Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back to part two of our conversation with Scott Pollard. In the first part, we talked to Scott about his NBA journey and his experience on Survivor 32. In this episode, we're going to focus on his journey to getting a new heart. That's right. This 50 year old gentleman has survived a heart transplant. We're going to hear about what led towards the need for a new heart, the inspiration provided by his wife who is an absolute superhuman and, and what it's been like since then. This is a good one. Stay tuned.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: It's Brian and Brad.
[00:00:34] Speaker C: Grab your seat.
[00:00:36] Speaker B: Real talk served with a boozy beat.
Tune in, don't even blink.
[00:00:44] Speaker C: Cause real estate makes us drink.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: I chose today.
[00:00:53] Speaker C: You did.
[00:00:54] Speaker A: So I have seen the bottle back here called Zombie for quite a while, but I have not actually tasted Zombie.
And so this is.
[00:01:02] Speaker B: This is it.
[00:01:03] Speaker A: Zombie is a mixture of two different tequilas.
[00:01:05] Speaker C: Siempre vivo and Siempre muerto.
[00:01:09] Speaker A: Hola, Sergio.
[00:01:10] Speaker C: Alex Cruz or Alex Lacroix? Sergio Cruz. Great people, Phenomenal brand.
[00:01:15] Speaker A: Cheers to you, my friend. Cheers to you, Scott.
[00:01:17] Speaker B: Cheers.
[00:01:21] Speaker C: Oh, so good.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: That's all right.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: Not.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: I'm not a big tequila guy. Yeah.
[00:01:30] Speaker B: But what do you.
[00:01:30] Speaker C: I mean, what do you think of that? That how that heats up in your mouth?
[00:01:33] Speaker A: A little more heat going down.
[00:01:34] Speaker C: It warms up after you swallow.
[00:01:36] Speaker A: Yeah, it does.
[00:01:36] Speaker C: But it's warm in your mouth, not down here, right? It's correct, yeah.
[00:01:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:40] Speaker B: Good.
[00:01:40] Speaker C: Tequila burns in your mouth, not in your. Not in your.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: They're like M M's.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: Just like.
[00:01:46] Speaker C: How's that?
[00:01:46] Speaker B: Melts in your mouth, not in your hands.
[00:01:48] Speaker C: Oh, it does, you're right.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: Melts in your mouth, not in your chest.
[00:01:50] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:01:51] Speaker C: But you know, if you hold on to them long enough.
[00:01:56] Speaker B: That was a BS slogan because. Yeah, I melted them all the time. Yeah, they melted in my pockets. They melted in my hands. I'm a warm person.
[00:02:06] Speaker C: He is. And he came in today with a coat on and he said he's been cold because Indiana won't freaking warm up.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: So tired of the.
[00:02:13] Speaker C: I'm tired of it past days.
[00:02:14] Speaker A: Now.
[00:02:15] Speaker C: Were you cold during the parade?
[00:02:17] Speaker B: No. That was actually a beautiful day.
[00:02:19] Speaker A: It was, yeah. Saturday was nice.
[00:02:20] Speaker B: You know, I have to be careful now because sun, I have a no immune system, so I can't be in the sun for very long because I have like a 486 higher chance of getting skin cancer.
[00:02:31] Speaker C: No kidding.
[00:02:31] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, the drugs I'm on, they suppress your immune system. Right. If a cancer is introduced to my body, I'm not gonna fight it.
[00:02:39] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: Careful in the sun. No smoking. I never smoke. Smoked. But cigars, I like the cigar once in a while. So that's kind of a bummer. And that's also a mold and fungus issue, which I'm equally disposed to. So, like, we have to change our filters in our house. I can go on and on.
[00:02:53] Speaker C: Hey, you're in a very allergy free mold, dust free. I have these special.
I have special filters. I've got these big purifier. I'm allergic to everything that grows. All of it.
[00:03:03] Speaker B: So I'm not a realtor anymore. I can't be walking into houses.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: Very good point.
[00:03:07] Speaker B: Dogs, cats.
[00:03:09] Speaker C: You should get in the mortgage business with me.
[00:03:11] Speaker A: There you go. He's hiring.
[00:03:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:15] Speaker A: All right.
[00:03:15] Speaker C: So that way you could have stress.
[00:03:18] Speaker A: That's what he needs for the heart.
All right, so your NBA career ends, you go on Survivor.
And I would say after Survivor, you became pretty well known locally for the heart issue that you developed and went through that whole struggle. So can you kind of walk us through how'd you find. Yeah, I guess. What happened to get that going?
[00:03:39] Speaker B: I'll try and give you the fastest version I can.
[00:03:41] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:03:43] Speaker B: So 2016 is when I was on Survivor. 2019, my wife gets diagnosed with double well with 11 centimeters in her breast duct, milk duct.
They could not believe it didn't spread. She had a radical double mastectomy. And so I was her caregiver for a couple months. Luckily, surgery took care of everything. She's like, ah, that was no big deal because we know people that have not had easy goes with cancer. Sure. Got an aunt going through right now. My mom's had breast cancer twice. My sister's had breast cancer. She's got cancer again.
And so we've been in that community and know all about that. Unfortunately, you know, there's nothing like getting an associate doctor degree with something that you didn't want to have to deal with.
[00:04:21] Speaker A: Yeah, right.
[00:04:23] Speaker B: And so we've done the for better or worse. And then two years later, I get a flu shot.
Why?
I was pressured.
