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Welcome to Security Halt! Podcast, the show dedicated to Veterans, Active Duty Service Members, and First Responders. Hosted by retired Green Beret Deny Caballero, this podcast dives deep into the stories of resilience, triumph, and the unique challenges faced by those who serve.
Through powerful interviews and candid discussions, Security Halt! Podcast highlights vital resources, celebrates success stories, and offers actionable tools to navigate mental health, career transitions, and personal growth.
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Resilience, TBI & the Future of Brain Health: Kathleen Flarity on Healing the Warrior Mind
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What if healing from traumatic brain injury isn’t just about treatment—but about transforming the way we live, eat, and think?
In this powerful episode of Security Halt!, host Deny Caballero sits down with Kathleen Flarity, a military medical leader and brain health advocate, for an in-depth conversation on the future of TBI recovery, mental resilience, and the cultural changes needed within the military to prioritize brain health.
Kathleen shares:
- Her personal journey with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and its lasting effects
- How mindfulness, nutrition, and lifestyle play a vital role in recovery
- The critical need for community support and cultural change in how we approach mental health
- Cutting-edge research and innovation aimed at improving outcomes for veterans and first responders
- Why resilience isn’t just physical—it’s psychological, emotional, and spiritual
This episode is essential listening for veterans, service members, first responders, and anyone passionate about long-term brain health, military recovery, and resilient leadership.
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Produced by Security Halt Media
Let's do it. Let's dive in. I always like to say it's an in-to-moment, authentic interview with two people. Just it's like we're having coffee, just virtually. I got mine choked. And without further ado, Kathleen Flaherty, welcome, Secret Out Podcast. How are you today?
SPEAKER_02:I'm so good, Denny. Thank you so much. I'm honored to be here and excited to talk to you today.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's a it's truly, truly remarkable to find somebody in the field. You work at one of our nation's finest facilities for brain health and recovery. And I am just thrilled to have you on here because our 10th group guys are right there in Colorado. And whenever somebody reaches out, like, hey, I think I I may have TBI. And it's always a very, very um, it's always we minimize our experience, right? So guys are like, hey, you know, I did 15 years, only 15 years, five combat deployments, but only five combat deployments. I was a master breacher. Uh, you know, I I fall down. I think I'm I I think you called it vestibular dysfunction. You know, I can't remember things. I'm like, brother, you're you're like sending off alarm bells. Like you, you are 100% a candidate for Marker's Brain Institute. Like, please, you don't have to try to minimize your experience. But I am so happy that whenever the 10th group guys reach out, they're right there. They can go there. And the other thing, not to be so braggadocious about this amazing guest, is you're a service member. You've you've you know what it's like to go this and you've experienced this firsthand. Uh so we can go on so many different this conversation can go in so many different ways. But I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge that, yeah, this is for you guys listening at home or on your drive home, this is somebody who has lived the experience and is now at one of our nation's best places for your care. So that's why I brought her on. And if you want to go back to Broken Brains for her episode, please check it out after this. But uh without further ado, uh Kathleen, how are you?
SPEAKER_02:Thanks, Denny. I'm I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to have this coffee with you this morning and talk about how we're gonna make an impact and uh the world's a better place because we have influence, no power, authority, but we have influence. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:That's right. Often enough, uh, from my lived experience, influence is good. It can get you a lot of places. It has certainly helped me in my career as a Green Beret, and uh it certainly has helped in this space because when we can talk about things, when we can normalize the idea of getting help and going to a place, it gives people the courage to step forward and say, you know what, I deserve to get help. I deserve to heal too.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. And that's interesting that you say that, Debbie, because sometimes when our patients are here at the Marcus Institute for Brain Health, they don't think they've suffered enough. Somebody else needs that spot more than they do. And, you know, that's something that we make clear that, you know, you're here for a reason and we can help you and and you deserve to be here. Absolutely. Yeah. And that's because we're so, you know, people that choose to serve are so altruistic, right? They choose to put their lives on the line on the hand. Lives on the help me out.
SPEAKER_00:Lives on the line.
SPEAKER_02:Lives on the line for, you know, a cause, you know, to have that purpose and meaning in their life to to do something. And so somebody else needs it more, is what they think. But that's not true.
SPEAKER_00:I hear it all the time. And when I was still dealing with my thing, that that's kept me from wanting to get help. Somebody else deserves it more. Right. And it's it's such a complicated thing. We we tend to think, and these myths have been long propagated, that brain trauma only happens if you are in it, an explosion, an ID, a rollover, a big massive event. And certainly that that is where these things can happen, but that's not the only things that can cause it. But let's uh take a step back. Like, how do you find yourself in this space?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that was uh serendipitous. And I think that, you know, often, you know, God presents an opportunity and a door, and you can choose to take it or not. And so a little bit about my history. So um I have I'm the executive director of the Marcus Institute for Brain Health, and then helped co-found the CU University of Colorado Center for Combat Research with Dr. Vic Babarda. And because we, as a general officer and as a commander, I would also often look at how the research was done and what how it added to the gaps, and it didn't. It often was research for research's sake. And so, and then also it frustrated me when somebody would say go do, and I'd want to look at the science, and there's no science behind it. They just wanted to say we're doing something right. And so that was the impetus for getting that started. And it's been um partnership with about 30% of our primary investigators are active duty, and we're really filling that gap. So, because of the success of that, I was asked to take over the Marcus Institute for Brain Health. This was last February. And at the time, and I know you know this, Denny, but I have had a traumatic brain injury at the time, by what happens at the time, you know, it's labeled as mild, but you know, with my, I know it was moderate. And I'm still on that healing journey. And so when the chancellor asked me, I really didn't feel that I was capable, that I, you know, that I really had, I was concerned, right? Because we know all the chinks in our armor and we don't share those. And so, but I thought, you know, this is a one in a million opportunity to lead a purpose-driven that if anybody in the world will give me grace, it's the people I'm gonna work with here because they understand it. And so even though I didn't feel I felt incompetent and incapable, and I, and I was still so struggling with my own negative impacts, as you know, it's every aspect of your life of daily living to relationships and all the way along that that gamut. And um, but I thought I could, I had something to give, and it really has been exactly where I'm supposed to be, exactly doing what um what I'm doing. So it it has been a gift in many ways.
