactional relationship with the bike.
Right. But I, I'm just, I think all of us are inspired by, you know, Steve's really, really good question on. So how did you choose to move through this? And it wasn't by staying stuck in denial, which is often a healthy way of being, you know, in the, in the early stage, I'm just going to deny this right now so I can catch up to this new reality.
It was also leveraging your community and having the science behind you, so giving yourself time to catch up to, to what was happening so that you could start to be with this experience in a particular kind of way, you know, and so we're, we're really touched by the, the transactional kind of relationship you, you had with your bike towards something that was more transformational and, and then that led you to create Project Heart. So maybe share a little bit more about this beautiful project that you, that you're so inspired to bring into the World.
[00:18:17] Speaker B: Absolutely. The only other thing I'll touch on from the previous question and your comments there was learning to not let the diagnosis define me. I think I hit that crossroad in that year and a half where I could have remained an individual that said my life is, you know, horrible, or X, Y and Z, because this happened to me.
And what I chose instead was to say, this happened to me. This is the hand I've now been dealt, and I'm gonna look to make the most of it.
That was, you know, it's. It's not something that necessarily happens consciously. You don't have that moment in the day where you're like, aha, I figured it out. This is what I'm gonna do. But over the course of. Of living that experience, you come to a point where you can say, you know, you only really get one shot at this. You can choose to live in frustration and feel like a victim of this reality that you're in, or you can choose to take that really crappy hand that you were dealt and say, no, I'm going to make the most of this situation. I'm still going to be the winner of it. And that's what I ended up doing. And that was what led to that transformation of how I use the bike as a tool. Because I think there could have been a different reality where, yeah, I would have just said, you know what? I'm going to hang this thing up. I can't ride it anymore because this bad thing has happened to me, and it would just collect dust on the shelf. Right. Instead, I said, no, I'm going to use it for these new ways now.
And that was. Yeah, that was a beautiful experience.
So, yeah, Project Heart, it started quite organically without a name, I'd say in that first season that I returned to racing in 2023, that was the year that I. I started sharing that. My story. Up until that point, I mean, my close friends and family obviously knew what I was going through, but by and large, I wasn't sharing it too broadly. Certainly not on social media or anything like that. But like I said, I. I struggled with that reality of not finding a relatable story in my own journey. And so in the weeks after the surgery, I. I did start to post about it and say, this is something I've been going through for the last year and a half. Started to try and use hashtags that would help folks that don't necessarily follow me come to my journey in the same way that I was using them to try and Find other stories on, on social media and yeah, the outpouring that came with it. I've at this point connected with well over 100 other heart patients around the world, folks who are going through various types of diagnosis, whether it be one similar to mine, like an aneurysm, whether it be more like an arrhythmia based challenge that's holding them back, but just that, I mean that collective feeling of being separated from your self identity is a common element regardless of the diagnosis and equally in that return to racing in 2023. I don't know if the, the actual numbers would stand up to this, but certainly it felt like I was just seeing more and more stories about professionals at the top level of the sport. Folks that, you know, race at that kind of Tour de France level were being forced to retire every season.
Those professional teams have to go through proactive and preventative cardiac screenings, baseline screenings that they can look at to see if there's ever a deviation from the norm in their electrical rhythm, in their heart's performance, et cetera, to protect them from obviously these, these tragic outcomes. And a lot of those athletes, there was a handful that ended up failing those tests and requiring follow up tests and eventually forcing their retirement before the season even started. And there was a handful of other athletes that year that ended up going into cardiac arrest. One was in a race, another two were, one was in his sleep, another was while, while driving his pregnant girlfriend to an appointment. And so I just collectively was looking at this and saying if this is happening at the top level of the sport where all these protective measures are in place, like if, if heart related challenges can happen to these individuals. And I also know from experience this type of thing can happen to me and I don't necessarily have these protective measures in place. It really doubles down on the importance of that education because you end up having to be your own advocate, learn about these conditions and be prepared to be on the watch and know I need to go talk to someone if something, you know, starts to feel off or look off. I think there's a, a bit of a double edged sword with being an athlete or an active individual that again, there is that false sense of security where you think because you're doing all these things right, you don't have to worry about those types of things. And often, sometimes the first incident is also the last incident and or it can be the life altering incident. And so thinking about learning about those warning signs before that first incident occurs I think is incredibly important. And equipping that skill set and knowledge within athletic individuals and active individuals, I think will go a really long way to helping protect their hearts and protecting them and helping them do what they love longer. And so in that first year, like I say, it started as quite an organic thing. It was just me sharing that story as Cody as an individual on social media in 2024 that launched a little bit more formally into a privateer structured racing team. So a privateer team is essentially like a team of one registered with Cycling Ontario. So I could actually kind of brand myself and bring a little bit more visual awareness to what I was trying to do. And that eventually grew into Project Heart being an incorporated, not for profit. Because as this effort continued to grow, I realized that having that kind of form and structure around it was what I was going to need to do to have that type of impact, reach out to these new, new communities and make that positive impact on other heart patients.
