Hello, Pod. It is James Guttman. It is Friday. It is December 12th. It is 2025. Thank you so much for joining me here on the podcast. Wherever you found me, I appreciate it. Uh, Audible, you know, the whole Spotify. We go through this. it's been a sickly December, right? Like everyone's sick. I don't feel well. I feel better. I will tell you this. About a week ago, I'm like, oh, I'm this is it. This is how I'm gonna go. I'm gonna die from the weather. But I am better. This is actually the second time I'm recording this audio because the last time I did it, I sounded like Barry White. I'm like, hey everybody, let's talk about autism. I don't want to do that. So I figured we come on here, we'll talk a little bit about a topic that's important today and this week for me. Um, if you guys follow me on social media,@Hi James Guttman, H I James Guttman on TikTok and Instagram and all that stuff. I posted a video talking about my scar. And for those of you guys who don't know, the backstory, I had a quintuple bypass when I was 35 years old. And the date that that happened was December 13th. So tomorrow marks 13 years since I had a quintuple bypass. Now, it's a big deal. People hear they go, oh my god, and it is a big deal. But we have to understand too about this surgery, this crazy um in my head, actually, up until it happened, this was the craziest surgery I could even imagine. I had zero time to prepare for this. This isn't the kind of thing where I went to the doctor and they told me, like, you know, we're gonna have to bring you in for bypass surgery. No, this was boom, boom, boom. That day I had written an article about different strokes for world wrestling insanity, which was my old life. It was my uh my website about wrestling and pop culture. And literally within four hours, I was being prepped for the biggest surgery of my life. The first surgery of my life, that's another thing we should probably mention. I had never gotten any other surgery, no tonsils, no uh, you know, I had broke a bone, they just put a cast on it, nobody had to cut me open. I had no time to prep for this mentally. I didn't get to Google nothing. So, what had happened was I had been having heart attacks and didn't even realize it. And I do mention before I said hi, James Guttman on social media because this morning I posted a video talking about my scar from this surgery. I forgot to mention that. And what's important to know is that that day was the last of what had been a series of heart attacks that I had been having for years and not even knowing what they were. And the reason I didn't know what they were was because I kept getting better within like 10, 15 minutes. I would be out of breath. I'd be like, oh my God, what the heck? I get all hot. And even now it's funny because to talk about it, my brain kind of flashes back and I remember it. I remember that feeling, I remember how it would be. But it would go away, and you think, oh, that's that's good, that's fine. In fact, that day that's what happened. So I had I had this heart attack. I had hung up the phone with people I would never speak to again. We'll get into that. And at the time, my wife at the time was home, and my son, Lucas, who now is 14 and the star of the show for all of you guys who follow, uh, was a baby. He was a really cute baby, and he was in his crib. She's like, Look, you're I'm home. You're home. Let's just go walk to the walk-in center, which I guess maybe that's where they get their name from. So I literally walked next door to this urgent care and they rushed me in because they knew immediately. They were like, We saw you and we knew that something wasn't right. But still, I was expecting you're dehydrated or you need to move around more, or you don't how's your sleep? I expected something simple. I didn't expect you are currently having a heart attack. We're sending you to the hospital, and that's what happened. So they send me to the first hospital here out here on Long Island. Um, and I'll name them. I'll name them Good Samaritan Hospital that wanted to send me home because they no longer saw anything on the chart that showed me that I was having a heart attack. And they tried to explain it to me like a five-year-old. Well, see, there's things on the chart, there's these bad things that are usually there if you had and they're not on there for you. So I we don't think it's a heart attack. I said, I don't care what you think, I'm not leaving until you tell me for sure. And even the paramedics who brought me, like, we're not gonna bring him back. Like they sent us here. I went in, and this is the part of the story where you know, a guy I know was one of the technicians, and he was like, Hey, James Guttman, and I'm laying there, you know, with everything out for everyone to see. I was like, Oh my god, hey, how are you? We're talking, and he's introducing me to everybody. Oh, I knew this guy in high school. We gotta get we're all laughing and joking, and then everyone stops laughing. During the angi, it's an angiogram that I'm having. It's one of the only times