I get my heart checked every year since playing in the NBA because my father died of heart issues at 54. I was 16 years old and I'm the youngest of six. Like I said earlier, so two of my siblings are already in heart failure at this point.
They still are. Luckily they're still good.
And the hard failure part, well, yeah, but they're still here.
And so it's covet times 2021. I just had my annual Everything was perfect. My heart was the same way it was in the NBA, that my ejection fraction, which is a big live diet number, was just like it was in the NBA. 55, 60. Which for normal sized people isn't awesome, but for me, that's what it was when I was playing the NBA. So they're like, yeah, it's good.
Everything was great. And they're like. The doctors were like, you should get a Gobi shot. I was like, I'm not gonna get a Goba shot. You should get a flu shot. I was like, I've only had one flu shot in my life. It was when I got traded from the Detroit Pistons to the Atlanta Hawks. I got a flu shot as part of Physical Atlanta. I got flu. I got so sick, they cut me.
[00:05:38] Speaker A: Oh, dang.
[00:05:39] Speaker B: Never got a flu shot again. Never got the flu again.
At least not to any extent that I was sick. And so they talked me into it. Got a flu shot two days later. I can't walk across the room to the bathroom without falling down. Wow. The virus released what we now know was a genetic issue.
My father. My father was traced to a virus that was introduced and caused his demise.
And, you know, plumbing, always perfect, still is. No cholesterol issues. I'm actually really low cholesterol.
So all the. All the plot plumbing stuff. There's two issues with your heart. You can have plumbing issues or electrical issues. Very few people have both.
It's usually one or the other. And so electrical is like short circuits. AFIB is one people know a lot about. They've heard about it. Yeah. My sister has afib. She has a pacemaker, and it controls it pretty well. And hers was brought on by her cancer drugs. The chemotherapy actually was what brought on her heart failure in 2012.
And then my brother had thyroid cancer In, I don't know, 18, 17, 18. Somewhere in there.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: And we will not fact check.
[00:06:47] Speaker B: It's okay. The surgery and chemo set off his heart. And so my brother and I have very similar things, but mine progressed really fast. Wow.
[00:06:56] Speaker C: So is yours electrical or plumbing?
[00:06:58] Speaker B: It's all electrical. Short circuits.
[00:07:00] Speaker C: I had an ablation because I had wolf, Parkinson white. So I had an electrical problem in my heart.
[00:07:05] Speaker B: That's exactly what they did to me. They gave me every drug they. They had, including. Including something they don't use anymore for people that had what I had. And I don't even know what it's called. They just call it a genetic anomaly.
And three ablations. Every drug that there is one, one of Them took two weeks to get it to the pharmacy. And I go to the pharmacy, it's in a glass bottle. And I was like, it's in a glass bottle. And they're like, yeah, we don't touch this one.
Wow.
A different one. Not even that one. A different one. First side effect, death.
I was like, you don't need a list.
[00:07:38] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:07:39] Speaker B: If that's the first one.
[00:07:40] Speaker C: If that's the first one.
[00:07:41] Speaker B: The rest, you need to know the rest. Oh, no. Is it going to make my tummy upset?
[00:07:43] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm definitely not going to put it in my vagina.
[00:07:46] Speaker B: I'm not going to assist in childbirth with this drug.
And so three years of not remembering anything, not being able to go public, not being able to not go. Go in public.
And I did keep it private.
But then In January of 24 4, I finally was. I got accused of faking heart failure.
[00:08:14] Speaker A: Huh.
[00:08:16] Speaker C: And was this another survivor troll?
[00:08:18] Speaker B: No.
[00:08:19] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:08:19] Speaker B: This was a real life human in a court of law. Oh, my gosh. Oh, yeah.
But anyway, I decided to go public with my heart failure and finally explain to everybody why I had stopped being an emcee here or doing speeches or doing appearances for the Pacers or whatever.
And at that point, ESPN contacted my wife, who is usually my agent.
She says whether I can do something or not.
And she said, they want to make an E60 about your heart transplant process. Because I was listed at this point with St. Vincent's here in town, and they made a documentary. They were in the surgery room, scrubbed in. In.
[00:09:03] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh.
[00:09:03] Speaker B: They filmed my entire heart transplant. Wow.
The. They actually. The trailer is out. I can show you guys.
The trailer is out. And there. There's actually a quick shot of my heart beating on the table.
[00:09:18] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:09:19] Speaker B: In like a bowl. It looks like a dog.
[00:09:21] Speaker C: Right?
[00:09:22] Speaker B: And they. They told me that in the movie that comes out on Father's Day on espn. Oh, okay. Eastern, they filmed my heart beating its last beat.
I don't know if I can watch that.
[00:09:35] Speaker C: Right. Yeah. Wow.
[00:09:38] Speaker B: But, you know, so leading up to it, I mean, again, I can bore you for an hour and a half with all the stuff that led up to that.
[00:09:47] Speaker A: None of this is boring.
[00:09:48] Speaker B: No. As it boils down to it, virus that I got from a flu shot, which, again, I'm not telling you what to do. I'm just saying what happened to me. Yeah. Do you.
But I. I don't do flu shots. And. And about four months after I was in heart failure, they talked me into a coveted shot because they're like, well, if you get covered now, you're gonna die.
So I got the first covet shot. Fine. Two weeks later, I get the second covet shot, and I'm going to Chicago to get another ablation.
And they admitted me into the hospital and put me in the ICU because I had pericarditis. Myocarditis. And I almost died.
[00:10:20] Speaker C: Which now is a, A known side effect of the shot and actually comes out now as a warning.
