(00:30):
Can you hear me? All right, my friends. Good afternoon. So today is Friday, another week, another week. So I wanted to just take a few moments to just let people know some of the things that we do through the foundation because apparently there have been some questions, some confusion as to you know, where to find stuff. So let me just talk a little bit about that. So for those of you that do not know for those of you that are new to this group so at this moment, all of my work is being done through the pulmonary wellness foundation. The pulmonary wellness foundation is a nonprofit organization that grew out of the pulmonary wellness and rehabilitation center in New York city. And essentially for many years we have been providing educational resources for people in the form, excuse me, in the form of webinars in the form of my book, in the form of other offerings.
(01:43):
But just to give you kind of an overview of what is available. We have a website called http://www.pulmonarywellness.org. Okay. You can do a number of different things. First and foremost, you can join the pulmonary wellness online boot camp, which is an online pulmonary wellness and rehabilitation program that essentially we started, I would say about a year and a half ago. And it’s a 42 day, six week boot camp program. And each day you are given a list of things to do or a, a menu of things to do. And there are four things as part of that menu. So the first thing is going to be the daily intro in which we tell you what to expect for the day. Catch you up on things from the day before. And also kind of tell you what’s coming your way. We have a daily thoughts and motivations.
(02:45):
So daily thoughts and motivations are essentially different concepts, different ideas, different sort of thoughts and motivational concepts that I would like to plant a seed in your head or I would like to introduce into your day and see if it does anything for you with respect to helping you stay motivated with respect to keeping you on the right track with respect to keeping you happier, making you happier, making you less stressed, making you less depressed, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But everything that we do is designed to help you live your best life possible. We also have something called BB. Fs. DBFS is breathing, balance, flexibility and strength. Because all too often people get caught up in this sort of tunnel vision thinking and they’ll say, well, I’m going to use the breather or I’m going to use the acapella, I’m going to use the aerobic guy, or I’m going to do cardio or I’m going to do this, that the other thing.
(03:48):
Okay. And really the way that you’re going to live your best life is by incorporating the greatest variety of therapeutic intervention. So BDFs is breathing exercises. Okay. Teaching you the breathing techniques, teaching you secretion clearance techniques. I’m teaching you how to improve your pulmonary function. And also how to utilize that in the so, so chastity has, I can’t breathe all that great. I’m stage three. CLPD what do I do from here? Join bootcamp. Okay. And you know, just to be clear, bootcamp is free, so I’m not trying to make some money off of you. This is something that we wanted to give to the world for free. We didn’t want even $5 or $10 a month to be a deterrent as to why people can’t get it. So now there’s no excuse. So the other thing that we have is our walkabouts and the walkabouts are essentially pulmonary cardio activities.
(04:50):
So it’s basically a aerobic activity and it’s, it’s, it’s walking about, it’s virtual walks that we created based on footage that we’ve shot all over the world. So it’s very interesting. We set it to beautiful and powerful motivating music. And there’s essentially four steps, which are the basic step, the sidestep, the high step. And the squat step and everything that we do in combination is designed to work with your body and enhance every system that we have. So that’s bootcamp. Okay. We also have webinars, okay. Hundreds and hundreds of hours of webinars that we have been doing for years. Some of them are by me, some of them are with guests who are the tippy top experts in their field. Upper echelon a plus plus you know, graduate level post doc. Yes. you know, everyone and their mother is doing webinars, especially these days.
(05:56):
Okay. We were one of the super first people to do this. Okay. and it’s not these boring as bullshit webinars where people repeat the same thing over and over and over again. It’s real talk. Okay. It’s real talk from people who have been there, people who have done it, people who have experienced it, not people who’ve read about it, not people who’ve heard about it, not people who visit that. The other thing our team has over 365 years of combined experience. 365 years. And that’s with a team of like 15 people. So we have Donna Frauenfelder who wrote the literal, literally wrote the book on chest physical therapy and pulmonary rehab. We have Donna Wilson. We have Mark Mangus, we have Marian Machlis. We have Brian [inaudible]. We have superstars of cardiopulmonary health, wellness, mind, body, spirit. So if you have not yet joined bootcamp, please go to pulmonary wellness.org and join bootcamp.