that they can really see inside to see how your you know your arteries are. And the doctor was like, No, James, you have substantial blockage. I whenever I quote this story, I almost quote it word for word because these are the kind of words that don't leave. He was like, You have substantial blockage in all your arteries. And he starts showing me he's like 80%, 70%, 90%. That even how I was walking around, it didn't make any sense. And then he said the thing that stuck with me that changed everything. He goes, You know those guys that walk around totally healthy and then drop dead at 40 of a heart attack, that was gonna be you. I was 35. I was five years away from dropping dead of a heart attack. I had gone to the doctor, I had gotten clean bills of health, EKGs, way to go, pats on the back, and here I was on death's door. The whole ride to the next hospital, I thought I was dead. They sent me to another hospital for the surgery. Knock on that, thank God. And um, I thought I was dead. I don't mean I thought I was dead like I would be dead. I mean I thought I was currently dead. And the reason why was that um, you know, again, my I'm no longer married, but my wife at the time couldn't get to the hospital. She had to get somebody to watch the kids, no one could watch the kids. So I didn't see anybody I knew from Good Samaritan Hospital until I went to my surgery at St. Francis. And me, my brain, I create narratives, I overthink everything. I was like, oh, I'm dead. This is like the eternal waiting area in between this little room I'm in. This is what happens when you go to the other side. I really was convinced I was dead. And who knows, man? Maybe I was, maybe there's a million timelines where I just like killed over that day. But I went in, I remember getting wheeled down the hallway, looking in one of those big round mirrors in the corner, seeing my head with the stupid little shower cap on. And then, and it's crazy because I don't remember exactly when I, you know, went under, but I do remember the doors opening and like the room being just very white and very well lit. But I could just be, you know, imagining it from TV shows because it seems like in hindsight, like one of those like six feet under, kind of the doors open, the light flashes it on you. Now, all that's the story of the surgery. And what's funny is that this major surgery, this life-changing thing, this scar that was left on my chest, this tattoo that I got on my chest to remind me of the date and the time and all this stuff, that's just really just the start of the story, you know? It's that old free, that old saying, I don't know if it was Hemingway, Churchill, maybe I don't know who it was. I I know it is Jake the Snake Roberts, because that's that's where I had to quote from. And it said, This is not the end, this is not the beginning, this is not even the beginning of the end. It is the end of the beginning. And that that surge it was the end of the beginning. Um it was the moment that changed who I was. For the first time ever, I got to see death not as an intangible, I saw it as a reality. And I know you're listening to this and thinking, well, we all know that. We're all gonna die. Everybody walks around saying that I know I'll die one day. You do and you don't. You know you'll die one day, but that one day in your head is like a million years away. You're an old man or an old woman, and you're in some futuristic spaceship. No, it could happen in five minutes. It could happen right now. I might not get to the end of the sentence before you're like, you're gone. And that day reminded me of that. You could be writing about different strokes at 3 p.m. and on your way to possibly dying at seven. It's crazy. That's a reality. And it made me realize how much time I wasted worrying about nonsense, how much time I wasted being frustrated. Because I was told when I left that hospital I didn't have to do anything. Well, this is all genetic, is what they said to me. It's all genetic. You don't have to change anything. I said, Well, what if I change my diet? Well, you can. I know I can. I'm a human being. Like, what will it stave it off? Like, if I'm if I really have this genetic condition that I'm predisposed to, like if I eat better and exercise more and keep a healthier, you know, mindset, will it help? Like, yeah. Well, then why wouldn't I do that? So I did that. Usually when I tell this story, I talk about it in terms of autism appreciation as well, because I had been worried about Lucas for so long. Lucas was about a year and a half. I was concerned all the time about him having autism, not speaking yet. And the time that I was in that hospital, that one week that I was in the hospital, all I wanted to do was see my kids again. I didn't care if he talked or if he did or didn't. I just wanted my kids. And that was a major thing for me. And that's what made me realize that autism and worries and special needs and all this other stuff, it's not it's not the major thing of who my kid was. The major thing is that he's my kid. I loved him just as much