[00:10:26] Speaker B: And everybody told me at the time, no, it's 100 safe.
[00:10:29] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:10:29] Speaker B: So I don't follow. I don't fault my doctors. They did what they could with the information they had. Yeah. And what they were being told by drug companies.
Sorry I said that out loud.
[00:10:38] Speaker A: That's okay.
[00:10:39] Speaker B: Drug companies, the ones that made the shots to sell. Right. Anyway, again, me, my experience go, yeah, do you? Yeah.
[00:10:48] Speaker C: Do you?
[00:10:49] Speaker B: But so, yeah, I almost died. I was on IV steroids for four days. And they couldn't do the ablation because my heart was so inflamed. They couldn't even go in, like, my veins and everything. I was just like, allergic reaction to everything.
My heart was on fire. It hurt to swallow, it hurt to breathe.
Those were miserable four days. And it was kind of touch and go there, but I made it. And then they rescheduled the ablation. But three ablations, three years later, they started. They said, look, we got nothing. You're not healing. This is not the virus. The virus must have released a genetic issue. And that's when I got genetically tested. My sister and I share the same gene that causes what she has, which is basically just afib, which is also electrical or, but also that gene or mutation or whatever is present in everybody that has what I have, but it doesn't cause it for. Whatever that means. That's, that's pure science right there. And I completely understand it.
But anyway, I, I, when, when the doctor here, Sunny Chowdhury, my, my cardiologist here at St. Vincent's he was like, yeah, we just need to talk about transplant. I was like, oh, I'm gonna die. Because that's. I was in the doctor's office with my dad when they said, look, we're gonna put you on a transplant list, but really it's not going to do anything for you, because at the time, my dad is a giant.
Your donor had to be the exact same size. Yeah. And they were like, anybody with a heart that'll pump £380 is also going to have a messed up heart. Make your final arrangements wow. He made it nine more months.
So when my doctor said, all right, it's time to talk about transplant, I thought this.
[00:12:22] Speaker C: I was like, oh, you were done.
[00:12:23] Speaker A: This is it.
[00:12:25] Speaker B: They talked me out of it. They talked me. I'm not out of it, but they talked me into transplant.
[00:12:29] Speaker C: They talked you off the ledge anyway.
[00:12:31] Speaker B: Yeah. Getting listed. Got listed at St Vincent's but they were very honest. They said, look, you need to go get listed at the University of Chicago.
So as I learned in the organ donor world, there are regions around the country and they pull organs from different regions for certain transplant centers. And so Chicago's a different one than Indianapolis. Okay. So, for example, if I went to like, IU Indy or. Or Eskenazi or whatever, they're pulling same organs, so there's no reason to get listed at multiple hospitals in the same city. But the ability to drive three hours to Chicago was helpful because it. It increases my odds of getting an organ. Right. And everybody said, well, Vanderbilt does more and they do weird stuff. And guess what? You're an interesting case. Oh, and by the way, if you ever go to the hospital and they say you're an interesting case, that's the worst thing you can hear.
[00:13:19] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:13:20] Speaker B: Because what it means in legal, scientific, medical terms is we don't know what the to do with you.
[00:13:28] Speaker C: The confidence level is a little lower.
[00:13:31] Speaker B: You're an interesting case.
[00:13:35] Speaker C: But Vanderbilt's where it all happened.
[00:13:37] Speaker B: Right. Vanderbilt is where it happened. I. So I went through the listing process, got. It's like three days of. Of vials of blood, EQ, echocardiograms, EKGs, RMRIs, psychological counseling to see if you're able to.
[00:13:53] Speaker A: That may have taken the longest.
[00:13:54] Speaker C: Right.
[00:13:54] Speaker B: Drug screening. Yes.
[00:13:56] Speaker C: They had to get the whole survivor.
[00:13:57] Speaker B: Experience out of there.
My man. Screening. Because if you've got an addiction problem.
Yeah. And you're going to destroy your other organs while these drugs destroy your organs.
And so I did that. I was listed as Status 4, which is, I think, the highest you can be listed without being hospitalized. Status 3 means you have what's called an LVAD. It's an external pump, and that requires open heart surgery, which I was not a candidate for, for a number of reasons.
And so I couldn't be listed at a 3 or a 2 without being hospitalized. And so I was like, well, let's stay at 4. Not that I had a choice, but my numbers supported that.
Month later, I go to Chicago, do their listing stuff. Same thing. Draw the blood. I mean, have. You have to go through all the Testing.
I come home for the weekend with the plans to go to Vanderbilt on Sunday for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday testing in Nashville. And on the way home from Chicago, the doctor calls me and he says, yeah, I just got your data From Indianapolis, from St. Vincent's he goes, if I'd have had your data while you were here, I'm not saying I would have kept you, but I probably would have kept you. Wow, you've gone downhill in a month. Gee. And so I was like, okay. He goes, get some rest. I know you're going to Vanderbilt. Get some rest. Get down there and let me know what happens. I'll call you next week with the status. We're going to list you.
So I go to Vanderbilt Monday morning, eight appointments all day.
Day two. I'm sorry, I'm going to try to make it through this without choking up.
Day two was Tuesday. February 6th is the worst day of my life. I quit. I have never quit anything in my life. And I woke up that morning and I told my wife, I don't want to get. I don't want to go to bed. I won't do this. I was done. I had done all the drugs, I had done the ablations, I'd done the procedures. And I was just like, I don't want to do this anymore. I'm so tired. I can't think straight. I can't talk. Just, let's let God take me. And she said, she said, shut your ass. I'm going to go get a wheelchair.