(07:03):
But again, the webinars. Okay. The webinars go back several years, hundreds of hours, lecture series 20, 20. So lecture series 2020 is essentially all of the 20, 20 webinars and we have had super a list or so far. Richard Brown, David camel, har Norma Braun will be here in two weeks for take two. But that’s there for you. My book ultimate pulmonary wellness is available for you to read for free online. We have podcasts that are available for you to listen to for free online. Very, very soon. My book will be available to read and Espanol in Spanish. Okay. And we will also be making this available for free. So this stuff is all there and you know, whether you have pulmonary hypertension, whether you have COPD, pulmonary fibrosis, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. This is our wheelhouse. This is our bread and butter.
(08:03):
These are the patients that I’ve been seeing day in, day out for the past 30 years as a cardiovascular and pulmonary physical therapist and pulmonary rehabilitation specialist. And also, you know, combined with my 20 years almost of EMS experience in New York city. So as far as Cove, excuse me, as far as covert goes you know, coven is also something, it’s new, but I have been seeing a lot of covert patients. We’re in the process of making a series about Colvin right now. But again, not this boring BS that everybody repeats the same thing. We want to give you the human perspective, right? Because if we’re like, wow, wow, and I show you a PowerPoint with 50 slides and [inaudible] no, that’s not what we want. Okay. We want to treat you as humans. We want to treat you as people. We want to treat you as peers.
(08:57):
We want to treat you as compadres. In this crazy thing we have called life and we want to protect it and we want it to be as great and as wonderful as possible for you. That being said I would like to say thank you so much to those of you that have donated to the pulmonary wellness foundation. It means a lot and it is the driving force behind everything that we do. You know that it’s not the driving force, the driving force is helping you, but it allows us to do things and it allows us to make these programs possible. For those of you that have not, or those of you that have, or anybody who would like to contribute to the foundation, go to pulmonary wellness.org the same place where it houses everything that we’ve just spoken about and go to donate.
(09:50):
We have over 13,000 people in this group. So just imagine if everybody in this group donated $5 per month, $10 per month, $20 per month, but let’s break it down. $5 per month is $50,000 per month. And we can do a lot for that. Now, I don’t want to put anybody down, but look at the other organizations. Look at the other foundations. Look at the others. You know, associations, ask how much their CEOs are making per year. It may be 150,000 and maybe 250,000. I know one particular association where the guy’s making almost half a million. Okay, so $500,000, that’s a lot of $5 donations. We’re not taking it here, okay? That’s not how we do think. Everything we do goes back to providing these services for you. The way to donate http://www.pulmonarywellness.org. Look around the site. There’s a lot of cool stuff there for you.
(10:51):
Now Cove it. Okay. Covert, covert, covert. The country is reopening and the country has reopened. So I will say this, my perspective is changing somewhat. My my, my, my perspective, my opinions are evolving somewhat. Okay. now not completely. Okay? So I’m not backtracking on anything that I’ve said. I think that covert is something that’s going to be with us for awhile. I think we’re going to have to be super duper serious about it. I think we’re going to have to continue to remain vigilant about it. But I will say quite frankly, everything that I have seen up until this point has been based on my view from New York city. Okay. New York city, super hardest hit. Okay. We have the most people, we have the most cases, we have the most deaths, we have the highest density. Okay. So it’s a lot different there than in other places around the country where people have the opportunity to have more space.
