Soulmates&Swingers #Podcast with Dr. L.B. Wells PT 2.: In the beginning

0:07 It's the sex and lifestyle podcast that you didn't know you needed. This is the Swinging Soul Mates Podcast with your host, Mondo and sativa. Please relax, unwind and come play with us and our guest cohost as we candidly share our personal experiences and erotic escapades in the lifestyle Motivated by passion and purpose. Our goal is to create a community that allows themselves to be educated and entertained through the tales of the swinging zones. Mondo and Sativa are not medical professionals, yet we are a happily married couple of 19 years and in the LS for 10.

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1:32 Oh, for sure. Now I wanted to ask, as far as you know, you being someone that has experience with medical, you know, being a medical student, how imperative do you think it is that they have outside relationships so that that you know and not everything is study, study, study, school, school, school. Like there's still. In the midst of having relationships and building relationships and, you know, developing those skills that you'll need just in life, period. I I would say that it's a mixed bag because it's it's it's a, it's a plus and a minus and and you know I think that having those relationships are important, but it's very important that those relationships be positive, supportive and nurturing because if you are in a bad relationship while going through.

2:20 Medical school and beyond it will take you down it. It can affect your grades. It can affect your ability to to perform. So, you know, and speaking as someone who's had both good relationships and bad relationships during the, I don't know, 14 years of training and all that stuff, you know, I could tell you that when I was in a negative or. I'll I'll call it, you know I've never been in thank God I've never been in a physically abusive relationship. But I've definitely been in an emotionally abusive relationships.

2:57 And during those times I would say you know my work suffered you know and in a job where and and not in a palpable way not in a way that any patient ever suffered but you know my internal. Sort of emotional health suffered. So you know I I didn't go to work with the same vim and vigor and and and you know and two step that you want to go to work with. So I would say that, you know that that my work could have been its best and it and it wasn't at its best or something like, you know, but again, never, never, no matter what, the patient always comes first.

3:38 So no matter what you're going, it's kind of like being in the military, it's like. No matter what's going on you you have to have this ability to just hone your brain and say hey, listen I'm in a foxhole and if I don't get my, you know, SH blank T together I I'm going to die. So it and that is that is the same kind of pressure like if I don't get that together this patient could die. So you never ever let it affect. The patient and what you're doing, always, you always put that first. And there is this kind of cool way that the human brain can compartmentalize sort of relationships or, you know, having trouble at home or with the, you know, kid that's giving you trouble or whatever.

4:23 There's a way that you can somehow. Show up and compartmentalize and and and we're all all surgeons and and pilots and you know field people who I would say high adrenal, high adrenaline type field they all have that ability and you have to have that ability but sure for sure nurturing and wonderful relationships makes you just just makes going into work every day and doing what you're what you're doing that much better and it makes you feel appreciated at home so. I I'm, you know I'm just a big believer in in that you know so.

5:01 You spoke about the background of the female character. What was? What's some of the background of the male character? Rory and Amir. Yeah. So what'll be some of the background for him? For Amir? Yeah, Amir the his character came over from Pakistan. He was sort of a superstar because he was. Taken by an American program straight out of medical school from Pakistan. That's actually rare to happen from any foreign country. You know usually the US makes you repeat all of your training if you come from abroad.

5:44 So to be taken straight out of medical school to into the residency. Now understand just to you know for the for the listeners that. You know, don't have the the background and and I'll tell you that even I didn't know what was the medical school and residency and fellowship until I got there. But so there's medical school, which is the student part, where you're paying tuition and you're learning and then you match in a residency where you're actually doing handson training, you're making a very small amount of money and and you're, you know, training on patients, the whole process is very, very competitive.

6:23 And then generally speaking, not always depending on what you've decided to do, there are fellowships so you can sub specialize. In my case, I did breast oncology, so. So that's kind of how the system works. So Amir was a couple years older than Rory because he was already a resident in the program where she was a medical student, now the third and 4th year of medical school. The students are allowed to rotate into the hospitals so they get to have their experience on the rounds seeing patients.