And so she did, and she wheeled my big ass into the hospital.
Appointment number one was with Dr. Shah, who ended up being my heart transplant surgeon. And he said, you don't look good. How you feel? I said, I don't want to be here. I'm done. I'm sick. I don't, I. I don't want to be here. And he said, well, I've seen enough. Don't worry, we'll take care of you. Go to your next appointment. Next point was a treadmill test. I was supposed to be hooked up to, you know, oxygen and, you know, the EKG stuff to see how your heart reacts to stress.
My cardiologist runs in and no stress test for you?
[00:16:29] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:16:30] Speaker B: And ESPN was there to film the testing process. So they're in the room and on camera, my cardiologist, John, Dr. Jonathan at Vanderbilt goes, you look like I'm keeping you.
You're not leaving here without a heart.
[00:16:49] Speaker A: Oh, man.
[00:16:50] Speaker B: So what was a supposed to be a three day trip turned into three months? Wow. In Nashville.
My wife's with me, but we have kids at home. We have a cat. We have her job, and she had to manage all of that. And so, superstar, she saved my life just as much, maybe more than the doctors, because without her, I wouldn't have gotten to the doctors. I would have just said, you know what? I'm good. And she just. She told me, this isn't about you.
This is about me and your children.
Don't you dare.
You're not leaving without fighting. You fought your whole life. Every. Nothing's been easy for you your entire life.
You're not quitting now. Right.
You know, and probably there were some profanities put in there because she loves me a lot, and I'm thankful for that. I'm thankful for her because without her, I would not be here. That's 100 true. Her caregiver role for the three years of me being just a lump of on a bet on a couch and not able to even do dad stuff, you know, she was mom, dad. She was caregiver. She was working, bringing in all the money, refinancing our house.
You know, I'm able to type once a while, and I'm like, I forgot what I was doing, you know, and so I couldn't even send a coach an email to anybody and make any sense because I'd forget what I was supposed to be even sending them. So she was doing every single thing that they could do in our household, and she still is.
But I'm able to drive and I can do some dad stuff. I coached our youngest in basketball this year, and I'm strongly considering never doing that again.
[00:18:28] Speaker A: That's a stressor.
[00:18:29] Speaker B: The other kids were good. My kid, not so much. And I mean, listening. He was. He's okay. I mean, he's. He was at third. Third grade. Nobody's good. But it's.
[00:18:41] Speaker A: LeBron was getting third.
[00:18:41] Speaker B: He may have a lot of attitude, and I don't know where he gets it from.
[00:18:46] Speaker A: Interesting.
[00:18:46] Speaker C: You know, you should watch Survivor season 32.
[00:18:52] Speaker A: So how old are your kids now?
[00:18:54] Speaker B: 26, 22. 17 and nine.
[00:18:57] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:18:58] Speaker B: Just turned nine.
[00:18:59] Speaker A: Spread.
[00:18:59] Speaker C: That's a big spread.
[00:19:00] Speaker B: Yep. So all different mothers.
You know, I did the NBA thing. Okay. Yeah. You know, I was like, hey, you get a kid, you get a kid.
[00:19:08] Speaker A: You get a kid.
[00:19:09] Speaker B: That's what we do in the end.
[00:19:10] Speaker A: Not quite the Sean Kemp level.
[00:19:12] Speaker B: That is not true.
First marriage, second marriage.
[00:19:15] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:19:16] Speaker B: But yeah, we got three with my first and one with my current wife and my last wife, my ex girlfriend. As it is, because she.
[00:19:27] Speaker A: That's funny.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: She was my girlfriend.
[00:19:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:19:29] Speaker C: I married my second wife first.
[00:19:31] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:19:32] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:19:32] Speaker B: Nice. Yep.
[00:19:33] Speaker C: I somehow pulled that off, huh? Everybody says their greatest wife is their second wife, Right? But High school sweetheart, 36 years later, I wear. I married my second wife.
[00:19:45] Speaker B: Congratulations. I truly mean that. It's rare.
[00:19:48] Speaker C: It's been so easy for me.
[00:19:49] Speaker B: Very happy.
[00:19:50] Speaker C: Like, it's so difficult for her. Like, I'm telling you, it's been hard for her, but for me, this has been a breeze.
[00:19:57] Speaker B: I know I'm not one of those guys that bashes men, but women are smarter.
[00:20:01] Speaker C: I say my wife only made one bad decision her whole life. You're looking at it.
Well.
[00:20:07] Speaker B: Off with us. So much.
[00:20:08] Speaker C: So much. She's so amazing.
[00:20:10] Speaker A: Around the time this episode airs, I will have my 28th anniversary.
My wife, she's. She's my favorite person.
[00:20:18] Speaker C: So she's amazing.
[00:20:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:20] Speaker C: And you just had a birthday. You just turned 53. Oh, 52.
And he's training for a marathon.
[00:20:26] Speaker A: And he's training for a marathon. The.
[00:20:28] Speaker C: We're both running a marathon in January. I ran one in December in Hawaii, and I talked him into doing one in Disney in January. But we raised $3,300, I think, to. For a local food bank to make him run a charity or run a marathon.
[00:20:41] Speaker B: So that part's good. But why I don't want to run.
[00:20:45] Speaker A: I don't really know. I don't want to.
[00:20:46] Speaker C: I have to tell you, there's. After I did the first one, there's something about completing a marathon. You've heard about marathon people then getting hooked on running marathons.