as I loved his sister, and I knew it that day. Not to say I didn't know it before, but I'm gonna be honest with you, I don't know. He was little. The only thing that we had really had, him and I, was this overlying feeling of concern for him all the time. So I knew that I had to love him because I was worried about him. But my main thought when I thought about Lucas was worry and concern and what's tomorrow gonna be. And I finally got a chance to see him just as my kid, my baby, my boy. I just want to go back to my kids. I I thought about, and this is one of the things too, ma'am. I decided that day that my life was very important to live it the way I wanted to live it, because you only get one and it could be over tomorrow. But also to stay alive, to stay happy. And the biggest thing for me was frustration, stress, anxiety, maybe. I never really had anxiety, but stress, getting annoyed. I would get annoyed about a lot of stupid stuff, a lot of people, and I dealt with annoying people, so that's what happens. And I decided that day I didn't want to die, and I didn't want something as stupid as stress and annoyance to stop me from living a full life. I thought at the time about how all the good things that I had done up until that moment would then be framed differently. How my four-year-old daughter Olivia at the time now had a story where she would go back to people and they would ask about her dad, and she would be like, Oh, my dad loved me. Everyone says he loved me, but then he died when I was four. And that broke my heart. It almost felt like I'd rather not have been around at all than do that. You know what I mean? Like it really felt like, oh my god, this is gonna destroy people, this is gonna hurt people. It's gonna be her one of the stories of her life. And I made it a mission to change how I viewed the world. And through the years, I've made changes and I've worked on myself and the things that I need in my life. And one of the things in that video this morning that I posted on social media and showing my scar is that I used to be embarrassed of my scar. I saw it as a negative. And it's not a negative. Not all scars are negatives, but some of them are positives. And the scar from my quintuple bypass reminds me to live every single day and to do it in a way that I know I'm supposed to, to surround myself with the people that I'm supposed to surround myself with. I don't yell, I don't get angry, I don't fight. If I have a disagreement with you, we are gonna discuss it and I want to know why you think that. Right? So if you think A, B, and C, I hate, I don't even want to do it like this. I hate the letter stupid thing. A, B and C I do C, B, and C. If you think something and I think the opposite, I want to know why you think what you think. That's it. And we're gonna talk about it. I'm not gonna call you names, and I'm not gonna yell at you, and I'm not gonna scream at you, and I'm not gonna gaslight you, and I'm not gonna turn around after the fact and be like, well, I always thought that, and you didn't say that. What did you say? You didn't know. Well, people do that, man. I had people in my life who do that back then, as recently as this year. This year has been a complete wipe the slate clean year. 2026, I'm going into completely new and fresh, and I'm so happy about that. I've been through some crazy stuff. I don't talk about a lot of it on here. I don't talk about family issues. Um, I've been through breakups and stuff. What am I gonna do? I'm gonna post memes and bathroom selfies. How old are we? I don't do that. I take these things that I've been through, these issues that I've dealt with that have annoyed me and angered me and reminded me this is not who you want to be, and I use them to better myself. And the reason why I bring this up is people sometimes view this as weakness. They see it as like, oh, he's not gonna fight, and I can treat him this way or act this way. And what people are starting to realize now, what I'm starting to realize now is that my peace and my growth and my family means more to me than anything else. And if you're one of those people that sucks that energy from me, if you're one of those people who monopolizes my day with anger and phone calls and I'm twisted, I don't want to hear it. Gone. Gone into the cornfield. We talked about the cornfield. You guys remember the cornfield? I did the whole thing about Anthony from It's a Wonderful, uh, it's a it's a It's a Wonderful Life was the name of the episode, I think, right? And it was uh Twilight Zone. Anthony was a little boy who lived in the town and he had the power to send people away into the like hold of the cornfield, just wish you away. And he would wish you away if he didn't like you. And I love that, right? I mean, the kid was evil, so obviously he didn't he didn't use his powers correctly. If I had those powers, oh my god, and guess what though? I do have those, and so do you. We all do. And for once, I'm using those powers. I'm not going back in time and finding people that I've cut out of my life and trying to have