SPEAKER_00:And what if if you don't mind me asking, what happened?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, the interesting thing is 41 years in the military ride, 23 years air medical evacuation, met medic to Air Force General, 2,800 uh jumps. And um I get my my traumatic brain injury from driving onto campus. Rain was pouring, the cars all stopped, and I give great following distance and was able to stop. Um, and then a car behind me, uh, reported by the state patrol to be hit traveling 65, 75 miles an hour, didn't stop. So low impact, crushed my car, crushed their car. And the unique thing about it is it popped my car up on its nose and then spun it around. So I have like a really unique twisting of both my brainstem and my brain in there. So like I have more generalized instead of one part injured. Um, so here I am on the journey, right? It's like everything, you know, it's like the wellness practices or anything you're working through. It's a path to, you know, it's a journey to recovery. And nothing happens fast enough for us, right? We want to be better today. We want all that back to, you know, optimal brain peak performance today. And it's hard work. It's hard work.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, yes, it is. And it's not like the one thing that that's unique in this story that I'm just only now starting to understand as I'm learning and interviewing more people, the impact of your injury putting that that jarring and rotation and impacting the brainstem.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:Something we we only look at, it's funny when we see diagrams, when we're starting to piece things together and we want to get involved, we want to get a better understanding of our own health journey. We see all the diagrams in little short videos, and the impact's always just like you know, the the frontal lobe, and we're yes, how coop, frontal coop, very traditional.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:That's not the only thing, guys. That's not the only thing that happens. You're a living, breathing, human, giant robot mesh suit that moves around, and that brain inside your skull is being impacted in different ways, and that brain stem is also very, very fragile. So, like when you think at when you think in terms of the way you're jumping out of an airplane, the way you have a downwind landing that doesn't go right, and you're you're a free fall guy, and you hit and you scorpion, like your brain's impacted, not just in the front, where you're seeing the the anime, the animation, and when you Google it, it's in so many different ways. And your recovery isn't, we don't get the most groundbreaking truth trickled down to the to the front lines. I was still dealing with the idea of like, oh man, like I didn't have the protocols. I wasn't in a quiet room with the lights off, like, oh man, like now we know that it's it's all about movement, it's all about you know, nutrition plays a role in it. And now we know more importantly, it's not just one thing, it's the repeated exposures. Like, how did you go about your healing journey and how where did you start? Were you able to rally around? Was your family able to rally around you because you're a high achiever and get you to slow down in order to like get those first few months of like care?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I mean, that's the hard piece, right? Because as a high performer, right, and so many with our military service members and veterans and first responders, that's what we see at the Marcus Institutes, they're so used to being such a high performer. So, like, even, and you know, they call it the invisible wound because on the surface, you look fine. This conversation, if I didn't tell you, you know, for an hour, I can be a high performer and you wouldn't even know. But for them to go from here to here, you know, that distance is it's hard. And for me, I couldn't drive. My speech was very negatively affected, my word finding, my cognitive functioning from all levels, from memory to retention to being able to retrieve things. And it was hard because one, as a general, you think I'd have beautiful VAKR. I do not, um, as a retired general. And then for me, just finding like the I call them the ringleader, somebody that really understands TBI that can get this integrated team, you know, because you one discipline is not going to do it. And I first started with a cognitive speech language pathologist who I could do this, you could do it for me, got a book out, and it was Ling Ling and the lucky cricket. I had to read this little paragraph. She went to another page and asked me questions. Well, I could even deductive reasoning, like I could, I'm like, she goes, where did it take place? And I'm like, I don't remember, but she had Chinese clothes on, so I'm assuming Chinese. So even our thinking, impaired brain is, you know, we're still trying to figure things out. And so it was, it was really, really hard initially until I found a really good neurologist that brought in vision and neuroPT and all the right. And then I personally, within our network of traumatic brain injury clinics, there's there's six of us. And so I went to the Haley Brain Wellness Center in Jacksonville, Florida, where it is like, yeah, so it's amazing, right? And it's it's the same model as here. We were the first one to develop it. And then through the Avalon Action Alliance, there's five other TBI sites. And so I could get that eval, and the same thing that we do here. It's every single traumatic brain injury is different, every single one. And one discipline will not fix it. So there's a psychological health issue. So it's physical, it's cognitive, it's emotional. As you say, body, mind, spirit, it's that whole piece. And if you did one unilaterally, you're not going to get better. And and I am just impressed with neuroplasticity, neurogenesis. And so it's not a death sentence. Even like, you know, if you have early cognitive decline and other things, there's things that you can do about it. And so for me, I am a fighter. I do still like so much work every single day. Um, I do neurophysical therapy, I do some cognitive uh work, I do transcendental meditation 20 minutes twice a day, because that is like non-sleep, deep rest. It really brings like my cognitive load and my energy is gone because the chronic brain injury sucks 60% or 50% of your energy, physically, cognitive, emotionally. So you, if when you're used to working 18 hours or 16 hours a day and now you're down to four, it feels so inadequate.