[00:20:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I know what runner's high is. I've had it. Okay.
[00:20:59] Speaker C: So I ran the first marathon in Hawaii, and I got done. I was horrible. It was horrible. But then, like, five or six hours later may have been the tequila talking, but I said, I think I want.
[00:21:11] Speaker B: To do this again. Wow, that sounds. Man.
[00:21:13] Speaker A: He talked me into it.
[00:21:14] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:21:15] Speaker A: And we're doing it anyway.
Do you know the story of the person whose heart you got?
[00:21:24] Speaker B: Yes, because I'm one of the few recipients of an organ that hears from their donor family.
[00:21:30] Speaker C: That's awesome.
[00:21:31] Speaker B: We're actually close there in Texas. But I wrote my letter.
I wrote notes in the hospital because I wanted my feelings to be fresh. And then I wrote the letter in July, about four months after surgery, and they responded in October, and we ended up talking for the first time on what would have been his 46th birthday on November 9th of 2020. 4.
And they, he left behind a wife and a 12 year old, now 13 year old son and his sister Megan and her husband Clint.
And they, we, we actually flew to Texas in February to meet them for the first time 2-25-25. And that was very emotional obviously for everybody. But when you receive an organ, you, you have survivor's guilt. You know, whether it's a kidney and you know, nobody had to die, or liver, which nobody has to die, you can donate a good portion of your liver and still be living to someone else to save their life. There is survivor's guilt and especially because, you know, Casey, my donor had to die. Right. And there's no donating that and then moving on, continuing. And so there is survivor's guilt. But I'm very fortunate that they're good people. They're, they're really, really nice people and they've, they've jumped on board. There's been a ton of interviews nationwide that people, they, you know, I do an interview and they're like, you think the donor family would want to talk? And I'm like, yep. His sister's the one that usually does the interviews. Pam, his wife, is kind of quiet, but they're very open, they're very happy to help. And help my wife's charity, Pearls of Life, with the crusade of, of spreading awareness about organ donation. Sign up, have a conversation with family and don't sign up. But just so they know, Casey's family made the decision. Those people saved my life. Casey did, but he saved five people. He donated his kidneys to some teenage kids. His corneas are helping somebody. See, he donated some skin to help somebody live a better life. And so he saved a lot of people. And he's my hero. And the best part about it is, well, that I'm alive. But the second best part about it is that his last name is Angel.
[00:23:40] Speaker C: No kidding.
[00:23:41] Speaker B: Casey Angel. Casey Angel. So they, I was named this year the 500 Festival Parade Grand Marshall because they told me because of my charitable efforts. But I'm just the voluntary spokesman. Don's the one, My wife does all the stuff with charity. She's the one that's kept us. We've done cancer stuff because of our, my sister and my mother and then her.
So we've been involved in charities like that, domestic violence shelters, second helpings locally. We've done a lot of stuff around the country. And so we've always been in that, that kind of frame mode that, you know, wherever we live, we're going to try to help our community and help other people.
And then, you know, she's sitting in the hospital hoping for. And this is a compelling story that she told really well at her opening launch gala and in March, she said, and I'm sitting there, I didn't know this story.
And I heard it for the first time when everybody else heard it. She says. She looks at the audience. She says, I'm sitting there in the hospital hoping for a heart for my husband, and I'm not even a donor.
And I felt like a hypocrite. And I was like, yeah, wow.
[00:24:49] Speaker C: Like, oh, don't tell that to my current heart.
[00:24:54] Speaker B: So, you know, she's like, I signed up right there.
And, you know, I. I was very fortunate. I'm skipping around, but I. I got a heart in 10 days.
[00:25:01] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:25:01] Speaker B: And I was 16 at Vanderbilt for 2024 of 174. They set a world record last year. Two world records. One was number of heart transplants by a single transplant center in a year. The other one, I'm the tallest dude that's ever been transplanted.
[00:25:16] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:25:16] Speaker A: I figured that might be the case.
[00:25:18] Speaker B: I Actually, they said that you're. They were like, you're the tallest we've ever transplanted. And they just celebrated their 2000-part transplant last December.
Not a lot of places have done more than that. In fact, I don't know if anybody's done more than that, but nobody's done more than 174 hearts in one year. Wow. So I contacted Guinness, and they took the. They did the full workup. They reached back out to me and they said, we got good news and bad news.
The good news is we think you're the tallest person to ever have a heart transplant because we can't find anybody that's taller. The bad news is we can't give you the award because we can't. But he else has tried, so it's not a competition. Therefore, we can't give you.
[00:25:57] Speaker C: Oh, man.
[00:25:58] Speaker B: Like, world's tallest person. There's lots of people trying to go for that. World's shortest person, Whatever.
[00:26:02] Speaker C: So we need some six niners trying to get a hard transplant.
[00:26:06] Speaker B: Well, and I hope I keep the record.
[00:26:09] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:26:10] Speaker B: Because my brother that is in heart failure, and he just got zapped by his defibrillator other day. He's taller than me.
I don't. I don't want to lose the record, just in case, you know, he has to undergo that because it's no fun. I'd rather he is able to figure out something, make it work. His original heart heal and he makes it longer. But obviously, if it's gonna make a better life form like it has for.
[00:26:32] Speaker C: Me, then I hope you'll give the record up.
[00:26:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I'd be happy to give the record up to my brother.
[00:26:36] Speaker C: But you still keep the NBA ring.