(11:57):
People have, you know, not so much population density where there are less cases. It doesn’t mean you need to Slack off there. It means that you have to make smart choices and keep in mind that the president is going to say things. Your governors are going to say things. The mayors are going to say things and every Tom, Dick, Harry and their brother, mother, sister, father, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You know, are all going to be saying and giving their opinions. Okay. There’s a saying that says an opinion is like, and this is something, excuse me, this is something that I learned. It was written on the bathroom stall at my college. It said an opinion is like, and everybody’s got one. Okay. Somebody wrote that on the bathroom stall. They wrote an opinion is like, and everyone’s got one.
(12:56):
And then somebody else added to that and actually made it more profound and they said, but some stink more than others. Okay. and I never forgot that because it’s true. Okay. So the thing I caution you about and the thing that I encourage you to do is vet your that your information sources. Okay. And keep in mind that not everybody has your best interest at heart. Okay? There are people with many different, you know, multiple agendas that may be political, it may be financial, it may be religious, it may be, you know, there could be any various number of reasons why people might want to give you misinformation. Some of it may be that they just don’t know. And in addition to not knowing, they don’t know enough not to talk about it. Okay. but the point is just because the president says you can go out just because your governor says you can go out just because you’re mayor says you can go out just cause your friend Billy Bob next door says you can go out.
(14:02):
Doesn’t mean that you have to run right out and do it. Or as your mom used to say, if all your friends were you know, were jumping off a bridge, would you jump off a bridge to you know, some would, some someone don’t jump off the bridge, makes smart decisions and if you think you are in a position or going to be in a position of potential exposure. Okay. And I don’t say probable ex exposure. Okay. I say potential exposure exposure and the idea behind potential exposure is universal precautions. Universal precautions mean that we assume that everyone and everything is a potential source of exposure until proven otherwise. Now, if you’ve only been in your house with your family, if no one else has or gone, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, there’s zero chance of exposure and there’s new information that says, Hey, maybe it’s not as, you know as vigilant or virulent on, on surfaces as we once thought it was.
(15:05):
Okay. Again, err on the side of caution. We’re not talking about, you know, the sniffles here. We’re talking about something that can potentially be life and death for you and we must act accordingly. Okay. So it’s like, well, if I go in the cage with the alligator, am I probably going to get eaten or I don’t know if I’m probably going to get eaten. It probably depends on the alligator. Probably depends on what kind of mood he’s in. Probably depends on how hungry he is. Probably depends on how attractive as a food source you look to him. But could you possibly get eaten? Yes. Okay. So same thing with covert 19, err on the side of caution. Take universal precautions. Trust yourself. And, and you know, again, we’re going to hear a lot of things like even this thing about surfaces. Okay. It’s encouraging.
(15:55):
Okay. It sounds good. Okay. But some of these things get reported without having been, you know, fully, fully, fully tested without being fully, fully, fully proven without the results being fully, fully, fully realized. And with that in mind again, just err on the side of caution, frequent hand washing remains in place. You know, masking if you go out to a place where you will be unable to socially distance. Again, you know, I think it’s, I think it’s going to be different depending upon where you are. Right now I’m in Santa Monica, California where I’m pleasantly surprised to say, and this is part of my kind of evolving thought process on this, but I’m very happy to say that there’s a lot of space here. The density of people together is much less when people are out in public. They are definitely being you know, they are definitely being respectful of each other.
(16:57):
So if two people are coming towards each other, they get as far apart as they can. If there’s not room for two people to pass on, I’ve seen one person stop. It’s a little bit different in New York. I mean, in New York you cannot avoid people in the same way that you can here. There’s not as much open space and, you know, new Yorkers are new Yorkers as we are for better or for worse. And you know, in New York, what I find is that there’s a complete dichotomy of philosophies, which is that there are the people who are super militant. As far as you know, as far as like, I’m going to wear a mask, I’m going to glove, I’m going to make sure I socially distance, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And then there’s a smaller cohort and these people aren’t going to mass no matter what.