7:00 So they get to have their mini residency, I would say. So that's where Rory comes across a mirror in her last year of medical school when he's a senior resident and she's her last year of medical school. Thank you for explaining that, because I thought I knew and I did not. And that, and that's what adds to the heat of the whole thing, because it's totally illicit and not be having a relationship there. You know, he is her senior. He is responsible for her grades. You know he is. You know, again, they're in the hospital, they're on the same team.

7:44 So and in addition you've got the, you know I would say the religious differences and I I explicitly chose the two religions that have still in 2/20/23 had a difficult have a difficult time coming together. And that's what I figured. Yeah, I I, I deliberately chose that because the history of conflict between, you know. I would say Islam and Judaism is very, very deep and you know, I wish we could find a solution for it. But it's it's it's very complicated and I was hoping that this book would help heal some of those wounds and that's partly why I chose that that that romance.

8:31 But. In any case, so you've got all these different levels there where she's this is forbidden fruit. I mean, he's older and and she's forbidden fruit for him. He can get in a lot more trouble than she can because she's the student and he's responsible for her. So in real life, how often? Because we've seen TV shows and movies. Where that occurs is that too. I mean, you're putting people that have the same interest. The same level of intelligence, you know, to to a point and you're spending so many hours together, it's kind of human nature, you know, that's what's that's what's going to occur while you.

9:16 Were you know, even if you have a relationship at home, it almost becomes difficult not to form relationships in the hospital because you're spending. You know, anywhere between 24 and 48 hours at a stretch, some of that, those hours have changed and become regulated. But in my day that was that was the time and you know with that, with with people in the hospital, so and you're bonding over these very intense experiences. People are dying in your hands, you know, and so you know, it's sort of ripe for relationships.

9:52 And one of the things I didn't mention is in the beginning, when Amir and Murray first meet, there's an intense attraction. But he goes out of his way to kind of, I'm just going to say, abuse her in a way. Like he gives her all. We have a word in medicine. Scut, you know, And scut is just sort of like the term for. All of the worst jobs in the hospital. You know, the stuff that no one else wants to do because you're doing all the scut and he's treating her terribly and it's because he actually likes her.

10:25 But we don't know that. And so he's like, again, scutting her out with every menial job you can possibly imagine. And he's doing it for two reasons. One is, you know, he's trying to kind of, I think, deny to himself that he has feelings for her. And two, he's trying to show worry. You know, don't mess with me. I'm the big man campus kind of a thing, so. How was that a conflict that you that you that you came across when you were writing this, like taking yourself out of it because you know you lived?

11:01 The experience, maybe not this exact relationship, but just kind of taking your son off out of it and or maybe finding yourself, Rory replying or acting a way that you're like, wait, wait, wait, no, that's not within her character. Like, I'm finding that more within me. So let me take some of my you know, my feelings out of it. You know, it's it's complex because Rory, as am I, is a strong woman. And she doesn't take lightly to being told go do this, go do that. You know, Cinderella, Cinderella, you know.

11:35 But she also knows that part of the process of becoming a surgeon and then becoming respected is that you listen to your authorities and you do what you're told. So it's, you know, it's it's a little complicated for her and for. Everybody do that process because most of us have come from, you know, I would say, good liberal arts colleges and universities and we've all the freedom of the world. We've been told you can do anything you can. Can be whatever you can do this. And then all the sudden you are, you know, picking out you were taking, you know, impacted feces out of somebody.

12:21 I mean, I'm sorry. Yeah. That's exactly what I was thinking when you said that. I was going to say do some, yeah. Exactly so. So you know it's, so it's. It's definitely a contradiction in terms to have to, kind of like. Put your whole personality, the bigness of it all completely and make yourself very small. But it's a part of life. I mean, you know, knowing when to humble yourself versus knowing when to when to, you know, step into that. I'm going to say role as CEO or role as chief surgeon. Those are those are skills that you acquire in life.