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And so it's it's a horrible place to be. But most days I'm still optimistically hopeful because I know I can do the work. I've had that training, I have that perseverance. I'm gonna get after it. But you know, some days it's one step forward and two steps back. But to be surrounded by this amazing, integrated, co-located team and watching them change lives and impact lives. So to have on one campus, you know, the neurologist, the physical medicine or rehab doctor, neuropsychologists, neurophysical therapists, behavioral health, although my the 10th Special Forces Group and the young active duty want to call them a brain wellness coach. They don't like the term behavioral health. And I'm like, yeah, sure, we can do that. And then, like, we don't want it to be called yoga. I'm like, nope, still gonna be called yoga, but we will call it brain wellness coach because it's really that whole person concept, right? You can't treat things in isolation. And then the other thing I learned well is um because of my overstimulation, which is so bad. So, like to go to dinner, like something as simple as going to dinner, and everything's an event, shopping's an event, going out and you know, in a in a loud crowd is the event. So I have to do a lot of prep to it. So I will have to do my transcendental meditation before I go. I have my yellow earplugs to decrease the sin the stimulation. My noise-canceling earplugs, I have zofran, which is anti nausea, I have anti-nausea pressure point beds. I used to sit with my back to the wall so I could see the door. Now I can't do that because that movement overstimulates me and I can't be present. So my head is so busy with all these competing because of my TDI or priorities, I can't be present with my spouse or somebody that I love. So now I will sit making sure they have my six. I will like like like you, I'll look at you so I can see the plain back wall behind you and not the movement or the noise. But one of the things I learned is systematic desensitization. If I just avoid it, which a lot of our service members do, right? Because that baseball game with your kids is too much. You know, and the irritability, low frustration tolerance, the anger, which are, you know, hallmark signs, not just for traumatic brain injuries, but also for PTS. And it's often interwoven, right? Because we know the TVI alone can cause anxiety, depression, because now like every aspect of my life is negative. Like, how could it not possibly affect that? But we're warriors, right? We do the hard work. We step up to the plate. And when you tell us what's wrong, like here's your oculomotor, here's your vestibular, here's your cognitive, this is what you need to do with our team, with our help, with your family and support. This is how you can get better. And then we also bring in a lot of family. We give TBI 101s. The family can really understand what's going on, how they can help, how they can support. And so now my family will say, well, usually it's like, why don't you do a TM? Like as soon as I get home, the transcendental meditation. Because I'm exhausted, I'm depleted, and then I need to, I need to ration my energy, which is it's it's unheard of. Like that's not me. Been in the medical field now for 45 years. And before that, I was still going. And I'm still going. I just have to reel myself in and really focus on my wellness practices.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. You've hit so many points. And and I I want to take it back for a second to that hope and resilience. One of the key things that we we don't do a really good job of in this space when we're when we're injured, when we're going through these a lot of times when guys are going through, guys or gals are going through their their healing journey, you can get overwhelmed with the diagnosis, with that the wording, the phrasing of things. And then you tell yourself this myth of like, okay, I'm forced gum. I am not gonna be the high achiever I was. I am I'm never gonna get this back. I'm never and never, and that word starts happening, and then you lose hope. You lose hope of getting back to the person you are, getting back to the person that could could read books and could digest things and science internals.
SPEAKER_02:Like that's yeah, I'm a scientist.
SPEAKER_00:So I I wasn't able to read a book and retain retain information, and I couldn't focus on had to literally highlight everything, all the things I if I needed something, I had to print it out, sticky notes, all these things. I've read more scientific, peer-to-veered, peer-reviewed research now, both for school and for my own information, because I'm I'm doing shows where I have to have this information. Right. And I've gotten this still a student working on my master's, and the person I was when I was in the middle of my crisis, right, couldn't do any of this stuff.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And it was really easy for me to take ownership of this idea that I'm never gonna do this. But then somebody offered me mindfulness, and I'll never forget it. I talk about this all the time. It was the Intrepid Spirit at Eglin Air Force Base. I forget the name of the doctor, but she told me, hey, we might not be able to do much for your chronic pain. We might not be able to help immediately with all the things that you're going through. But we have a mindfulness instructor, and we might be able to get you in there and start working on mindfulness. And I was so rude and so arrogant. No, fuck that. I don't want mindfulness. I want you to do something for my pain, for everything that I'm going through. How dare you offer me this stupid meditation? Flash forward two years from that day, and I was getting my certification of mindfulness because sometimes what you need, and and my first job out of the military was a mindfulness like practitioner, integrated practitioner. Like being able to teach and give it back because I realized sometimes you have to stop, you have to reflect where you're at and just understand that, like, okay, I have to radically accept this. I have to sit here with this. I don't have to think about it every day. I have to acknowledge it and let it move. Just it will dissipate. The pain you're going through, it will dissipate. But more importantly, what you're going through in this journey, you have to find hope. You have to find hope that you're going to get through this and you're going to be fine. Like, regardless of what you're going through and every little step, whether you know you're you're sitting in your first appointment or your very last one, like you gotta have hope. How did you find the ability to cultivate that hope and make it part of your day-to-day practice? And how was your mindfulness journey? How was how did that meditation start for you?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Well, I I love that for you, Denny, because uh, you know, at first you you don't appreciate the value, right? And we're high ops tempo, so our brains are you know busy. So say sit for 20 minutes, it's like, you know, that's crazy, you know, that's crazy talk right there. But I um I had a really hard deployment in 20 um 11. I was the commander of the um that one right there of in Bagram, Afghanistan of the air medical evacuation squadron. So I was responsible for all the um air medical evacuation teams and all the critical care transport teams, and I flew a lot of combat missions myself. And so as a leader, I noticed that I was having more symptoms, not just because of the, you know, triple MPTs and the things that I cared for, and I put 150% into anything that I do, but also because I watched my team suffered. So I actually started uh spent time with a world-renowned traumatologist. So, how do you work on that resiliency? How do you build it, especially in medics, right? So compassion fatigue is like PTSD for healthcare professionals. The signs and symptoms are exactly the same. And initially, you they used to say to have PTSD, you had to experience it. Now the diagnostic statistical manual, the newest one out, says by witnessing the pain and suffering of others, you can also get it. And so I started an intervention on um, called it passion and practice, because I think you need to apply all these things, not just professionally, but to personally.