(17:43):
And it’s almost like they want you to know that they are not gonna mass no matter what. It’s a crazy world we’re living in right now. Okay. And as opposed to trying to convince everyone on earth of what I’m saying. I try to make the case and to many people, no matter how much logic or science you introduced to them, the case will not be made. And so I will stick for the most part with our community. And as I’ve said over and over again, our community of older, more experienced individuals, people with chronic respiratory diseases, people with chronic cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases. This is our bread and butter. Okay? We’re actually more prepared for this than anybody else because we are used to protecting against the flu. We’re used to protecting against the common cold. We’re used to protecting against pneumonia, were used to protecting against exacerbations of our [inaudible].
(18:42):
So for us, this is just another day, okay? Other people, it’s a bigger, a bigger adjustment, okay? But we must take care of ourselves. We must make good decisions, keep diligent, keep strong, keep tough, keep boot camping, watch webinars do things that are going to be positive for you instead of feeling that you’re stuck at home, keep in mind that you’re safe at home. And then the other thing is use this time for something good, okay? There’s absolutely nothing that you know, warrants absolutely nothing that you know, mandates that you have to sit home watching Netflix eating pound cake, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Think about that book you’ve always wanted to write. Think about that novel you have in, you. Think about that screenplay, paint, plant, garden, whatever it is that you want to do. Think about how many times in your life you’ve said to yourself, I would really love to do this, but I just don’t have any time.
(19:50):
Absolutely helps someone else who may need it. Okay. We are producing a series right now that should be ready in the next couple of days on people’s experience with Kobe. And I can tell you it is nothing short of riveting. We have a 20 year old girl who had a vicious case of coven that Marian and I managed at her home in New York city. But real tough case. We have an ER doc named dr Karen’s Deville who also became a cobot patient, required a ventilator. We have a New York times reporter who also had coven. We had one of my CLPD patients who had covert, we have a pulmonary fibrosis patient who has Covin and you know, a lot of times I’ll hear a comment like, Oh, I have CLPD I know if I get cobot I’ll never make it or I have pulmonary fibrosis.
(20:44):
I know if I get covert, I’ll never make it. Not necessarily so, but if you think about the health wealth provided by ultimate pulmonary wellness again, the more reserve you have in the bank, okay. The more health wealth you have in the form of having the right doctors, taking the right medications, taking those medications properly exercise, nutrition, specifically pulmonary nutrition, managing your stress and anxiety and prevention of infection. The more you do now, the more prepared for battle you will be in the unlikely event that you contract. Kobe, what is my view of face masks? My view of face masks is that if you’re going to be out in public, if you’re going to be in a place where you’re going to come in contact with other people, that you wear a face mask. Absolutely. Okay. And you know, there’s a lot of debate about face masks and there’s this concept of when I wear it, it’s to protect you.
(21:45):
When you wear it, it’s to protect me. You know, so for me I don’t want somebody in my face anyway covert or not. Okay. And if somebody’s going to cough in my face and he’s in my face, if there’s a chance that I’m going to get any type of blood or body fluids in my face I’m going to mask. Okay. Because guess what, I don’t care for protect me or not. I’d rather have something, you know, come on to a mask that I can remove then come directly onto my face. I’ll give you an odd example. And I say an odd example because it seems like these things kind of always happened to me or I kind of always seem to be like four feet away when these things happened. But yesterday I was in a situation where I had, I had seen an accident where a woman had fallen on the floor and was injured.
(22:35):
Okay. So you know, so coincidentally, I mean, there were a lot of coincidences about this, but you know, when I travel or when I’m around, I have multiple face masks with me. Okay? Why? Because guess what, I have a mind, right? But I also carry you know, 20 other ones so that if I’m sitting someplace or I see somebody that might need one where I want to protect myself from them, I can hand them out at will, not a vog mask. But certainly the surgical masks eye glasses or goggles. Absolutely. So, again, essentially we’re trying to protect our mucus membranes. We’re trying to protect our mouth, our nose, our eyes. So what happened yesterday was I heard someone screaming and I came out and I saw this woman who had fallen on the floor. Okay. So the first thing I did was you know, I wanted to help her but I didn’t necessarily want to have to expose myself to anything in the process.