[00:26:39] Speaker B: Well, it's my, my son Aussies now.
[00:26:41] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:26:42] Speaker B: I've given it to him because I.
[00:26:45] Speaker C: You can still say you have one, though.
[00:26:47] Speaker B: No, yeah, I, I, I, I earned one.
[00:26:49] Speaker A: His name's on the roster.
[00:26:50] Speaker B: But, you know, I don't mean to be morbid. I'm not trying to get sympathy or anything, but, you know, the fact is I'm an interesting case. I'm the tallest person that's ever been heart transplanted. So I go, what's my prognosis? They're like, we just want to keep this heart beating as long as possible.
Like it. They, they can't say, you're going to be good for five years. There's no one to compare me with.
[00:27:10] Speaker C: Right.
[00:27:10] Speaker B: They don't know. And so I'm busy within the ability that I have to, to have energy. And last weekend, the 500 festival, back to that. Flew in my donor's family. Casey's family was here.
[00:27:24] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:27:24] Speaker B: We were all on the parade float together for my grand marshal duties. But really, again, it was my wife that should be the grand marshal. She's the charitable one that keeps us at all these events.
And the family had never even been on an airplane before.
[00:27:37] Speaker C: Oh, no kidding.
[00:27:38] Speaker B: From a little town in Texas called Lindale, I guess there's a country singer, Miranda something.
[00:27:43] Speaker C: Miranda Lambert.
[00:27:44] Speaker B: That's the one. She's from there.
[00:27:46] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:27:47] Speaker B: And it's about the same size the city is as my son's high school. Carmel High School. That's about how many people are in there. It's a suburb of Tyler, Texas, which is not a big city itself. So they flew on a plane for the first time. We're on a parade float with only a couple hundred thousand of our best friends watching us wait at them.
[00:28:05] Speaker C: I was watching on tv. I was here watching.
[00:28:07] Speaker B: They were in a suite. They got to ride in trucks.
[00:28:11] Speaker C: Very cool.
[00:28:11] Speaker B: From the zoo where we met in police escort, to the track, to the infield, to the 500 Festival Suite. And we're in a suite for the 500. Wow. I mean, I hope that they enjoyed it as much as I did, just having them be there and experience that with them. But yeah, then there's another350,000 of our closest friends there.
[00:28:29] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:28:30] Speaker B: So you Know, unless you've been in the middle of Times Square and maybe there's that many people there gathered, you know, New Year's Eve. I don't know what the numbers are.
[00:28:39] Speaker A: But I don't think they hit 350,000.
[00:28:41] Speaker B: Very few people get to experience. I mean, 350,000 at a time. Yeah, I experienced the race, but, you know, there's not a lot of people worldwide that could say I've been around 350,000 people in the face of a mile or two miles that, you know that.
[00:28:53] Speaker C: I say this to Brian all the time. He's never been you. You have to go to Indianapolis 500 at least once in your lifetime.
[00:28:59] Speaker B: How long have you lived here?
[00:29:02] Speaker A: 28 years.
[00:29:03] Speaker B: Okay, well, I'm at 22, and I didn't care much about it. Just like when I was talking about. I went to Kansas and didn't know much about the history. I'm not a Hoosier, and I will never claim to be a Hoosier just because I was born and raised. Other places I've been to vagrant because of my life in basketball, but I've been here now longer than I've been anywhere else. And so I can kind of say I'm a quasi Hoosier. But, you know, I bought into it. Then I went to the race the first time.
[00:29:27] Speaker C: I was like, oh, it's amazing, isn't it?
[00:29:29] Speaker B: This is something that you need to experience even if you don't like racing. And I don't really care much about racing. I've met some of the drivers. One of them was going to buy my house a couple years ago, but it ended up that it was kind of a bluff. And they got his builder off his ass building the house they were supposed to be building for him. But they came down in price because he said, I'm going to buy this guy's house.
[00:29:48] Speaker C: So I've been to NBA games. I've been to final four. I've been to a super bowl. There's nothing.
I believe there's nothing as exciting as going through the start. Not just the start of the race, but from taps to the prayer to the singing of the national anthem. I mean it.
[00:30:08] Speaker B: Back home again.
[00:30:09] Speaker C: Gosh, it's good.
It's goosebumps all the way up.
I got to meet Jim neighbors at the race, and I. I couldn't help myself when he came around the corner, and I said, hi, and I went, shazam.
He went, golly, sarge.
He did it, really? And I didn't. But I wanted to. But such a sweet man. So nice. I also met Walter Payton that same year who had a race car that he was sponsoring or a team. And again, another guy that was like, so stopped the golf cart, got off the golf cart and talked to, like, five of us. And, you know, but. But that beginning of the 500 is, you know, it was awesome to watch Tom Brady get beat inside Lucasol Stadium in the super bowl, but it still isn't as cool as the ceremony, the flyover in the start of the Annapolis 500.
[00:31:04] Speaker B: It's something you have to do Memorial Day weekend. There's just nothing like that. I've been to the Kentucky.
[00:31:08] Speaker C: I've never been to the Kentucky Derby.
[00:31:10] Speaker B: Probably never going to do a Super bowl because Just don't want it.
[00:31:13] Speaker C: Yeah, it's pretty amazing, though.
[00:31:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:17] Speaker C: But those Blackhawks or those Apache helicopters flying over the pace lap. Dude, that was unbelievable. That was cool.
[00:31:24] Speaker B: That was really cool. And. And just they were, you know, flying right at eye level for us because we're up in Sweets.
