Rising from the Ashes: How One Woman Redefined Her Life After a Tragic Collision

Amy Stone [00:00:03]:
Jody Hardy, welcome to Imperfect Adulting.

Jodi Harty [00:00:06]:
Hi. Thank you for having me.

Amy Stone [00:00:08]:
I’m glad you’re here. Are you ready for a fun chat?

Jodi Harty [00:00:12]:
Oh, I’m super ready. I’m always ready.

Amy Stone [00:00:14]:
That is very, very good. All right, so I begin every single interview pretty much by asking people what part of the world they call home. So share with us where you are today.

Jodi Harty [00:00:24]:
I am in an area called Edmonton. It’s in Alberta, Canada. And we at a high of minus 3 right now, Celsius, which is super warm for this time of year. But we still like our parkas.

Amy Stone [00:00:40]:
Very good, very good. I’m all the way down in super South Florida. We are the part of North America that is opting out of this cold freeze. We’re recording this in sort of the end of January. And so there’s snow in northern Florida today in Pensacola, but not here. We’re. We’re not. We don’t, we don’t. We don’t play that in Miami. We opt out. So that’s the way I want to.

Jodi Harty [00:01:06]:
Be part of that game. Want to be part of that game.

Amy Stone [00:01:09]:
It is, it is seasonally, the ideal solution is the snowbird game, which is to be here now, here in Miami now, and not in July, August, September, when it is 90 degrees and 85% humidity. So that is. That is very. That is. There is a really good reason why that is such a popular maneuver. So. All right, very good. So I’d love to learn a little bit about your personal background before we dive into the topic at hand. So if you could please tell us a little bit about yourself, like outside of work, but more like about, like who are the important people in your life that you might live with, your pets, that kind of stuff. Just a little bit of you.

Jodi Harty [00:01:51]:
Yes. So I AM A. I’m 44. 44 years old. I think about that. I have three girls, so college age, finishing high school next year. And then I have a forever four year old daughter, married, husband works away. So it is just me and the girls running the household doing the things. And I have a rescue pit cross who is learning manners. She is amazing. Her name is Blaze and I’ve had her for two and a half years. We’re her third home and she’s mine. She’s not going anywhere. She’s mine whether she likes it or not.

Amy Stone [00:02:39]:
Did. Did you start that as like a foster program or did you just adapt?

Jodi Harty [00:02:44]:
I, I just.

Amy Stone [00:02:45]:
We.

Jodi Harty [00:02:46]:
I found her and she found her. Yeah, I was searching for years and I saw her and like, that’s My.

Amy Stone [00:02:51]:
Dog, I have, I have several acquaintances that do fosters for cats and dogs and then I have more acquaintances that are foster fails that they go into it with the idea of fostering and it’s just, oh, look, I have more pets, you know, bring these all home. And I used to have a friend who was part of. There’s a thing called the cat network here. And we, because it’s tropical here, we do have a lot of feral, like a growing population. It’s a project, it’s a project to keep it in check. And I would always call this person who was part of this cat network and she would very patiently try to explain to me that she already had more cats than she could handle and she wasn’t just going to adapt every single time I came across these and I said, well, but you know, you could, you definitely could. So that’s the reason I asked. Okay, so I got off topic. But the back to the topic of the day. You proposed the topic of a collision and how that changed the path of your life. Does that sound like something you’d like to talk to me about?

Jodi Harty [00:03:57]:
Yeah, it’s something I always talk about. It’s who I am now.

Amy Stone [00:04:00]:
All right. All right, let’s do it. So quick timeline question to set the time frame. How long ago did this happen?

Jodi Harty [00:04:07]:
It will be seven years, February 3rd.

Amy Stone [00:04:10]:
Seven years. All right, so that’s a while. That’s you’ve got some hindsight and some distance and some experience since then. So let’s back way up, let’s rewind the clock all the way to before, before any of this happened and sort of set the starting point. Tell me like, let’s back super far. Tell me about you as like a kid back in like middle school and high school. What did you love to do? What were your dreams? What did you want to be when you grew up?