that conversation to explain to them, hey, why did you act like this? Don't you understand? I it never goes anywhere. People will say anything to you in that moment to bring you back in, and they're still who they are. And the reason why I never realized that is because I'm on this constant journey to be a new person. I'm on this constant journey to better myself. And it blows my mind sometimes that not everybody is. People have no desire to better themselves. I want to experience everything, I want to learn everything. I want to be around people who make me think, I want to be around people who help me grow. And I haven't. Not always, but I've definitely found myself stuck in situations that took away from the growth that I'm supposed to be experiencing. And this scar on my chest reminds me what I'm supposed to be doing, who I'm supposed to be around, and what I'm supposed to be experiencing. And that was my whole point and showing it and talking about this and sharing my story with everyone because I know that so often, you know, people hear about autism positivity. How does this dad, this single dad, you know, again, too, I talk about cutting people out of my life, and people assume I'm talking about my divorce. Um, and maybe a little bit, but you have to remember I was married for another seven years after my surgery. So it's not like that was the immediate change. No, there were changes that had to be made. Some are slower than others, some are quicker than others, and there's still some lessons that I'm still learning now. And I have to remember that. And I want to remind people of that because when you hear about it and you think about autism positivity, and this guy who's a single dad and he has a kid who has severe autism that can still see it in such a positive light, it seems like, how does he do this? And I know that this is such a major change from what people are used to. And I know this because I said before when I wrote the Huffington Post article about not wanting a cure for Lucas's autism, I got emails from people chastising me. Well, because you have your autism, but you don't know. Some people have kids with severe autism that'll never talk and never, you know, have certain life skills. And I'm like, you're talking to one of them. My son doesn't have to be high functioning for me to love him and not want to change him. My son is who he is. And that's part again, maybe maybe the surgery had a hand in that. I don't know what it is, but it's how I see the world. And it's how I see other people too, you know. I see the best in people. I try to. And this year taught me that some people are not the best, you know, they don't have your best interest at heart. You think it, and you would tell yourself that people get mad at you, they yell, they scream, and you think to yourself, I must have done something because this person says they care about me. And meanwhile, they've been screaming at me for like two days. Like there must be like some sort, I must have done something. I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything. And I'm able to say that and realize that. And finally not have that positive attitude used against me by others and by myself. You stand up for who you are, you evolve and you change. And that's what the scar has taught me, and that's what the surgery has taught me, and that's what it has shown me. And my goal in sharing that with you is to let you know everybody can live like this. You know, it takes, for me, I guess it took a near-death experience. It takes really the idea of, oh, I could be gone, and these people are wasting the minutes that I have in my life. My kids don't waste my minutes. I mean, don't get me wrong, there's definitely days where I'm just like, Olivia, what are you talking about? You know, and you kind of go through that. But for the most part, no, it's never my kids. It's all these other people who have all these other issues, have all these things to say. And I let them in and I allowed it to become an issue. And you shouldn't live for how you want to live. Be who you want to be. You know what's best, you know what works, and you know what you want. And I'm telling you, you could sit there and you can try. To be practical and you could try to reason things out, but you could also be gone tomorrow. So live your life and live it the best you can. That's what I do. And that does it for me. Do me a favor. Here's all the plugs. Hipodomdad.com. You get all the archives. Hiblogomdad.com. Monday, Wednesday, new blogs. Hi, James Gelvin, all social media. You got the cartoon, you got, you know, clips and videos. It's fantastic. Hi, World I'm Dad, how fathers can journey from autism awareness to acceptance to appreciation. That's available freaking everywhere, including audiobooks, digital, print. You get it, you got it, good. Um, yeah. Thank you so much for listening to me today. This has been an important podcast, and I'm really glad that we brought the podcast back just in time for it. Till next time, this is James Guttman saying, be well. Byepod. I'm done.