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In this deeply personal episode, host David Watts opens up about his ongoing battles with autoimmune diseases, including CIDP and myasthenia gravis. He discusses the challenges of managing his health, the impact on his professional life, and his journey towards finding a meaningful legacy. David shares candid thoughts on his daily struggles, from navigating medical treatments to adjusting his aspirations and building passive income streams. He also touches on his latest projects, like creating guided meditation recordings and his efforts to stay active despite chronic pain. Join David as he seeks to foster a supportive community, offering insights and inviting listeners to share their stories of resilience and hope. Subscribe, leave your comments, and let's help each other make life a little brighter.
David Watts [00:00:00]:
It's good day, and welcome to another edition of what's involved.
David Watts [00:00:04]:
Can we can we get the microphone closer without breaking too much? Probably not. Hey. Anyway, Saturday morning it is, so I had a bit of energy. I thought, what the heck? Let's have a chat. Let's see what's going on with me. More importantly, what's what's going on with you? How are you guys doing? And I was very good. Remember we talked about my ADD and and what I tend to do with ADD. So now this morning, I have a book.
David Watts [00:00:36]:
There's even notes in the book. Mhmm. So I just gotta read it now. So it says, oh, so far so what? Yeah. So, yeah, the question of now what, As I mentioned, latest thing, still got the SCIDP. Now I have, apparently, something called myasthenia gravis. They've given me tablets for that. Gotta take them for 2 weeks, see what happens.
David Watts [00:01:10]:
Back I think it's the end of the month, back to hospital for another session of PolyGAM now. For reasons totally unknown to me, PolyGAM, gets done in sort of 6 month period. So every 6 months, the neurologist has to go through all everything, do all the tests again, remotivate, and then send that off to the medical. And then we wait with bated breath to see if they approve the next 6 months. The idea is if I start showing improvement and when they do the, what do they call it, electric I don't know. I call it shock testing. When they do that to see if there's an improvement in nerve responses, etcetera, etcetera. So but that to look forward to.
David Watts [00:02:07]:
But again, so what? So what? And that's what I've been thinking about quite a bit. I've been sharing this with you, and I've been saying, let's let's get together. Let's talk about it. I don't believe people talk about, any form of, autoimmune disease openly, honestly, what it does to them. But I've been scared over the last while. Yeah. I'm more scared than normal because I'm 56, and I was lying in bed. It was a couple of days ago, and thought to myself, what have I done with my life? What have I accomplished? Have I have I touched lives? Have I impacted lives positively? I know I sure as hell have impacted lives negatively in my wild, impulsive youth.
David Watts [00:03:10]:
And, you know, as you get older, you kind of you kind of realize that that there's there's more to life than, you know, what's in it for me kind of thing, although I'm I'm quite fond of the whole life thing, let's be honest. So in the midst of that fear and and wanting to to kind of, you know, be able to answer to myself, what what have I achieved? And I used to want to achieve big things. I used to want to be able to take over the world and all of those things. These days, I wanna achieve health. I want to continue to build on happiness and and peace, and I want to share that with people. Now my mode and medium for doing that was always being on radio. But at the moment, you know, with my with my age, my health challenges. It appears most people won't touch me with a bargepole and a very large bargepole.
David Watts [00:04:31]:
And I don't really get it because it's you know, for the most part, you know, if I need to get the brain going, I get the brain going. It's the body that's not brilliant, but I can still sit here and talk to you. My my mouth still moves. I still have, somewhat of a sense of humor. I mean, I must have a sense of humor if I'm doing this. So in the what now thing, one of the things that I that I I thought about was, what am I gonna leave behind? What what's what's my legacy and and all of those things? So you may or may not know this. I do, high level coaching, and I do sales training as well. All of these other extra bits and pieces you'll hear me talk about has always been to support my radio habit.
David Watts [00:05:25]:
Okay? Because, yeah, in South Africa, you know, an issue at the top, it's it's not it's not a high paying job. You're not really gonna get rich off of it. But I need to do something, and I need to figure out passive income, and and I need to figure out stuff like that. And I was wondering how how you're doing about that. What are you doing? Do you have ideas? Is there stuff working for you? Because every single time I see I seem to go and see the the doctors, the rheumatologist, the neurologist, there's additional medication that gets prescribed. And don't get me wrong. You know, I trust these people, but it costs. And because it's what they call I think I think the technical term is off book.
David Watts [00:06:20]:
K? In other words, it's not specifically designed for CRDP. However, one of the unintended side effects of it is it gives relief to nerve pain. The medical won't pay for it. Okay? The sad part is I also can't go to them now and say, well, listen. Can we just tell people it's not not really CIDP, but that it's a psychiatric problem? I'm bat shit crazy, and I need this stuff. Answer there, also no. So, you know, yay me, big pharma, all of those things. Yay.
David Watts [00:07:03]:
I'm not I'm not gonna rant too much. I'm referring back to to my book now. So I've decided I need to do some stuff to to to work, when I can, how I can, why I can, And it struck me that, something a psychologist told me is that I need to get used to the fact that me and I and I'm sure many, many other people that have, any form of autoimmune disease, you know, the same advice might apply. And and what she said to me is that, with these kind of diseases, you are you wake up every morning, hopefully, and you are given a packet of energy for the day. Now sometimes it's a teeny tiny little package. Okay. Other times it's larger. Sometimes you get a big package, and it's up to you to use whatever package of energy you wake up with to use in a way that you see fit.