Jodi Harty [00:04:39]:
Oh, so in high, in middle school. So junior high here in Canada. Wanted to be a massage therapist. Was told I was too small to be that. So yeah, as a tiny little minute. So I decided, okay, well psychology then. So throughout high school I geared my courses towards getting my psychology degree. Did a year and a half of that and decided, nope, stats is hard, math is hard. So I took a year off, went and lived with family in beautiful British Columbia in the shoe swap and just enjoyed part time work there. Got my bearings around me, confidence back and then I decided to pursue my aesthetics career which then opened doors to massage therapy and then just the alternative world where my mom had been working and I knew of since 1996 but then decided to claim it as my own in 2003. So I love that.

Amy Stone [00:05:48]:
That’s like the thing that I love about because I love to talk to people about choices and changes that happen right in their path. And you are such a good example of the fact that it’s very rarely a straight line and so you made some changes but also you sort of circled back. It’s like you. I don’t know that I’ve ever talked to anybody who knew they wanted to be a massage therapist when they were as young as. I don’t think I knew that. I’m trying to think if I knew at that age what massage was like. I don’t even know if I. So I mean, maybe I don’t know, but it was a long time. It was way after that, before I was much older, before I actually had a massage. So that I definitely remember. And then to work your way back to that as part of the journey, I think that’s a beautiful, beautiful example of that. So that’s what you were like. So I also, I have talked to in the last 25 years of my life about every. Many, many people are surprised that when you go the clinical psychology sort of path that it’s research and math and science and lab report writing and not, you know, we’re happy for the people who do it. We’re happy for the people who do it.

Jodi Harty [00:07:03]:
But I’m glad that’s not my job.

Amy Stone [00:07:05]:
I just, I have, I know somebody who is back in school in her 60s and loved her first semester because it was all intro to psychology and all the theory and stuff. And then immediately when she had to take a research she was like, wait a minute. Yes, wait a hot minute. This is not what I thought it was going to be. So that is, that is very interesting. Okay, so now let’s fast forward. So that brings us, that gives us a peek into who you were. And now let’s fast forward to like eight years ago before, before the event. Give us a description of what your life was like then.

Jodi Harty [00:07:46]:
Oh, life was so crazy chaotic. So I was the do it all because my husband and I have never actually lived together. He’s always worked four hours, six hours away. So I had three young girls ages 11 and under and I was an entrepreneur of 15 years doing massage therapy. I had a three month waiting list. So I was very good at what I did. I loved what I did. I always say that it was my first love. I had plans to open my own clinic five Year plan. I did the dance classes, I did the swimming classes, I did the school drives, I did the volunteering. I was on pta. I did doctors, dentist appointments, ran the home, ran my business. We didn’t have any pets, thank God. It was. It was me. It was always me. And. And it was my second marriage. And so I was also managing, like, co parenting, learning how to vet, you know, the ups and downs of all of what, divorce and separation and co parenting, all involved, not in that order. And then moving and starting my career from scratch again because, like, you move locations, you can’t really take your clientele with you. So it’s just a lot. And I did it all. And I needed to. The only break that I got was if I did continuing education. So that was the break. My break was getting more education.

Amy Stone [00:09:18]:
Okay.

Jodi Harty [00:09:19]:
Like out of water.

Amy Stone [00:09:20]:
So you were in a really, really busy season of life. I can tell from the way you describe it. Would you say you’re a driven person, a goal oriented, driven person, or you were at that time?

Jodi Harty [00:09:31]:
Oh, very much so. Everything was like, how can I get to the next level? What do I need to do so that I can be set up for success in five years? What do I need to do for this? What do I need to do for that? Like, I was very, very driven for results. I’m results driven for sure.

Amy Stone [00:09:47]:
Results driven, yeah. And did you have any hobbies at that point, or was it all work and family? There’s no judgment in there because it sounds like a busy season of life.

Jodi Harty [00:09:56]:
Work with a hobby. Like I said, it was my first love. Right. So education was a hobby. Just. Just so much of that from, like, energy field working. I’m a Reiki master. Gonna go get my Karuna next month. So very much like anatomy and results driven, but also know the powers of, like, energetic beings. And we are spirit in this human life, and we need to coincide and coexist together to have a very cohesive life.