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SPEAKER_02:And so I had been doing well my own personal wellness practices well before my traumatic brain injury. So I was lucky because I include my personal well-being in my definition of success. So if I do things that nourish me, I'm gonna bring a better leader, partner, father. Oh, I'm not a father, but mother. There's that word fight. Um, mother and all of those, those, um, those pieces, like I'll bring a better version of me forward and then communicating that to people I love. So a simple mindfulness uh technique. And I do group sessions with our patients that come through here at the Marcus Institute for Brain Health, this intervention that I've taught to 35,000 people and I've done six research studies on. So I know that it works. And one of them is the mindfulness that you talked about. So we I give immediate actional interventions, some that can take two to three seconds, some that take a little longer. But as you feel yourself up-regulating, as you feel you're, you know, reacting instead of responding, to do those in the moment meditations. And one that I use a lot is as a professor in emergency medicine, it when we see patients, we wash our hands before and after. So especially during COVID, I use that time because you're so busy to to put in those minute meditations throughout the day. And so we'll just say I had a difficult inter interaction with the patient. So I'm washing my hands in the in their room. I'm taking the breath work. And we know scientifically grounded, evidence-based, there's a lot of tools out there. I breathe in peace and exhale calm. So I'm set going from fight or flight or per uh sympathetic dominance to parasympathetic dominance. I'm feeling, and usually if you do something audible or tactile, that helps. And so as I'm doing this deep breathing, I'm feeling the warmth of the water. I'm washing my hands, I'm feeling the sensation of the soap. I'm recognizing I did my best for that patient, and my best is good enough. Now, how wonderful for that next patient or that next interaction with somebody I care about to be downregulated instead of upregulated. And we don't, what we don't recognize is 20 to 30 times a day, people will get that biochemical surge of these epinephrine, norepinephrine, which is adrenaline. And that's our normal pace. And we're used to it. And so part of it is we are high so hyper-vigilant all the time, we don't even know that we're walking around in this upregulated state. And that upregulated state is really the base of your the um brainstem, so the lower part of your brain on fire 24-7. And so, like when I talk about my intervention, I and I've done it from small groups here, like our cohort of nine to uh 2,000 people. And and I can go across the crowd. How many people from a show of hands have have difficulty sleeping? Falling asleep, staying asleep, waking up early. This is not just a military audience. This is across America and they'll rate, you know, 95%. It's because cortisol starts really high in the morning, helps us wake up, we see the bright light, and it should slowly come down by the end of the day. 20 to 30 times we get surge with this cortisol, that's a stress hormone that stays up for 12 hours. There's a reason. So, like the minute meditations, all the things that we can do in the moment, and the more you do it, and I'm sure Danny, you teach this a lot, the more you do that, when the world falls away and you're present. So, like there's nobody in the world right now besides you and me that being present just feels so good to both of us that we want more of it, right? And how do you how do you go after that? And so I was lucky that I had those practices before. And I'm I'm just purposeful and intentional about making sure I I take care of me. And so my personal well-being, you know, is in part of my success. And so I prioritize it. Yeah. So thank you for that question.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It it's important to change the culture and our view of this. Like it's all tied into it. It's the idea that we have to be upregulated and like put ourselves into fight or flight because we think that's what gives us the best performance. Like that's not that's not what's getting you into like we talk about flow state and guys mix this up all the time. Like, yeah, man, I'm getting hyped up. If I want to do good for work, I'm gonna get amped up like I would for a football game, like I would for a mission. I'm getting amped up. I'm like, well, that's that's not flow state, dog. That's just you trying to to surge adrenaline to go type some emails. Like, that's not what you should be doing.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. And one of the things we know through science, like I can take you and say, okay, Denny, give me something that amps you up. And it could be as something as simple as when somebody cuts me off in traffic. So somebody cuts you off in traffic, you are late coming to this podcast. You have this world-renowned, not me, somebody else, world-renowned expert waiting on you, you're late, right? And they cut you off in traffic. If you go to immediately to sympathetic dominance, which is the fight or flight, the part of your brain that controls emotional regulation, the part of your brain that is critical thinking, executive functioning, which we need. If I go work in the emergency department or somebody in the calm state, finger on a trigger, all those pieces where you need the big picture, you need all parts of your brain, the parts of your brain that control speech and language, so warranty is in broke as part of your brain, go out the window if we let ourselamp amp up, right? If we're in the fight or flight, there's that nice bell curve of a little bit of, you know, I'm going on this mission, it's good, you know, I'm I know I have the skills, I have that. But like continuing to go up where you don't, and I've had patients here that there's no place in the world a hundred percent that no place where they feel a hundred percent safe. Not one place. And that is gonna use up all their hormones, all the good things, because you have to have a place, whether it's at your home with the locks on the door, and you know, you know, guns, firearms underneath the beds, or whatever it is, but there's some place that you can downregulate and just be down regulated. But I will work, and this is not just in medical, because I do EMS and I do fire and I do a lot of other where they don't feel safe ever. And that is that is gonna use up everything. And you think of all the good things that you need for a good life.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So meditation can do that, and and mindfulness can do that. Walking mindfulness, just being present with the breeze and the and the and the trees and the light and the noise and the you know how it feels on your skin, it doesn't take you know hours a day. It just takes those minute mindfulness and and yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So it's it's important. The other thing that that we have to talk about more is the the successful approach to treating these injuries. When I was a young paratrooper and had concussions, the first thing that your first line of defense is your platoon medic. Yeah so the first thing they're gonna tell you is uh just take a knee, drink water, you're fine. So it's right off the bat, like, okay, that that young medic probably isn't gonna give you the best guidance. But then say you make it into the the you know the TMC, the True Medical Clinic, and you see a doctor that's a PA. At the highest, you'll get the PA, and he'll often time tells you, all right, take get here's a here's a 48-hour stay in your barracks room, you'll be fine. As we move on in our career, if you do actually get in front of a doctor, they might send you to one specialty, one specialist, and then you go see that doc and that provider, and then you'll go back a couple weeks later, maybe you'll get a referral to another doctor, but then at some point the patient, the service member gets frustrated and stops seeking care because the number one thing that he wants help for might be migraines now. He's getting a lot of issues with his vestibular balance issues, but it's always one provider, one appointment. The clinics are having the best success is when they treat the patient, the service member, as the primary mission, and you have a holistic care approach from a A whole different point of of attacks, different providers that all of them are looking at the service member as the main priority, the main mission. Let's talk about how you guys at Marcus Brain Institute are are bringing individuals to treat the patient from a multiple approaches.