(23:35):
I didn’t know her, I’d never seen her before, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Luckily, I had more masks with me besides just the one for myself. So I wasn’t wearing a mask at that moment. First thing I did, I got a bunch of masks, put on a mask myself, gave her a mask. She was with her husband gave her husband a mask. I said, would you please put this on? I want to help you, but I want to be protected. I want you to be protected. My mask is on, her mask is on. Now. His mask is on. Okay. So I was able to, and again, it’s not like my first choice of, Hey, I want to get close to somebody, but I’m also not going to leave her sitting on the floor. So, you know, I didn’t have gloves with me at the time, but that’s okay.
(24:16):
Examined her, had my mask on when immediately, you know, washed my hands after I was done with her. But essentially what we were able to do is we were able to get her up, get her into a chair. I was able to do a full exam and coincidentally she had just come from the supermarket and in her bag like her bag was still on the floor. So after I had gotten her into a chair, I said, is this your bag over here? And I happened to notice that some of this stuff had fallen out of the bag and one of the products that fell out of the bag was frozen Mac and cheese, frozen Mac and cheese, so perfectly able to ice her knee with this frozen Mac and cheese. And she was okay. So long story short, she was able to go on her Merry way.
(25:05):
But the idea is for me, even me wearing a mask, I don’t necessarily want to get, you know, I didn’t have a face mask. I didn’t have a shield, I didn’t have anything other than a basic mass. But by me covering, by her, covering, by her husband, covering that protects us that much more from coming in contact. And that’s the thing that you need to think about. Okay. Same thing with your home, right? Like I get a lot of questions from people about well should I let someone in my home, should I let my should I let my cleaning lady come? Right. And that’s a big question, right? So the question is you know, should I let my cleaning come up? Well, how does she get there? Does she come on the subway if she comes on the subway? Well that’s a super source of exposure.
(25:56):
If she’s coming from cleaning other houses, that’s a super, well, not as much as the subway or the bus or public transportation, but these are potential sources of exposures. And one thing in that, in the same way that we want to protect our home and we want to protect ourselves, part of protecting your home is being prepared for other people to enter your home. So, same thing, like when I’m out and about walking around, I can’t tell anybody else what to do. I can ask them what to do. And I can also make it possible for them to do it. And like I said, so somebody’s going to come to my house. I will have disposable masks. Okay. I’ll have a bunch of a disposable masks that I can offer to people because I, somebody can come in with own mask
(26:44):
And I don’t know you know, I don’t know. Their mass could be filthy, right? Maybe they didn’t change their mask in a month. Okay. So by me having the gloves available, like I can’t say, Hey, you have to get your masks. But if I want them to wear a clean mask when they’re in my house, if I want them to wear a clean gloves in my house, right. Because you don’t want somebody putting on a pair of gloves that they’ve worn and you know, 20 other people’s homes. But I can make that stuff available. And when you buy a box of, you know, 500 gloves or a thousand gloves, or you buy a box of 50 masks or a hundred masks, that things are pretty cheap. And if you think about it it’s like a Bulletproof vest. So I said to you, you know, Hey, somebody’s going to come in and they may be shooting.
(27:31):
How much would you pay for that Bulletproof vest? Well, this pales in comparison. Okay. Question. Why to my doctor’s office to say that they cannot require patients to wear face masks. Our main ARDS and Costco stores will now, I don’t know. And you know what? First of all, I first of all, don’t agree with that. I think it’s like, this is my place. And you know, it’s not a democracy in my place. So in other words, if, if you come to pulmonary wellness and you know, we’re not open yet and I don’t know when we’re going to be open or if we’re going to be open. But the idea is if we set up a rule that everybody who comes in here wears a mask, you wear a mask. We can’t force you, but we don’t have to let you in. You know what I mean?