13:07 You know. And I think especially as a medical professional, because sometimes you may have to humble yourself in maybe what you know in a diagnosis and maybe say, OK, well, I have to look another way or I have to listen to somebody you know another a colleague of mine and maybe change my, you know, my name is not so. Nothing more humbling than I'm just going to say it like you, I used to tell people like you can't be a cancer doctor and then not be humble, You know, because cancer is 1. Humbling monster.

13:36 Don't think? Yeah, yeah. We unfortunately dealt with that with my sisterinlaw. At 40, she was diagnosed with a her 41st birthday or 40th. I didn't want to say her 40th birthday 16 when she. Passed 16. Not at 16, but in 2016, so I was.

14:06 Now, so yeah, she with the very rare form of leukemia and it was as often most seen within children. But she had the bone marrow transplants and all the treatment and by all medical, you know, everything. By professional, by the thoughts, everything. She was, she was healed. She was on her way to recovery. She was actually in Stanford. Their living facility, you know from when you when you're going through the recovery process and within a week it went from bad to worse. And so we, you know, we had an experience with that, but it is not a very kind illness what it did.

14:52 Not something you want to mess with, it's. A. No, no. So especially so. How did you choose? I mean that is such a. It is such it. It. It can affect someone, you know, seeing people go through that process and unfortunately if their life ends, how did you make that decision that this was a specialty that you wanted to? And that's a good question. First of all I will say and I just the caveat is that I chose breast cancer and and and and I say that for a reason because you know I'm an optimistic person and.

15:31 You know, I didn't know. I didn't know if I had the heart to do surgical oncology, so like do livers and pancreas and things like that where where most of my patients would succumb. So I chose a specialty where we caught most of the cancers early and the majority of the patients actually survived. So you know, granted it was still a harrowing experience from and Can you imagine losing your breast or half your breast or this and that in the other end? Very difficult for women. And I don't know if you can tell from just talking to me.

16:05 I'm a pretty open person and easy to talk to. So I like to say that the the field chose me and I didn't choose field. You're going to find this funny. But the other field that I was attracted to in medicine was psychiatry. You know, I I knew who I wasn't going to do it because I I really had to get my hands dirty. But. But I really liked it. I thought it was very fascinating. I found the human brain from a psychiatric point of view, very fascinating. So, you know, I understand the human psyche and I understand a lot about the human psyche.

16:46 I really do. And and I understand, you know, a lot about emotions and supporting emotions. And so I I kind of knew that. A woman at the time of breast cancer would need somebody like me, somebody who had the patience to listen, somebody who had the patience to understand who, you know, could sort of, even though, thank God, it's never affected my family. But I could sort of relate. And just as a woman in general, you know, you know, who understands the importance of breasts and what they mean to a woman.

17:28 You know, I just, it's like I said, it's a it's a field that shows me. And as soon as I did the rotation during my second year of general surgery, I knew that was what I was going to do. So before we start recording, you and Lacey were talking about Ms. and just also talking about the social life who? Promoted or talked to raise a lot of money for a certain type of cancer. Was that was breast cancer that the socialite I? I don't want him to speak, but I think her name was like Mary Leahy. It's it if you read the book Emperor of All Maladies, and I believe the author is, I don't remember, his first name is Mukherjee is his last name.

18:16 He he really writes a brilliant tome. You know, he's the bestseller. About the history of all cancer and how most of the early discoveries were done by complete serendipity, by accident, you know, most of the treatments and things like that, which is just fascinating. And then he talks about how I think I want to say forties, 50s and 60s, nineteen forties, 50s and 60s is when you know those groups started to come about and. You know, I, yeah, I don't want to misspeak but it but I'm, I'm pretty sure that there was you know crossover with the the the women's movement, the ERA and all that stuff.