Amy Stone [00:10:26]:
All right. Okay. So that’s what life looked like. And now, now I’m going to ask you to share the story of the collision. Tell us what happened, which this is a story you tell, so I’m going to let you tell it. And I think we’re going to do something that we’ve never done before. On the podcast, you’re going to share some pictures. And as we go through it, for the people who are only listening to the audio, we’ll try and give a little description so that they can do it. But people can see it on YouTube.

Jodi Harty [00:10:53]:
Yeah. Absolutely. So I highly recommend you go to YouTube and see this, because not a lot of people understand how impactful and just exactly what happened just hearing the story. So it’s February 3, 2018, and we had just had a massive snowstorm, and I was supposed to be going four hours away to go see my husband with our youngest daughter, Marley, so that we could work on our marriage and so that she could see her dad more often. And our agreement was I would go up there every, like, once a month. He would come home once a month. So essentially we were supposed to be seeing each other every two weeks. And I was worried about the roads, and I told him I didn’t want to go. And he was a manager of a trucking company. Mike was an expert at assessing road conditions. And he said, jodi, the roads are fine. The roads are dry and clear. You just drive an hour out and you’re fine. And he wasn’t worried. Now, he was an expert at assessing people’s driving capability, and he was an expert at knowing what I was capable of. And he was not worried. So I decided that I was going to be a good wife and a good mother, and I was going to keep the promise that we had made to one another. Marley deserved to see her dad, and Mike and I deserve to have marital time to keep building our relationship and keep each other first. So February 3rd, came, backed out of the driveway, called him that we were on our way, And Marley piped up, she was so excited because she was a daddy’s girl. And she said, daddy, are you excited to see your favorite 4 year old sister or not? Sister, daughter. And he said, he sure was. And they ended the call saying how much they loved one another. And she was wiggling and giggling and so excited because she had a surprise. She was wearing overalls for him, and Daddy loved overalls, but they were for boys. And she was a girly girl, but she had found this pair, so she decided she was going to surprise him with her overalls. And that is the last conversation that I remember, okay? I remember waking up over my steering wheel and knowing not to move, and I heard a man’s voice, and it said, call my husband. Call my husband. Now, I must have given Mike or this guy Mike’s number because I heard Mike’s voice in my ear, and I asked him if it was Saturday, and he said, yes, it is, honey. And I said, were we coming to see you? And he said, yes, you were, sweetheart. And I said, mike, I can’t hear Marlee. I don’t know how she is. I can’t hear Marlene.

Amy Stone [00:13:50]:
Okay, so what we’re seeing on the screen is pictures of the damage of the accident. And now you’ve got some X rays, which is damage to you. So now I understand why in the intro when you talked about your kids, you very lovingly said forever 4. And I didn’t know what that was about, but. And I don’t know that I’ve ever heard it phrased that way, but I think it’s very, very loving way to talk about something is a tough topic. All right, so. Yeah, so show us some more. Some more. Some more pictures. What do you. You don’t remember it, but do you know from what people told you, what you came into contact with?

Jodi Harty [00:14:32]:
Yes. So do I have permission to finish? Because.

Amy Stone [00:14:38]:
Yes. Sorry I interrupted you, because I am shatterbox, and I apologize, but this is something you’ve done before. Go on. I’m sorry. Many apologies.