[00:31:29] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:31:29] Speaker B: Pagoda. And.
Yeah, it was special. It's. It's always special. There's always something. There's always some story above some celebrity or whatever. And. And yeah, it's.
It.
You can't help but see it's a. It's somebody from every walk of life.
[00:31:44] Speaker C: Yeah, for sure.
[00:31:44] Speaker A: We had Jake Query on our show, and he's got some great Indy 500 stories and memories, you know, kind of.
[00:31:53] Speaker B: Rip your heart out.
[00:31:54] Speaker C: We're gonna make you go next year. We're gonna go the 500 next year. I say we make you run another marathon and we'll. We'll give it all to their charity anyway.
[00:32:02] Speaker A: There will be one and that will be it.
So, Casey, how big of a dude was he?
[00:32:08] Speaker B: So as I'm being worked up, all the doctors are, you know, and luckily my doctors did not work with ego. I had three teams working out and they were like, whoever gets the heart wins. Like, they were all like, we don't need the glory. We need you to get. Yeah, a heart. And so St. Vincent was talking to Chicago, who was talking to Nashville. Nashville's talking to St. Vincent. So they were all talking, and they all agreed I could probably go as small as 6, 3, which didn't give me a lot of hope because that's still a really tall person. Top 3 or 4% in the world. And so I'm still. I'm going.
But Vanderbilt was very confident that I wouldn't wait any less than there.
And as it turned out, I waited 10 days.
Casey was in the hospital before me.
He. They said he was about 6, 3. And then we got to know the family, and we got his driver's license. 5, 11. Oh, hey. So I'm a full foot taller than him. Interesting. But I have no concerns. No. No worries at all. Because the average human's heart pumps between four and five liters a minute. Average size human.
Mine, to function normally, needs to be 7 to 9.
When I was in the NBA, they said it's probably 15 to 17.
When I woke up from surgery, it was 9.
[00:33:23] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:33:24] Speaker B: When I went in for surgery, it was 4.
[00:33:25] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:33:26] Speaker B: You should not be awake.
My heart was pumping only 4 liters, which, again, for a normal sized person, probably fine.
[00:33:33] Speaker C: But for me, no.
[00:33:35] Speaker B: And that's why I was in such a brain fog, because. Thing. Yeah.
[00:33:37] Speaker C: For real?
[00:33:38] Speaker B: Yeah. And all that. It just wasn't getting oxygen in my brain. And so when I woke up, I immediately was like, oh, brain's gone.
[00:33:45] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:33:45] Speaker A: I feel so much better.
[00:33:46] Speaker C: Somebody bring me an encyclopedia.
[00:33:49] Speaker B: Pull the tube out. What I do. I sang a dumb song.
[00:33:52] Speaker C: Awesome.
[00:33:53] Speaker B: My heart in San Fran, Nashville.
That's first thing I said when they pulled the tube out.
[00:34:00] Speaker C: I'm surprised you didn't get a record deal while you were there.
[00:34:03] Speaker A: Were you laying there waiting for them.
[00:34:05] Speaker C: Pull that out.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: Coming up with the song.
[00:34:07] Speaker B: Nope. It just. They pulled it out.
[00:34:08] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:34:10] Speaker B: I wasn't as forceful as I am because I was still trying to get my lungs to sure wake up.
But, yeah, my brain was good. I was in a lot of pain. That's all I remember. I don't really remember much about the first week.
[00:34:23] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:34:24] Speaker B: Other than just pain and not remembering a lot. But I do remember my brain was like, I can think, I can tell stories, and I'm not out of breath, you know, so that was instantly. I knew that it was better, but it didn't wake up. Casey's heart didn't wake up. Sometimes they don't because they, you know, they stop when they're transported from one person to another. They reanimate when it's in the new body. And I had woke up with two external pacemakers to keep it beating. And that's normal. Everybody does that.
But some hearts wake up and then they take the pacemakers off and they're good. And me, I was hooked up to all the machines and everything. And they came in, they're like, hey, let's see. And they turned down the pacemakers, and I went.
And my wife said the eyes went in the back of the head. And just like turn it right back up, flatline.
I heard that. And my wife, they were like, okay. My wife was like, don't ever do that again.
[00:35:20] Speaker C: Yeah, no doubt to the doctors, not me. Right?
[00:35:23] Speaker B: But yeah. So they said, you know, sometimes it wakes up, it takes a couple weeks, but if you want to get out of here, you're gonna have to get a permanent pacemaker. And I was like, no, I just got one out. I don't want another one. And so I waited another couple days and finally I was like, I'm. I'm ready to go. I'm ready to get out of here. And it only been 10 days post surgery, but I was like, I gotta go. I. I don't want to be in here anymore. I want to get up and start rehabbing. Sure.
They put a permanent pacemaker in and I get it checked every three or four months. And top, top chamber is, is pumping on its own, but when they turn down, the bottom chamber just stops. And so. Interesting. I just get tired now. They don't turn it all down low enough. They turn it to 30 and I just, you know, I get a little. The room gets a little warm and it gets a little dark, and then they just turn back up. Hey, look, this thing's got an 11 year battery. And they. I have an app that watches it. If it does go down, I'll know.
[00:36:21] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:36:21] Speaker B: But also the app will say, hey, you, battery. So I have to keep my phone with me all the time. And it monitors that app, monitors the pacemaker. But. So that's why I was like, when you guys were drinking that zombie, I was like, I'm kind of a zombie.
[00:36:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:35] Speaker B: Yeah. This thing's keeping the drink of choice.