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Well, and I really think it needs to be that. And so often it's misdiagnosed. And the Joe Public healthcare provider out there does not understand the complexity of traumatic brain injury. And that, like, even to get like as if you see somebody, so what do you do for a living? Right. And so even by MOS alone, I know, you know, that those low-level cumulative blast injuries and the repetitive blast injuries, even if I know what they do, those questions are never asked. And so one of the things that we do uniquely is you don't have to have that one big TBI. By virtue of your job, we know you are exposed to, you know, these different things. And so through philanthropic, so I do fundraising, philanthropic support, we fly out military. So we take active duty service members, we take veterans, and we take first responders. And we fly into Denver, the university campus. We pay for their flights, we pay for their lodging, we buy neuroprotective and rich foods that we put in the house and they cook together. And so it's they uh they get this amazing integrated, co-located TBI specialists. So all of those disciplines that I talked about before. So when the patient comes in, they only have to tell their story once. And they have what we call fishbowls. So they tell their story to all these providers. And we've looked at their charts, we've interviewed them. We already know that we believe we can help them based and they've had their traumatic brain injury. And then we will design an individual plan of care for them. First, we'll evaluate them and say, yes, here's where your areas of growth are. And then we have a three-week intensive outpatient program where they stay with us for three weeks, and it's very agile. So, and and it's all those disciplines working together. And it can be a co-treat. So you might be on this machine that's moving and it's challenging your vestibular, but then you have a cognitive speech language pathologist asking you questions, making you do things, making you think because you can walk, but you can't walk, talk, and communicate, you know, all of that at the same time. Because your brain injury is just like, okay, where do my feet go? Where do, you know, and then they compensate. So I love having this. So we designed a special two-week program that we call since I've been here. It's called the Battle Program. So it's brain assessment and treatment tailored for lifelong excellence. Because I just don't want to just help them right here. I want them to understand what they need on this trajectory to not get dementia, Alzheimer's, CTE. How can you, you know, do the things in your life that you love, but how can you mitigate it and prevent? And I'm gonna go on just on a little tangent, but we can't do that in a silo. That's the, you know, the partnerships that you have with the people that you have and Bruce Parkman and Paul Scanlon and everybody in that realm, General Fenton, people who are interested in this realm and it's multifaceted. You need the research, you need the treatment, you need all these things, you need policy to change, reimbursement to change, the focus, the education. So it's it's multifaceted. But back to treating the patients here. We have this streamlined, compassionate journey from when they come from intake to discharge. And one of the things we do, we have all those validated tools, but I think as a patient, one of my the most important thing is what was my patient-centered goal? My patient-centered goal to somebody who's had a TBI will understand it well. To somebody who hasn't is I want to go to the grocery store without it being a big event. I don't want it to take all my cognitive, physical, emotional load just from the overstimulation and have to rest before and after, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And so we do the validated tests are great. That tells us we helped them, they got better, they started this trajectory. And as you said, they got hope on, they know what's wrong. So it's not just this, well, you'll be fine, or you got to live with it, but like you got the hope and we have a plan. We have a path on how to heal. So it's huge.
SPEAKER_00:That's it. That's that's one of the things that a lot of us don't get when we don't get access to a treatment center with multiple integrated practitioners, multiple modalities. Yeah. They're just aimed just at you.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_00:And that's a frustration I hear from a lot of guys. Like, yeah, I went to the TMC and they said that was fine. It's like, dude, you're not fine. Yeah. The TMC has a PA. And yes, the PA is great for you know helping you with a lot of things. But when it comes to comprehensive care for your brain and for concussions and repeated head injuries or head impacts, like they're not the best. We got to get you to a higher level of care.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. And no disservice to them. I mean, like, I worked, you know, emergency medicine for a long time. And I I know I didn't treat them well. Like knowing what I know now, looking back at early in my career, and you know, we've learned a lot. But like it's yeah, you've got a concussion, you know, go see your primary care provider. And, you know, we expect it's going to be better, you know, in a couple of weeks. And that's the whole everybody thinks exactly that. And also, like some of those, you know, primary care providers, every 15 minutes, they have to see some of. I can't even get a good history. Like, we take hours to get a good history here. So really, we're not and again, not intentional. They just don't have the the time or the expertise to dive into, you know, the symptomology and how then how to knowing how to treat it or what disciplines you need. Yeah, to get 32 hours of treatment in one week. Like I just remember early on, like one, I had to have somebody drive me to my appointment, right? And so it took a day whole day just for this one appointment. So I might have, you know, this doctor, this concussion clinic, and this speech, none of them talk to each other. They so if I'm I got really nauseated and threw up in PT, you know, but this team, our patients would say, You guys are talking to each other, and they're like, You're talking each other. So they know that I push myself too. One of the things we do as as you know, military members is we push ourselves too much. And what I've learned is I can't do that because if I push myself too much, I might lose 12 hours then because I have to rest. So, you know, just like push it enough, get my nausea to nine, but not throwing up and then let it back down. And then you do those, you know, those the things that we teach, those wellness things of how to downregulate, take that rest, and then let's get after the next thing because we want to get better.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. This episode is also brought to you by Precision Wellness Group. Getting your hormones optimized shouldn't be a difficult task. And Dr. Taylor Bosley has changed the game. Head on over to Precision Wellness Group.com, enroll, and become a patient today. Yeah, I do want to touch in on something that's now at the forefront of my mind trying to advocate and talk to guys, and that's repeated blast explosion exposure. It's at first a lot of guys were hesitant to feel like, come on, dude, like part of the job, like there's nothing wrong with me. I'm like, dude, like it is a serious issue, it is a serious threat, and that's where a lot of people are finally coming in to understand, like, this is this is the reason for my issues, this right here. Like, you can't just because you can't see the blast wave, doesn't mean it's not impacting you. How are you guys treating it and what are you seeing in the front lines, so to speak?