Jodi Harty [00:14:48]:
Yes. So I was in the icu. And I remember waking up, and I was in the neck collar. I was intubated. My hands were tied, so I wouldn’t pull out tubes or anything. And they would untie my left hand, give me a pen and paper, and I would write, mike, Marley, Girls. And then we get all the answers except for Marley. And then I would write, woke up again. And I would get all the answers except for Marlon. And the third time I woke up, I wrote in really big letters, Marley. And that’s when it was decided that I would be told. You see, they wanted to keep me in a chemically induced coma until all of my surgeries are done. So what you’re seeing here on the images is you’ll see my bilateral hip, so it’s nearly snapped right off from the femoral head. And you’re seeing the external fixtures that were holding me in place until I was stable enough for surgeries. And they wanted to keep me in a coma until all of these were done. And I was having none of it because all I could think about was Marley. Because inside I knew something was wrong. I knew that something had happened. And in my heart, I knew that she was not here. But my head was like, nope, no. Because no parent wants to deal with that. So I did need to be told. So the third day, Mike lovingly sat beside me. He could not touch me because I could feel the vibration of people’s breathing through my shattered bones, if they even touched the bed. And he told me that Marley had died instantly, that another car had hit 100 meters of ice, which takes one second to cross going the speed limit that we were going. And he came into my lane and hit us head on. So that is when I was told was three days later. And that is when I could rest and I could breathe and relax. And I had a decision to make. I could lay in my hospital bed and have everybody do the work for me and do nothing. Or I could implement everything I knew from the start of my alternative experience, which was 1996 to 2018, and get out of that hospital. And so now what you’re seeing is that I am titanium from the hips down. Literally what you’re seeing is like rods drilled into the center of the bone and pounded down into it to stabilize me. What the X rays that you’re seeing with the fixtures is three months later. So you can see that I’m still very much broken in some of them, that things are not healed. Bully. And that was three months later. And I was told to stand up for the first time.

Amy Stone [00:18:01]:
Wow.

Jodi Harty [00:18:01]:
I was non weight bearing for three months. These are just images of what I looked like on the outside. To get a really good comprehensive view of what actually happened physically to my body. Because it wasn’t just the injuries itself that I had to heal from. Because I had multiple compound fractures, multiple complete breaks. It was a shatter from the hips down. But I also had to recovery from the surgeries that were done to me that were drilled into the bone to keep me stable. That ripped apart. Well, cut into muscles, not ripped because.

Amy Stone [00:18:40]:
They make decision to put those right. Yeah, but those rods in. Yeah.

Jodi Harty [00:18:46]:
Yeah. So it was not long before I decided, you know what, I gotta get out of this bed. Because my two other girls were going home to grieve without me. They instantly went to go live with their dad. From a four bedroom beautiful backyard house to a two bedroom apartment. So my motivation for getting up and getting better was Summer and River, my two older girls, they predicted 10 months in the hospital and I was out in four because I implemented everything I knew from how the body heals with motion, to how the body heals with nutrition, and to how the body feels energetically.

Amy Stone [00:19:42]:
Wow. And so, and this picture for people who are not watching it is you on very much a load bearing walker.

Jodi Harty [00:19:51]:
Very much so. When they tell you to stand up for the first time, you’re actually not just standing up, you actually have a huge apparatus that they’re pumping up as you stand up for the first time. So like all of my weight practically were on my arms. And then they tell you to move and let me Tell you it wasn’t. I’m smiling because my girls were watching me.

Amy Stone [00:20:15]:
Yeah.

Jodi Harty [00:20:15]:
But inside, I wanted to scream because every movement was excruciating. And that’s, I think, where people get stuck. Whether it be physical pain, emotional pain, it gets excruciating, and you’re cling at the earth, wondering how you’re going to keep going. And that’s when you have a decision to make, whether you’re going to keep going and push through or whether you’re going to lay back down. Because I should not be walking without a walker. I should not be walking without a cane.

Amy Stone [00:20:50]:
I should not be able to do.

Jodi Harty [00:20:52]:
Some of these yoga poses.

Amy Stone [00:20:54]:
These are photos of you doing yoga. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I’ve never been through an injury like the one that you are describing here. And I think that it is very hard for people to imagine and understand how hard it is to deal with the pain. But when we talk about fear responses and stress responses. So, like, we talk about trauma and stress responses, pain is the ultimate stress response. Like, pain is there to tell you not to do things. And so that kind of extreme pain, to move through it and to say, you know, it’s every. Every cell in your body must have been screaming out, make it stop. Make it stop.

Jodi Harty [00:21:46]:
Absolutely. And to give context. So in the ICU, they started me off on 76 milligrams of opioids and ketamine and antipsychotics. So I’ve never done the math, because I’ve already said I’m not a Math person, but 3 milligrams of opioids is like 5 milligrams of morphine.

Amy Stone [00:22:08]:
Yeah.