[00:36:38] Speaker C: It was. Well, I'm fired up.
[00:36:40] Speaker B: You're here.
[00:36:41] Speaker C: I'm so fired up. I'm so fired up that we met. And your story is amazing. Tell everybody where they can go find your foundation and how people can help.
[00:36:50] Speaker B: So I'm a voluntary spokesman for Pearls of Life. And. And the reason we did it that way is I. I do appearances and speeches, and I didn't want to make any money off of this gift of extended life, however long I've got. It felt dirty to try to make money off of it. So it's my wife's charity. Her and Dave Cider, who's a local attorney, they started it. She's the president, he's the treasurer, there's a couple other board members, and I'm just a voluntary spokesman. It also helps because there's rules about Soliciting and. And all that kind of stuff nationwide, you know, you can't go to any state and just solicit your charity unless you're registered. Not say, well, I'm not affiliated with this charity officially, so I can go to a golf tournament and they can make a donation to the charity. Say, hey, please do so. And online, for example, I'm allowed to post whatever I want about pros of life without having to be within the rules because I'm not a member of the charity.
And when it comes to speeches and appearances stuff, we just ask that somebody makes a donation to the charity so that the charity can get me to your appearance, whether it's flights, gotcha, or whatever, you know, so that's. That's how that works out. I'm still doing, you know, and also because of my health, I can't just do every day. I'm never going to be able to work again. At least, right. For the foreseeable future. Doesn't seem like it. But I can plan for speeches and I can rest up for the last weekend. And it took me a day to recover, but I bounced back and I'm feeling good enough to do this.
[00:38:11] Speaker C: I think you could be a permanent host on the podcast.
[00:38:14] Speaker A: Why are you doing that?
[00:38:15] Speaker C: Just trying to replace Brian here. Can you edit? Can you do editing?
[00:38:20] Speaker B: Caveman no like computers.
[00:38:22] Speaker C: Caveman no like computers. Pay me to edit, and I will do that.
But no.
[00:38:28] Speaker B: Pearls of Life.org is the name of the charity, and that's the website.
And every donation that anybody makes, that's where it goes. It's education, awareness, charitable events. She had her gala in March.
They raised over $70,000 for the last one, so that was good for a kickoff. They're hoping to do a golf tournament some point, which I'd be a part of. Please let me know about.
[00:38:50] Speaker C: Brian loves golf tournaments. He probably was that one today.
[00:38:54] Speaker B: My wife and I have been to a bunch of golf tournaments nationwide, and people invite us back because we usually match. And I'll. I'll bang the ball off the tee. And she tells dirty jokes and lights people's cigars for them, so.
[00:39:05] Speaker C: And she's very beautiful, and she looks.
[00:39:06] Speaker B: Good swinging a golf club. All right. She doesn't golf. All right.
[00:39:10] Speaker A: But social media to go on.
[00:39:12] Speaker B: There's Pearls of Life.
It's Pearls of Life, Inc. On Instagram. There's Pearls of Life on Facebook, Twitter. Not there yet. X. We're not there yet, but. And I say we just because I. I feel like I'm a part of it, you know, but again, like I explained, but every dollar that you donate goes to where you think it's going.
So education, awareness, getting me to speeches where I'm giving awareness and giving educational speeches.
And then we are. As soon as we're big enough, and I think we're gonna get there pretty soon, we're gonna start partnering with transplant centers to have them vet families that have to travel for transplant like we did, because we were out of pocket for. We had to run a place across the street, get our kids down, get our kids back, childcare back home, come visit dad, because I'm stuck. I can't leave. For three months I was down there, and so they, you know, the kids were like, we're not gonna see dad. So that. I don't care how much money you have. That was expensive.
[00:40:08] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:40:08] Speaker B: Like, we were. It hit us hard. We had somebody, a friend of ours, against my will, but we needed it. She did a gofundme for us, and it really helped because we were struggling. We were almost about to sell our house.
So, you know, that's. That's the other goal. And. And that's where every dollar is going to go.
I'm not making any money off of it. My wife's not making any money off of it. Everybody that's involved has a real job, and we're hoping to get big enough one day where we can actually hire somebody to do the charitable stuff. And that's. That would be the. The only overhead that we would have in the charity. But it's.
[00:40:41] Speaker C: Well, we have a friend that's been on the show, Chuck Baldwin. And Chuck knows a lot about running charities and helping out. I bet if he watches this one, Chuck's gonna go, hey, I know how to help that out. So there you go, Chuck.
[00:40:52] Speaker B: We're learning as we go, and we. We appreciate all the help we can get.
[00:40:56] Speaker C: Well, I want to say thanks for taking your time tonight on a Wednesday night.
It's a Sunday night. If you're watching the show, really, it's a Wednesday night, kind of impromptu, you know, night to say, can you do it tonight? I really appreciate you taking your time. I appreciate your friendship. Over the years, I followed everything that you've gone through very closely, and, you know, a lot of prayers towards your family. And I'm so glad that you're sitting right here today sharing this story. And it is amazing to me to know that you were famous before Survivor. So I find that really incredible as well.
[00:41:27] Speaker A: I was shocked today when I found out you were on Survivor.
Well, to all of you out there, thanks for watching Real Estate makes us drink. Hope you enjoyed this episode. Please go donate to the cause because you know you're gonna help a lot of people. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.
[00:41:41] Speaker C: Cheers, everybody. Cheers, Scott. Thank you.
[00:41:43] Speaker B: Thank you, guys.