[00:23:41] Speaker A: Can you make it practical, Cody? So tell us what you're doing. We've obviously spoken in advance of today. You're traveling, you're speaking. What are the tangibles that Project Heart is actually delivering?
[00:23:53] Speaker B: Yeah, so I think the most unique ones that I offer through Project Heart is that lived experience. So I'd say the speaking engagements and the connections with those other heart patients there are the ones where my personal experience can really help give that relatable lens to, to the listeners that I'm engaging with. So, like you said, traveling, looking to engage with other communities, whether that be, you know, a cycling club or a development team, I think there's a huge opportunity to work with young athletes. As we think about, like, kind of that junior development team structure, especially given that, you know, when you think about medical training, babysitting, lifeguarding, et cetera, like we, we do equip young, young adults in those late teens with those types of skills and responsibilities. And in that same way, you know, having a skill set like CPR while you're out on a group ride, if the worst case scenario happens where you have one of your clubmates or your teammates going to sudden cardiac arrest, well, that success story of having an AED in every public sporting, you know, arena, that doesn't really work well when your sporting arena is a rural road that is far away from any paramedics.
And so, you know, that quick reaction to move into CPR while 911 is called and while you wait for those paramedics to arrive can be the difference between life and death. That is, the types of skill sets that I think about trying to equip athletes with and the types of things that I talk about. So engaging with communities, shops, clubs, cafes, bringing that kind of TED talk style community back and forth, engagement in an in person or, you know, potentially virtual dynamic, engaging with the heart patients, whether that be through one on one sessions, group discussions. I've connected with heart patients here in Ottawa. I've connected with folks online, I've gone and grabbed coffee with folks or just chatted on social media. I think there's an opportunity as well to engage with the medical community. I don't think there are a huge number of case studies of folks like myself that are still heavily involved in, in competitive sport and I think that helps to do a little bit of demystifying. Collectively, a lot of folks that I've connected with that have gone through a similar journey to me and are on the other side of that open heart surgery, for example, are very fearful of getting back into things like that is a big topic of conversation. And a lot of the folks I've connected with is like, I've had the surgery. How did you get back to doing what you're doing? Like, how are you back to racing and pushing yourself to that limit? Because I feel so fragile and I think, you know, in the same way there's, there's not a lot of individuals that the medical community has a chance to connect with and kind of see as a, as a petri dish, for a lack of a better word to say. Oh, okay, so you know, heart patients can go through open heart surgery, can have that, you know, aortic aneurysm repair and still successfully do all these things as well. So I think kind of demystifying on both sides of the, of the equation between the patient, the active individual and the, and the practitioner as well, and then creating little, you know, apparel items. Last year we did a fundraiser jersey. We're trying to expand a little bit into some other items as well that help really deliver on some of these key initiatives that Project Heart is undertaking and also help to advance cardiac care and research. So you know, my own story, 20 years ago likely would have looked very different than today. And honestly, when you go down the rabbit hole and look at the advancements in cardiac care and research, especially like minimally invasive surgeries, like, it's exciting to think about what the next 20 years or the next 40 years could look like in that space. So certainly helping to make, continue to drive that life saving effort of cardiac care while also making it less impactful. I mean, certainly if there's A future version where we don't have to crack my sternum open, that would be great. But it did work well.
[00:27:41] Speaker C: So, you know, duly noted, Cody. You know, it's these kinds of experiences where, you know, it's a form of, of deep caring when we share. Right. And you spoke to it. It's. We're very, we're vulnerable humans. Right, Humans are vulnerable and most of us don't like to admit that we are vulnerable. And yet it was through your vulnerability and your deep desire to work through this. And it's the sharing that allows you to inspire others, you know, educate people so that hopefully you're preventing something like this from happening to someone else. And then I also love your collabor collaboration with the medical community.
So many, you know, people that I connect with in the medical profession are often ill equipped to deal with the dark side of the human experience, meaning they are there to save lives.
And it can be incredibly unsettling for them to deal with these moments of fragility, of insecurity, of grief. They don't really know how to navigate all of that because it's not, not really part of their education curriculum. They're there to save lives. And so when things get scary, it's really hard often for the doctors to know how to be in, in those spaces. So you, you really are a poster man, not a child anymore. You're a poster man for, for what's possible. And I'm sure the medical community is really grateful that you have taken your life altering experience and channeled it into a force for good. I know us at Sport Law are really excited about being able to see support you in small ways to help your organization grow and thrive.
I'm wondering if there are ways in which some of our listeners might be inspired to support the work that you're doing. How, how would they go about doing that?
[00:29:33] Speaker B: There's a few different avenues for sure. Certainly sharing this story as, as they, you know, engage with other folks, athletes in their community, I think the education that comes with it is a hugely important one. And certainly in these early days, the more folks that know about it, the better it is if they're looking for a way to financially support the cause.