Jodi Harty [00:22:09]:
So I was on 76. So not only was I recovering from the injuries and the trauma and the grief, physically, mentally, emotionally, but I was also actively working my way off of those opioids, which, you know, I understand addiction. I understand what people go through when they’re detoxing. I understand the. I understand everything that goes along with that. Because that is a whole other podcast in itself.

Amy Stone [00:22:41]:
No, absolutely. One of my. One of my longtime friends is on the very, very long list of Americans who is given opioids after an injury and followed it all the way down the path to very disastrous results and had to come back from it. And it is. Knowing somebody who walks through that, for me, shifted how I think about it completely because it’s crazy. The withdrawal is crazy. And he was on his own at home, and there’s, you know, it’s like. I mean, everybody’s heard this story from People all the time. But I will never judge people who struggle with that process or end up on a. In a place that they didn’t expect to be, because I think it’s very hard. Very hard.

Jodi Harty [00:23:32]:
Well, and I want people to understand, because I understand both sides the spectrum where there is nothing that works better for bone pain.

Amy Stone [00:23:42]:
Sure.

Jodi Harty [00:23:42]:
There is nothing. Right. And if I didn’t have the education that I had prior, I would not have known how to do better and how to work with it and how to move the body so that it actually could heal through that and then actively work with the pharmacists and the doctors to reduce the dosages, even though it is right. If I didn’t have that previous con. Not conversation education, there’s no way that I think today that I would be off a. All of my pain.

Amy Stone [00:24:16]:
That’s a. That’s a really, really good point. And I would say that most people don’t have that.

Jodi Harty [00:24:21]:
Yeah.

Amy Stone [00:24:21]:
Either. Either.

Jodi Harty [00:24:21]:
The majority.

Amy Stone [00:24:23]:
Either part of that. No, absolutely. Okay, so you were. So they put you in a coma because they were trying to keep you in a coma while they did the surgeries. They made a decision that while you were in the coma during your awake times, they were going to try and reduce the emotional stress and keep some of that information from you, which you said, no, thank you. Tell me, tell me all of the things. I think that’s an interesting part. So, because you have the energy working part of your resume, I think that’s an interesting thing. Because the connection between people, mother, daughter, mother, parent, child, parent kind of thing, it’s not something that everybody feels. Right. And it’s definitely. It’s off there. It’s out there kind of in the space. That can be kind of magic. Magic talk.

Jodi Harty [00:25:16]:
Right.

Amy Stone [00:25:16]:
Like, we can oversell it, but when my dad died years and years ago, I woke up in the middle of the night. And the next day when I was getting all the information, my husband was like, how did you know? And I was like, I. I woke up, I knew, I felt it. And. And as I was saying it out loud, I was like, is this person what to think? Is my husband going to think that I am cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs? Because, you know, like. And maybe he does. I have no idea. But when you said that, like, even through the haze, you had a shift in the energy that you felt between you and your daughter.

Jodi Harty [00:25:56]:
I remember still at the collision site, not being able to hear Mark.

Amy Stone [00:26:02]:
Oh, yes, you did say that.

Jodi Harty [00:26:03]:
Yeah, I. I wanted to call out to her, but at the Same time, I did not want to wake her if she was hurt, but I. The heart then was telling me that Marley was gone. And in my head, I was like, shut up.

Amy Stone [00:26:17]:
Right?

Jodi Harty [00:26:18]:
And I can laugh, right? It’s a giggle, nervous laugh. Because nobody. Nobody wants this. This is every parent’s worst nightmare. But mothers are connected cellularly to their children, right?

Amy Stone [00:26:30]:
We.

Jodi Harty [00:26:31]:
We do know when something is wrong. And, you know, science proves that we are connected to our children for life. They cellularly change us from our stem cells, right? And so this connection is real. And I learned in my grief counseling that I. I immediately started was that mothers will either feel the ache in their arms or they will feel it in the uterus. And for me, during that time, 76 milligrams of Dilaudid. The intense cramping that I experienced and then the bleeding that they told me that I was having, they would constantly ask me, like, are you on your cycle? Are you on your cycle? Like, no, I just finished last week, right? There was no rhyme or reason. For as bad as the collision was, I should not have had bleeding there. So, like, the cramping that I was experiencing while still in the ICU and asking my dad to put his hands on my uterus just for the warmth, right? Just for the comfort because my. My hip was broken. It could not handle too much weight. So it’s not like they could give me electric heating pad or water bottle, right? Like, it could hardly handle anything touching it, right? So just that alone. So we are connected to our children. And anybody who is listening that has gone through a child loss, you know, you’re not alone. And these things are. Are normal. They are. They’re. We’re designed this way to know when something is wrong with our children.