SPEAKER_02:I have a special interest in research in that realm for both low-level and then uh cumulative, uh repetitive blast injury. And so we are doing different studies looking at that. And one of my combat scholar, Corey McAvoy, who was a 19 Delta, excuse me, 18 Delta, um, and to be a scholar, it's unpaid. You work a lot, but you get a lot of out of it. He um was really interested in that and did one of the really early studies on it and looking at the different positions of the breacher. So we have more science coming forward. But also, if you think about, and I think about this a lot because every brain injury is different, but like how can we mitigate and protect? Because even like if you watch some of the the old videos of the mortarmen, right, that get their head in a certain position, right? Well, some of them they'd get their brainstem, you know, with the the blast. And so, so that's why they're all they're all different. And our numbers that for PSI is such a low number. I mean, even for me as a medic of what I've shot and fired, right, is a low number. So we need more, we need me more uh studies. And I have several studies that I have colleagues that are working on in the mice model. And so, like one through Corey McAvoy and James uh Meeburn in University of Washington and the VA out there is looking at what does that low level look like in mice? And then they're doing six months out. So not just immediately, but if you're having symptoms, like in the past, you know, that was just part of it, you know, you feel that percussion, you're like, oh, this is really, you know, and it's like, so I think from the commanders, like not we don't have to fire every round. I didn't need a hundred to figure out if I'm competent or not. So I think it's changing the culture on multiple levels. And I think it's figuring out exactly how in training, war's different, combat's different, but in in training, how can we prevent and mitigate? And I think it takes that the whole of community to get after that. And we bring in operators, right? And so for me, if you go to do science, you got to bring in the people that are experiencing it too, and then the the scientists. So for us, and it's very interesting because some of our in our battle program, they've never had that big TBI. Our first group was just the 75th Ranger Regiment mortarmen. And it's very interesting because their pattern of injury and their presentation is different than that one big, and they're small sample sizes, right? So we're we're we but it's still that anecdotal that it seems like the injury is more generalized, kind of like mine. It's not just this one part where I got hit or this one coop countercoop, but that whole more generalized symptoms. There's still things that you can do about it. And I think we individually and collectively need to make it better understood. And so I know you're probably going to uh Bruce Parkman's second annual brain summit in in Florida, but to bring those experts together and really figure out what's the gap in science, how can we fill it quickly, not 17 years. And what's our best science now so we can start doing things? It might not be perfect, but we know things enough now that we didn't know, you know, 20 years ago, 10 years ago, or even five years ago. Like in the last two years, we've learned more about repetitive blast injury, repetitive head injuries, that low-level cumulative blast injury. But for people, if you're having symptoms, and I don't know if I have so many ideas too, and uh like the the blast gauges that are out there. So in the emergency department, we have a decimeter that went to our radiation because we do a lot of x-rays with patients in the emergency department because they're so acutely ill or injured. So we're in there while we're doing all these x-rays. So but that would monitor it. So I know there's a lot of blast gauges out there, and I've talked to nobody about this, Danny, but what would it be like if you had a blast gauge that maybe like the old miles gear, when it's green or yellow, red, you're pulled off? And then what's the protocol look like? And then I know like the 75th Ranger Regiment, one of the things they're looking at is if you get a concussion or if you're having symptoms, they have gotten a um supplement package. So instead of saying to this, you know, 21-year-old um ranger, go buy$200 with a supplement, they are packaging it with their concussion or their symptoms and giving them those supplements that we know will help with uh brain health and decrease inflammation. So I think it has to be prevention, mitigating science, and education holistically.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. And the things there there are things right now in our military culture that we can stop and save our service members' brains by not doing it anymore. One of the biggest issues that I always saw as a as a as a young service member and was the amount of times you're on a range and there's nothing to do, and you need to expend something, ammunition. And then I saw it when I became a Green Beret.
SPEAKER_02:Yep. Turn it back in. You fire whatever you got, you fire.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly. You don't have to do this. You don't have to put people on the line just to shoot ammunition because guess what? Exposure isn't just we're not talking about anti-tank munitions as being the only thing, it's all of it, it's absolutely all of it. So if you're looking at it from a you know, the biggest munitions are the biggest threats, it's like, no, it's every munition. It's how you're going about training. And if you're thinking of putting somebody behind a machine gun to do an expend a spend X, it's what they used to call it. You're just expending munitions. Don't do that. It's exposure, it's blast exposure. Even at the lowest level, it matters. It does matter. You only have one brain. You only have one brain. So when you're thinking about whether it's more important to turn in that extra ammo or put guys on the line just to shoot nonstop for hours, remember what's more important human beings, humans over breasts. It's that simple. Don't do it. If we can change that culture, because I've I've heard millions of stories now from guys that were just like, yeah, we had pallets of AT4s and we were just sit there and we're told to shoot nonstop and until they're all gone. It's like, what the hell are we doing?