We're still very much in a growing phase for this year. I mean, the not for profit effort is one that is quite, very much, quite new. But as this season of cycling goes on, certainly there will be opportunities if they want to support through kind of a financial means to buy apparel that helps with that kind of project heart branding and build that awareness and have something to. In return for that support.
There's also a fundraising page that's connected to the University of Ottawa Heart Institute and that can be found through my website, www.project-heart.ca. don't forget the dash.
[00:30:27] Speaker C: Don't forget the dash.
[00:30:30] Speaker A: I'm curious, Cody, as we wrap up our time together, you know, this. This happened five years ago.
You've taken a negative and turned it into an extremely large positive.
What would you tell people going through similar experiences or our listeners who may have friends or families going through similar experience to, you know, again, to make that negative a positive? How do you get through it? You know, you probably may have used sport as a medium to. To help recover. Did you need a medium?
Could it have been chess? Could it have been knitting? Was sport important?
You know, again, what can our listeners learn? What was the medium that you used? Was it important?
[00:31:14] Speaker B: I think, I think sport was important for me, particularly because it was such a core component of my identity. And it was that component that was being. I felt like was being robbed from me. And I think the ability to find a way to take it back and I had to take it back by different terms. I would, you know, there was no reality where I was able to just ignore the fact that I had this aneurysm and, and that the likelihood of a tragic outcome was largely based on the decisions I would make. If I chose to ignore it, for example, and do heavy weightlifting or continue to race or sprint on my bike, all activities that would temporarily kind of spike the blood pressure, that would have been a very bad outcome. So I had to accept this reality that I was in. But I also had to, like I say, come to that crossroad where I can say, my diagnosis can either define this next chapter of my life or I can say, no, I'm going to continue to define it with the. The new cards that I've been dealt.
And I think using sport as that medium to redefine it, because it was the part that was taken away from me is what was so important to be able to still roll up to the base of Gatineau park here in. In the National Capital Region and meet up with those friends and still do that. Park loop.
Yeah, you know, I couldn't follow the friendly attack that may happen on the group ride in the same way, or I couldn't achieve a new personal best power output or anything like that.
I was still able to meet them, go on that ride, go to the cafe together, socialize, and finding that and realizing that that was the foundational element of everything else I ever did was, was really eye opening, I think. You know, that was the piece that got to stay and that was the piece that I came to realize was the most important.
[00:33:00] Speaker C: You know, when we go through these befores and afters or these life altering moments, it's really hard because we're getting the test first and the lesson plan after.
Right?
Yeah, go ahead.
[00:33:13] Speaker B: Well, I was just going to say, and I think that's a big part of where I want to go with Project Heart too, is that if we can help at least prepare the curriculum or make a broader awareness that there is a lesson plan that perhaps should be at least loosely skimmed over that can make that, that challenge on the other side so much less daunting. It was the fact that I was navigating a complete unknown is what made it so challenging, I think. And I if having that awareness and having the skill sets in advance to be applied when that moment comes. The analogy I always like to use is it's kind of like why we teach young children about the dangers of a thunder and lightning storm. We don't do it because we expect every single child to be caught in one and potentially get struck by lightning. We do it because we want to make sure that every child has that skill set on hand should they find themselves in it. And when only 3 to 5% of them find themselves in that situation, they know what to do because they've learned it. And in that same way, having that at least basic awareness and understanding of the heart, its complexities and how critical it is to the sports that we love, but also just everyday life and appreciating that and respecting that, I think that goes a long way to preparing yourself for that inevitability. Well, that piece that you may, you may hopefully never have to deal with, but in the event that you do, you're more ready for it.
[00:34:38] Speaker C: Yeah, well, it's true. I mean, where you and I intersect, Cody, is I deal with not the possibility, but, or the probability, but the certainty that we're all going to die. And so, you know, my tagline is helping us reimagine a new relationship with loss.
And through our collaboration, you had me thinking, well, let's reimagine a new relationship with life right through this life altering transition. How do I want to be and what are the ways in which I can choose to navigate this experience?
And it's incredibly helpful when we know that we've normalized the experience. We have a community of people.
We've done some of the work on ourselves to be able to come back to some form of solid ground so we're not left having to navigate all of that alongside the critical diagnosis. So Cody, on behalf of the team at Sport Law, thank you so much for your beautiful heart and your, you know, your deep desire to contribute to the health and well being of people through your beautiful work. So thank you so much for that.
In the episode notes below you'll find some Sport Law blogs where you can find more information related to our conversation today and a story that we wrote about Project Heart. Thank you so much to our listeners. We're really grateful to share our vision of Sportopia with you as we all look to elevate sport.
[00:36:03] Speaker A: As always to have your say in Sportopia. Email us@helloportlaw CA to let us know what you want to hear about next next. Stay tuned for our next episode. Thanks Dina. Thanks Cody.