Amy Stone [00:28:07]:
That is really interesting. That is really interesting. I can’t imagine being that. I can’t imagine. The part of this that I think is really mind blowing is the. The huge amount of medicine. And also that there was still sensation and pain that you were not just completely, you know, completely impervious. That’s mind blowing. That is mind blowing. Okay, so you were. So, yeah, you’re in icu. You go through all of these very, very things. How long were you in the. You said you answered this already, but I forgot. So it was supposed to be 12 weeks of recovery, and you were out in how long?

Jodi Harty [00:28:45]:
No, no, no, no.

Amy Stone [00:28:46]:
I have it all wrong.

Jodi Harty [00:28:47]:
Yeah, well, you’re. You’re shortening the timeline a little bit.

Amy Stone [00:28:51]:
Okay.

Jodi Harty [00:28:53]:
They predicted 10 months.

Amy Stone [00:28:56]:
10 months. Okay.

Jodi Harty [00:28:57]:
Yes. And I was out in four.

Amy Stone [00:29:00]:
Okay, so you, how much of that was before you, before you got up? Like, before you were pro, you were flat on the bed for how many weeks and months?

Jodi Harty [00:29:11]:
So this is where, this is where it gets dicey because Marley. Marley needed funeral or viewing or something. And I wanted to see her. I wanted to see her one more time. And I write about this in a book that I’m part of, the girl on the left, about just needing to see her one more time. And so one week after the collision, I started practicing sitting up, you know, a little bit. Little bit, little bit. Now, I shouldn’t have been doing that. But she hadn’t been prepared correctly. And so she was deteriorating really quickly. And we had two more weeks and that’s it. So if I wanted, I needed to be able to transfer out of my hospital bed into the wheelchair if I was going to hold her hand. One.

Amy Stone [00:30:08]:
Okay, now, so your injuries, were they from the pelvis down? Did you have spinal injuries also? Okay.

Jodi Harty [00:30:13]:
No, no. This is life saving information. If you drive straight armed away from the steering wheel, you’re ever in an impact like that, your body is more likely to go under the steering wheel. People that drive with their elbows bent close to the steering wheel are more likely to go up and over. So that is actually what saved my life, is because I drive with straight arms, so I’m further back from the steering wheel. So I went under instead of over. And that is the only reason why I’m sitting here.

Amy Stone [00:30:48]:
That is really. That is, that is, that is crazy. That is crazy enough that I’m like tripping over my wrist. So you went into a wheelchair a week after the accident, but then for several weeks you were. The thing that I’m going through here is that your muscle would have been deteriorating very fast while you were lying in bed. Really does not take very long without movement.

Jodi Harty [00:31:12]:
Three days.

Amy Stone [00:31:14]:
Yeah, it’s like really like. So you know people who are, you know, people who are stuck in bed because of recovery, they. It takes a lot to get strong enough to move those big bones and in your case, titanium around. And so that’s, that’s what is there. All right, so this is an incredible story. And you are obviously a very, very strong person. You’ve said this a little bit here and you put it in the form because you tell the story a lot. You said that you could show your other two girls and the world how to rise using everything you knew. How to rise. I chose to rise. I want to give you a chance to talk more about that. Concept of rising. What is it? What, like, what does it mean to rise? Like, what was that?