(28:17):
It’s like closing time. You don’t have to go home, but you don’t have to, but you can’t stay here. And the other thing is, you know, there’s this kind of bullshit and I do say it’s bullshit. Okay? And it’s not bullshit in every situation, but there’s this thing where they say, well, you know what? You can’t make me wear a mask. I have a medical condition that doesn’t allow me to wear a mask. And HIPAA doesn’t require me to tell you what it is. Okay? I’m not saying that’s complete bullshit. Okay? But to me, if that is your and I know what I’m going to say is going to be a little bit controversial, but here’s the thing, the good of all and the good of the many always comes ahead of the individual. So in other words, you know, for the people who believe that it is their staunch right or that their rights are being violated by asking them to wear a mask, that to me is confused thinking, okay.
(29:20):
So to me, the people who want the, the right or don’t want their rights you know, they want the choice. They should have the choice not to wear a mask. And it’s coincidentally not to get into a giant political discussion, but this is how I feel. Okay. the idea is that you are, you believe that I don’t have the right to take away your choice, not to wear a mask, but yet you don’t believe in that same choice for other subjects, right? So you believe in your right to take I mean pro-life. Let’s just say it like this. Okay? Not to get crazy political, but pro-life is wearing a mask. Pro-Life is where if you’re a pro, you will wear a mask. Okay? It’s that simple. What do you say to your doctor when you walk in and he does not have on a mask or gloves?
(30:10):
Do we insist? First of all, a doctor who is not wearing a mask and gloves these days is just an asshole. I’m sorry to say it like that. Okay. But you know what, why would a doctor, if even if, okay. Not everything that I do is for me and not everything I do is because I think I should do it. And not everything I do is because I’m trying to protect myself. But if I know that me wearing a mask, okay, some things are just easier to do than to try to fight about it. Right? So as a physician, as a nurse, as a therapist, as anybody, okay. As anybody. The idea is that if I know that me not wearing a mask is going to make you uncomfortable, whether or not, okay, whether or not I feel it’s necessary and whether or not there’s even a likelihood of me passing something onto you or you passing something on, to me, patient comfort is important.
(31:20):
And if I know that it’s going to make you uncomfortable for me not to wear a mask, well then that’s reason enough for me to wear a mask. And everything boils down to relationships and communication. Okay? Being right all the time is less important than kind and empathetic and sympathetic, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And to me, any medical professional these days should be wearing a mask any time they see a patient, and they should be changing that mask in between each patient, in my opinion. Okay. Now again, I’m not talking about, you know, situations where there’s not enough gear, there’s not enough PPE, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But that’s the gold standard, okay? Gloves should never be used. Patient to patient, even masks should never be you know, used patient to patient, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
(32:17):
Okay? You get the idea. And to me again, if something’s not right, I take myself out of the situation. So if I go to a party and everybody’s shooting up heroin I you know, I leave the party, okay? I don’t say, well, everybody here is shooting up heroin. It must be okay. It doesn’t work that way. All right? So that’s that. Again, pulmonary wellness foundation, PE, pulmonary wellness.org. Thank you to those of you that have made donations to the foundation. For those of you that would like to please go to pulmonary wellness.org take advantage of all of our offerings. And I can assure you one thing that I know, like the back of my hand as compared to other groups, foundations, association, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, a hundred percent of this money goes right back to you.
(33:08):
And that’s it. Okay. Have a great day. My friends have a great weekend. Tomorrow at 2:00 PM Eastern time, there will be a support group. Okay. It will be led by Erica Mastro bono and it will be led by Beth Slaunwhite and have a great weekend. Everybody have a great weekend. What am I seeing? Planes? I don’t know. No, I’m not seeing any planes. I don’t know. I’m just looking around. This is what I’m looking at. Blue skies, nothing here. Absolutely nothing. No clouds, no nothing. That’s what happens when people stay home. This is what happens. People stay home. So that’s it. Have a great weekend, my friends. Okay.