SPEAKER_02:Well, and how to incentivize it, right? How to change that culture. Because, like, as a you know, as a commander, maybe I get a special award because we we got expert on all these things. We hit the, you know, the bomb on target. We did all of that, but we did it with the least amount of ammo. You know, how about that kind of competition, right? Because then it you have the focus instead of like, yeah, yeah. That's great. I'm with you, Danny.
SPEAKER_00:It's just simple things, just tiny little things we can do. And remember that sometimes we can simulate and and prioritize just making sure people are proficient with the least amount of high-level munitions. Like it's we don't need to go out all day to get behind the 50, the 50 cal, and we don't need to spend an entire day on the mortar range going through thousands of rounds to ensure that our gun teams are trained. Like, figure out what it means to be completely proficient on a task and not have the exposure. And I think guys like Todd Strader and what he's doing and his community that he's building to bring awareness, that's doing more because more and more that we talk about this from the the guys are out now, it influences the current generation of young leaders. And they'll say, like, oh wow, I don't want my guys to suffer like all these other veterans are suffering. Maybe there's something to me making sure that I rotate guys off the gun line, that I put the right protective measures as a young NCO, as a young leader, like, and be willing to stand up for your guys. If you have somebody that's in a position of authority above you telling you that you have to do this, dig into the regulations. And here's the thing we talk bad about the military, but I will tell you right now, if you look into the manuals for the Carl Gustav for AT4s, it'll tell you how many rounds by position you should be doing. They're telling you to do anything more than that, dig into the FMs, dig into the manuals and say, hey, here's the data. Two to three rounds, standing, two kneeling, and so on and so on. Be willing to be able to do the research, find the information to protect yourself. Nobody else is gonna do it.
SPEAKER_02:Right. And that science will change. That's the best evidence we have right now, too.
SPEAKER_00:Yep.
SPEAKER_02:So just knowing that, you know, it and and that's another reason to stay on top of the ranks. That shouldn't change every five years. It should be we should be agile with it. As new science comes in, we should be able to lean forward. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:I think that's uh that's one of the things we have to. We're not right now, we're not at war. We're not we're not deploying. So take the time to lean forward and gather information. That's a mark of a good NCO. That's a mark of a good leader.
SPEAKER_02:I would say the other thing, and I know you you've touched on this, that you know, for leadership, you got to role model it, right? And so for me, it's a nutrition, and there's some evidence, especially within the NFL, that looks at like by the creatine. So we know that creatine is really good for the brain over the season, that comes down. So we optimize our nutrition for our gut health and everything, you know, our brain. If we go into that range, uh optimal brain performance, not performance, but health, right? Going into it, then we're gonna be less susceptible to some of the injuries as well. So it's like everything that we can do. So it's that multi-pronged approach. Just changing the mitigation is not going to do it, but then being aware that this episode is brought to you by Titan SARMS.
SPEAKER_00:Head on over to TitansArms.com and buy a stack today. Use my code CDny10 to get your first stack. I recommend the Lean Stack 2. Start living your best life. Titan SARMs. No junk, no bullshit, just results.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Take I I can take care of my brain. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. There's things we can do within our own that we're controlled directly. Diet and nutrition are a big thing. Um, and and it does, you know, bring into the discussion being uh, you know, being sober or being willing not to drink as much.
SPEAKER_02:It's a neuropathic, but it's so much part of our culture, right? The alcohol. And that is that's really, really hard because somebody will say, like, I will work out three hours a day, I'll take all these supplements, but I'm not gonna get rid of the alcohol. And I get it because, you know, 41 years in the military, that's part of our culture. It's social, you know, every event has alcohol, but I'm very cognizant that with my TBI that it is a neurotoxic. So I might choose to have a glass, right? But you weigh it, right? Because it's it's the risk benefit.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. Um and before we close out, I want to focus now back back to you and your journey. What are some uh, you know, we talked about the importance of resilience, important of hope, and some uh, you know, what are some other things in your life that as you're continuing, because it's a journey, it's uh like you know, the final destination, you get there, like, yeah, we're recovered, everything's perfect now. Uh, what are some things that you actively work on on a daily basis to ensure that you're doing the best for yourself, that you're putting your best foot forward to prioritize your brain health, your your resilience?
SPEAKER_02:And and that's the hard part because we're not wired that way, right? We're used to doing everything else. And so I'm blessed that this team will say things like, you know, our director of clinical operations, Irma, will text me and say, go home now. You know, can you work remote today? Can you so it's that team, right? And so, like, if I didn't show my vulnerabilities, and I will tell you when I took this position for the first three months, I told nobody other than my leadership knew because I didn't want one, I wanted to see if I could do it because I, you know, I took it as an intern because I wasn't sure I was able to. And so I need those, those things to take care of me so I can continue to give, right? That the purpose and meaning and serve this amazing team with it. So I exercise 30 minutes a day. I try to get something to perfuse my brain, to that, that to perfuse my brain. So all those things that help our brain, help our heart, our blood pressure, everything else. And so that, so I do all I do that. I do my minute meditations, I take vacations and I encourage my team to take vacation. And when they're off, I say I'm off grid. In the background, I might be checking a little thing. But I've had leaders when I'm on in Hawaii on the beach, this is military leaders, who'll be calling, texting, emailing that they need something. And at the time I would go do it, right? Because that's that's who I was. But now I have to be present. And so, Denny, if I'm going on vacation with you, I don't want, you know, and I this team is so amazing. They're gonna be great without me. And I am not a backseat quarterback. Whatever they did was awesome. Because I wasn't, you know, to to second guess somebody who's not in the trench with you making those decisions. And so I empower the team, they do an awesome job. And when I'm off, I'm off grid. And sometimes that's to go do something with somebody I love, or that might just be a day to rest, renew, and recover, because it, you know, it's a process. So I'm very intentional and personal about the things that nourish me in my wellness practice because even now, more so now because of my TBI. If I don't, I bring this person that I don't want to be. I'm short-tempered. It's not me. That's not me. And so I don't want to bring that person ever. I want to bring my best version. And I can't do that if I don't do my wellness practices.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It's it seems counterintuitive. I do it, I've, you know, I'm not the best at it, especially when uh, you know, you're trying to have big goals, big dreams, and deadlines and due dates. But really and truly, the absolute best way to live your life and to meet your goals, meet your mission, and and put the best product forward in whatever, whatever whatever work you're in is to prioritize your health and yourself. It really is. I'm saying it because I need to hear it, because I need to do it more. Staying up till 2 a.m., 4 a.m. isn't gonna help in the long term. It's not. It's not, regardless of whatever you're doing, aside for the guys and guys and gals, if you're still serving, if you're in the front lines, if you're in the fight, like, okay, mission. I get it. Everybody else, bring it in.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Take an eat.