Jodi Harty [00:32:02]:
Yes. So when. So it wasn’t just loss of Marley. Even though that’s enough in itself. It wasn’t just the loss of my body as I knew it. It was the loss of my career because I can no longer practice massage therapy full time or part time. I am not competitively employable as a massage therapist. I can’t sit too long. I can’t stand too long unless it’s, like, my favorite comfy, cozy chair, right? Because the legs just are not able to do it anymore. And then losing my marriage for a time. Mike and I actually separated five weeks after the collision. So I kicked him out and he never came back for a while. Right. Like, it was. There’s no handbook. There’s no handbook of, like, this is what you do when. Right. And as much as we were trying, it didn’t work. So I lost everything that I had formed my identity around you. Take away. I’m not a mother, I’m not a wife, I’m not an entrepreneur. I’m not manage. I have no home because we were renting and we decided, well, I’m not living there and the kids aren’t living there, so, like, save costs, right? Like, I literally lost everything. So it was grief upon grief upon grief upon grief. Layer, multifaceted layer. And to rise means that this isn’t it. I do not stay here. This is not my life. This is not who I am. This is not even who I want to be. No, I can’t get Marley back, even though I would give my own life to have her back. And I can’t get my own legs back. And I’m actually very grateful for the medical system because 50 years ago, they would have taken my legs. They’d just gone, right? Like, and then I’d be like, from the waist up, right? Maybe 50 years ago, I wouldn’t have even survived. Right? So the medical saved my life, but the alternative system propelled me forward.

Amy Stone [00:34:09]:
Okay. Okay. Yeah. No, I think that’s important to reflect on. That there were all those choices in there and that they were underneath and mixed up in layers of emotion. And redefining identity shifts, truthfully, are one of the things that we prepare people for. Not really at all. And the weird thing about that, as somebody who, like, has been through it some, not the same way you have, but everybody. The weird thing about is everybody goes through it. Everybody goes through it. And some of them are really well established. So, like, some of the really Famous identity shifts that people know and are aware of, and they know about how hard they are. Divorce and retirement. Right. Those are the sort of famous ones, the midlife crisis, those kind of things. But they’re in there. They’re all over the place. And so I just think that it’s like, such a disservice to humanity that we don’t prepare people more for it, because it would be really.

Jodi Harty [00:35:12]:
Yeah. One of the things I ask my kids all the time is, who are you?

Amy Stone [00:35:16]:
Yeah.

Jodi Harty [00:35:17]:
If you’re not a sister, if you’re not a daughter, if you’re not a student, if you’re not a girlfriend, who are you? You’re not a woman of faith. Because that’s what everything that we do, that is what we do. That is not who we are.

Amy Stone [00:35:31]:
Yeah.

Jodi Harty [00:35:31]:
And when. When you have something like this, you know, identity crisis. Right. You really find out if you’re brave enough who you are inside. Like, are you kind? Are you caring? Are you a healer? You know, I had so many people coming to the hospital saying, jody, I came to comfort you. And like, I’m leaving here feeling so uplifted, gifted. I wasn’t doing that on purpose. That was just who I was. Right. And I remember having arguments with family members and just saying, like, I didn’t just wake up like this. I am actually this person. Right. So take everything away. Ask yourself, if you’re not a wife, if you’re not a woman of God, if you’re not, you know, a pet owner, if you’re not, like, your favorite hobby, who are you in stock? Because that. What’s going to shine through 100 all the time when the shit hits the fan.

Jodi Harty [00:36:27]:
And for a lot of people that they don’t ever. A lot of people don’t actually experience a shit hitting the fan experience. Like, you are like. We are like, you know, yours is really intense. Yeah. But definitely, like, I mean, I see people. I. I see people go through it. I’ve gone through it myself. Like, so with hobbies, which is such an interesting thing, it’s like you become very invested and tied up in hob. Hobbies or in the parenting. Right. That’s a very famous one for women. And then the kids grow up and you’re like, well, who am I? And, you know, and those kind of things. All right, so, okay, so as somebody talks to people who. About changes that happen to them and changes that they make in themselves, which your story has both sides of that actually, the accident is definitely something that you didn’t plan for or bring into your life at all. It’s something that happened to you and you were reacting. We have the advantage that you’re on the other side of this. You have hindsight and you can do this. If you could go back to the 15 year old you with all the things that you have learned, not just in this, but since you were a kid. Right. Would there be a little bit of advice that you would give that. That version of you based on all the things that you have really evolved with this?