19:00 So. So you know, it was sort of the perfect storm and the perfect timing for there to be a lot of attention for you know, for breast cancer and and and Women's Health in general, so. You know, breast cancer is so emblematic, it's so symbolic. So it was a no brainer. People poured money into it. Because of that focus. Is that why breast cancer is? You can people can spot it early or you could spot the predicated I. Mean, you know, you know, Lord Mundo, there's there's no one reason. You know the breast cancer world changed from the late 1800s.

19:52 Where? You know, William Halsted, who was the father of surgery as we know it in this country, was literally, if you see pictures of what women would look like when he would take off the breast, he would take the breast, the underlying muscles and all the lymph nodes. And they would be and they would be left looking like, I don't know, like a, like a like a bird that would that, you know, like literally like a like a, like a chicken bone. I don't know how to explain it. They would be left nothing.

20:22 It was. Some of these pictures are are hard to to stomach and he was actually he actually wrote in his journal so I'm going to be effective like I I feel bad about the way I'm making these women look but most of them are over 50 and and their value to society is diminished anyway. I mean and that was and that was the thought that the the overlying or the the that was the sort of you know, that was that was the overlaying the belief system at the time. So, you know, so that happened in the in the 1890s and then in the 1950s a guy named Bernie Fisher did some very interesting trials proving that taking a piece of the breast or half the breast or part of the breast showed no difference in survival outcomes to taking the whole breast.

21:21 So there became a whole movement to start doing, to start doing lumpectomies, what you've probably heard of, versus mastectomies. And then somewhere along the way reconstruction became very good. And so taking the whole breast became much more palatable and and and then yes, mammography, digital mammography and all these types of screenings also got better. Listen, more money with with, with and and ladies deal like with anything else in medicine we've gotten better. We're getting better as a whole.

22:01 And you know the way that I look at it is I kind of look at it as a pyramid when looking at all diseases. We're finding so much overlap whether it's cancer, whether it's Ms. you know for instance we're finding that there are derangements at the levels subcellular derangements that occur in Ms. and Parkinson's and Alzheimer's that are also occurring in cancer and and and other diseases. So it's like a pyramid like we're kind of advancing these fields and they kind of advance together. So I wouldn't look at it as one versus the other where it's kind of like a whole army that's that's that's making, it's progressing together where you might be seeing you know at a snapshot in history, a lot more attention being given to one thing, but realize that that just means that that attention's going to trickle down and affect everything else.

23:08 So, and there's plenty of researchers, hard working, dedicated researchers that are working so hard to develop proper medications for Ms. and other diseases. I mean in medications that we're talking about, they would be unheard of, 20 and unheard of. We're talking about such levels of sophistication, it would blow your mind of what they've come up with. And so, you know, yes, they made a lot of, a lot of progress with mammography. Breasts are interesting because that that that could have you fill in the blank.

23:46 Breasts are interesting because they're an external organ. You can you can test them. In much more easily than you can test a pancreas or a liver, you can do mammographies and ultrasounds and MRI's because they are outside of the body. They are not inside the body. It's given us a lot of freedom to find disease early and treat disease early. So, you know, you may say, Oh well, why is everybody always focused on breast cancer? Well, you know, there's a lot of things that lend itself to to, to that research but don't make make no mistakes about it.

24:25 Everything we learn about breast cancer allows us to extrapolate that information to other systems. Thank you for. Joining us on Soulmates and Swingers. We hope that you enjoyed yourself just as much as we did. Please don't miss our next play date, It just wouldn't be the same without you. Until next time. Be passionate. Be in the moment. Be bold. Be loving. Be the best version of me loving Mike. Hey, this is Mondo. Thanks for joining us this week. We want Soulmates and Swingers. If you have any questions or any topics that you want us to cover, you can reach us at 12IN NSATIV [email protected] and also on Twitter AT12IN NSA.

25:30 TIVA, make sure you like, Follow, Subscribe, comment, hit all the buttons you can except for the delete button and we'll see you next week.