SPEAKER_00:Listen to this.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And even that, you know, as a as a leader, there's gonna be days like we had we had the VA Secretary Collins here. So we had governor Jeff Bergman here. So we have some ops tempo that, you know, you're doing doing this mission, but then you're also doing so. There's a little churn, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But the days that you don't, go home. Go home early. You know, let's let's do that. Let's go have a picnic. Let's, you know, it's those things because some days your ops tempo are here. And sometimes, so you got to be able to take care of your people, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:And and I've always been people focused because mission takes you take care of your people, mission takes care of itself. And anything we invest in our people is come back a hundredfold.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. You have to. You have to be able to pour into yourself and then take a knee when you need it. Like life is it is not in front of your computer. It's not at work, it's with your family. And that's what you got to prioritize. If you can't prioritize yourself and your family, then you gotta look yourself in the mirror and realize what's really important.
SPEAKER_02:Well, and it's hard having that vulnerability and asking for help. And so that's two really of the gifts that I got from my head injury because I wouldn't ask for help. Right. I could do it myself, right? Or, you know, everybody else is busy enough. I don't want to delegate more. Now I have to ask for help and then give myself grace when I can't. You know, when I it's not where I want it to be, because I think that's real important. So, and I'm not going to be vulnerable. Well, now I am. I'm kind of vulnerable with everybody now. Woo.
SPEAKER_00:It's a strength. It's a strength.
SPEAKER_02:But before, you know, and I'm talking to your audience, you know, you have to have your community, whether that's three or five, or even one person that you can be, you know, nomass, vulnerable, honest with. I'm, you know, I'm struggling well today, or I'm struggling poorly, and how can I help? So you have to have that. You that's, you know, when you look at anything in resiliency, that that community is so, so important. So you don't have to show your chinkin army armor to everybody in the world, but there's people you just got to be real with to really to to have that resiliency. And if you can't, you you need to have that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. Well, before I let you go, Kathleen, how can we get in touch? How can we, or somebody that's struggling, needs help, how can they get in contact with you in a Marcus Brain Institute?
SPEAKER_02:Awesome. So the Marcus Institute for Brain Health, we have the website. So if you just look that up, we're also part of the Avalon Action Alliance, and our one of our team members does the first intake with everybody throughout the whole system. And so Avalon Action Alliance, can you can go there too. They also have a beautiful post-traumatic growth program, one-week program that really is beautiful. I went to that myself. They also have Warrior's Heart, which is drug and alcohol. So one of our sister organizations. And I found that if people go to the post-traumatic growth, they bring down some of their vulnerabilities, they open up for trust, and they even get a better experience here because they're ready. They're ready to do the work. And then LinkedIn, I we publish a lot of our stories, our research on LinkedIn so you can really see what we're doing. So follow us on LinkedIn. We'd love to have you and reach out for collaboration because we're better together.
SPEAKER_00:Heck yeah. I love that. Yes. Please, guys, do me a favor, head on over to the episode description, look at all those links. They're wonderful. I put them in there just for you. Go ahead and click them. Connect with Kathleen on LinkedIn, follow her, and please do me a favor when you're done listening to this episode, send it to a friend, send it to a family member that you know is probably most likely struggling with this issue. Because if you've served in the military through the GWAT, you need to understand that it is the signature injury of our combat uh veterans. It is, and uh, and it's not just combat, right? It's training exposure too that matters. So please share this with your friends, share it online. If you go up, follow us on Instagram, share the reels to somebody because you know it is something it takes, it takes a lot for our guys and gals to take it down that armor and be willing to say, I need help. And I've realized the more we talk about it, the more we share it in reels, the more we share it in podcast episodes, it does get to somebody who needs it. So please, if you're struggling with this, understand that this is something that will dissipate if you're willing to get help. You don't have to live with this forever. The resources and the help is out there. Please be willing to reach out. If you need any connections, reach out to me. I'll put my email in the episode description. Find me on Instagram, find me on LinkedIn, Denny Caballero or Security Help Podcast, whichever platform you want to reach me, I'm available. I will connect you to somebody. And uh please know that you are worth getting help. You're worth healing. And uh, we need you in the fight. We need every veteran. So don't wait, don't hesitate, get help today. Kathleen, thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for what you're doing. But most importantly, thank you for your vulnerability and your service to our nation and our veterans and continued service. You you're uh you're part of our warrior tribe that continues to lead from the front. And I am so grateful and honored to have you here today. And uh, I cannot wait to meet you in person and hopefully we can uh collaborate again in another episode.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. Thank you so much, Denny. This has been an awesome coffee with a friend.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. Thank you all for tuning in. We'll see you all next time. Till then, take care. SecureDob Podcast is proudly sponsored by Titan's Arms. Head up with an episode description and check out Titan's Arms today.