David Watts [00:08:16]:
Now in my terms, you know, as soon as I woke up with a big packet of energy, I tried to once again take over the world and do everything. And then I went down and crashed like a lead balloon. Promise you. It was horrible. So I'm slowly learning how to do that. This whole thing still, you know, affects my sense because I was born in the yes, wait for it, you're gonna hear it, in the sixties. I still have this whole old fashioned thing of what a man should be. You know? Me man, hunter gatherer, go hunt, bring meat for family kind of thing.
David Watts [00:09:03]:
So I'm still coming to terms with the fact that that's not necessarily the case anymore. However, I have been using that energy, and I've been writing some courses. And I also thought it might be an idea to record some of the meditation stuff that I use to, number 1, get to sleep, and number 2, to relieve pain because I'm a big believer in what your brain can do. I've I've studied neuroscience and all of those things, and I've seen some amazing things done. And I know that the only way I can really get to sleep at night is to kind of, do some form of of medication and and lessen the pain, disassociate from the pain. So I've recorded some of some of those. Okay. I've got 2 at the moment.
David Watts [00:09:55]:
I'm working on the 3rd, and I've asked a couple of people what they think. They say not bad. Would you would you like to to to get one of them to have a listen if you promise to give me feedback, I might I might do one of those whole, if you sign up for my newsletter, I will then send you that audio, which is marketing, but it's also, you know, carrot and stick thing. Just in the comments, let me know if you'd like it, and where to send it. And I promise that I won't add you to the email list unless you say, please, David, add me to the email list. How's that sound? Sound like a fair deal? I think so. It's like you know? So that's that's what I've been doing, and I'm thinking if there's a market, for example, for the the the the the the hypnosis guided meditation stuff, maybe maybe that can be part of my legacy. I record stuff, and I and I use all of the stuff I know in terms of NLP, neuroscience, hypnosis, Ericksonian hypnosis, and I put together some of the best stuff I can, and I and I put that up for sale, maybe that can be a legacy.
David Watts [00:11:23]:
Maybe that can be something that can earn me money when, I can't get out of bed, or I'm in a wheelchair, or, God forbid, something happens, and I can't talk anymore. That would be a true horror for me. Gotta I gotta be honest. Back to the book in case I've been talking talking too long. Okay. Right. Okay. I got most of it.
David Watts [00:11:51]:
I've also been doing some stuff in terms of communication for humans and some stuff that's sales based. May or may not interest you. The important thing to me is that I have been using that energy and focusing. The other thing that I have, been taking more seriously is the concept of exercise, a little bit of exercise, whatever you can do. I know by the time I eventually get back to hospital for the polyam or, whatever the case may be, I'm in so much pain. So I consider a normal day when my my pain levels, like, a 3 or a 4. Okay? That's, like, a normal day. And by the time I get back to hospital to to have more polygym, generally, it's climbed up to about 10.
David Watts [00:12:42]:
So then I get lectures on exercise and, you know, inflammation in the body, etcetera, etcetera. At that stage, I generally have 2 words for whether it be the physio, the occupational therapist, or the neurologists. I generally have 2 words for them, one of them being off because the concept of doing any kind of exercise is just like, so one enterprising young physio gave me bed exercises, which is not nearly as exciting as it sounds. Okay? I had totally different visions, but, started doing those. And more recently, I decided, you know what? If I if I get up and I got a little bit more of a packet of energy, I'm actually gonna do some some some kind of stuff like, you know, my my legs with this myasthenia gravis and everything. My legs and my arms look like matchsticks. I've I've mentioned before, people think I am the human version of Gru from the minions. So little things like, you know, calf raises and squats and some press ups and things like that.
David Watts [00:14:01]:
Shockingly few of them before I'm lying, coughing, and panting like a winded whale that's been beached. Okay? But I'm doing it, and all the research shows that it's something you should do. So that's my little motivation thing for today where we can exercise. I was gonna talk a bit about nutrition as well, but nutrition still confuses the crap out of me because there's so many different ideas out there. It's the same as vitamins. So I wanna get into that. Maybe maybe that can be a separate episode. You need to tell me what you think.
David Watts [00:14:44]:
Guys, as always, I've been very, very fortunate. There's there's been quite a few people, who seem to like what I've what I've been doing so far and they've liked videos and watched videos. And people have subscribed, which is, like, amazing. Okay. And I kinda walk around like a cocky little rooster going, I have subscribers. No. Nothing like anybody that is a big YouTuber. No.
David Watts [00:15:16]:
I have subscribers, but I'm running out of friends and family. So please, if you enjoy what you see, if you've enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe. Leave me a comment. I really wanna get get a community going, and I I wanna talk about it. I keep seeking to do a Facebook community as well. But with ADD, I think maybe I just try and do one thing at a time. So, yeah, please. That, wraps it up for this edition of of what's involved.
David Watts [00:15:46]:
Tell me your story. Share your story. Share your thoughts. You've heard all of all of my thoughts and questions today. It's a two way street, this conversation thing. Yes. I can talk to any of my multiple multiple personalities for hours, but it doesn't really help. Love to hear from you.
David Watts [00:16:04]:
Like, subscribe. We will chat again very soon. Until then, take care. Look after yourselves. You're not alone. Okay? Beyond, I'm I'm around. Just drop me drop me a mail. Maybe I must leave a mail in the information and and just, yeah, let's just get get chatting.
David Watts [00:16:31]:
Try and make each other feel a little bit better and, a little bit happier and more positive, because I sure as I I sure as hell, I shouldn't I sure don't want to go through, the rest of my life being in pain and miserable. So till next time. You got this. Take care.