Jodi Harty [00:37:49]:
Yeah, I would say life will prepare you.

Amy Stone [00:37:53]:
Okay.

Jodi Harty [00:37:53]:
Life prepares you for what’s coming. I’ve had many life experiences. You know, house, floods, fires, divorces, everything that taught me how to deal with insurance companies and. Right. I had been in counseling since I was a little girl because of an abusive relative. Right. Like, so I knew to go to counseling right after. Right. Like life prepares you for what’s coming. And I’m a strong proponent that like you did not manifest this. Nobody asks for any of this. A child doesn’t ask to be abused. Nobody gets married to get divorced. Like, you did not manifest this. Life happened. Right. So what are you going to do? So life does actually prepare you for what’s coming. There’s no way that I could have done what I did if I did not have the life experience and the formal education that I did have.

Amy Stone [00:39:02]:
That is, that’s really, that’s really good. I agree with you on the manifestation piece. I really do. And there’s another piece of that that comes up a lot when I talk to coaches, which is the idea that we’re always in control of how we show up. And my, my asterisk for that is that I give everybody a pass right after something unexpected happens. And my, my. So you were in a car accident, so I would have given you a pass. Like in the immediate, your immediate reaction is simply a reaction. The one, this, the glib version of that that I always say is I’m like, you’re walking down the street and somebody punches you in the nose. You get to react like you, you get a pass. That does not count. If you like out of character initially is a response. It is an instinct. Not everybody agrees with me. I’m not saying I’m right. But that’s the Amy, you know, the gospel according to Amy. Like you get that pass right afterwards when something totally unexpected.

Jodi Harty [00:39:53]:
There’s actually research that backs you up for that. They have found under MRIs that if a parent loses a child or spousal betrayal will instantly cause brain damage. Really, really and it looks the exact same under an mri. And this is why they say when something like this happens, don’t make any major decisions in the first year because you are brain damaged.

Amy Stone [00:40:21]:
That is really interesting.

Jodi Harty [00:40:23]:
Have brain damage.

Amy Stone [00:40:24]:
So don’t cut your hair while you’re pregnant.

Jodi Harty [00:40:26]:
Yeah. Like concussion. Right. Like, what do they tell you when you have a concussion, which is a minor brain damage.

Amy Stone [00:40:32]:
Yes.

Jodi Harty [00:40:33]:
They say rest, disconnect, don’t do anything drastic. Right. When trauma changes the brain.

Amy Stone [00:40:41]:
Yeah.

Jodi Harty [00:40:42]:
Like so. No, I 100 back you up.

Amy Stone [00:40:47]:
It changes the brain and it also changes how information moves through our body. Like so we. We like. Which is really, really interesting because I love it when super modern science seems to back up things that people have been saying is like words of wisdom passed from person to person. It’s like it matches things that are really, really old. So I do love that. All right, so this was a really, really impactful moment. A split second in your life that changed a lot of things. Some of it you’ve talked about. You had a lot of support as you went through this. And so when we talk about support. So you had the medical support from the hospital and the doctors that you gave a lot of praise to a few seconds ago. You had the support of your now ex husband. Right. Who was there. Is that right?

Jodi Harty [00:41:39]:
No. Yes.

Amy Stone [00:41:40]:
Did you remarry the same person?

Jodi Harty [00:41:42]:
I have an ex husband for my first two children and then my husband that had Marley. We separated and came back together. We. We did a lot of grow. It took years. It did take years. We still don’t live together, but it works.

Amy Stone [00:42:02]:
All right, so he was there to help you through this. Your dodge. What other support did you have? Knowledge and education from your lifetime?

Jodi Harty [00:42:12]:
Yeah. So it was really, truly amazing. I was living in a small town at that time, so a small town where everybody knows everybody. And I’d only lived there for two years. And I was really trying hard to break into the community because it’s such a beautiful community. But to see how they came for me and my girl. I had already broken in and I didn’t even know. Right. And the fundraising that they did for my family, like, there. There is no way that I could have attained the therapies that I did after I got out of the hospital. Because in Canada, we have a health care that’s free. Right. So as long as you’re in hospital or if you have to go see a doctor, our tax tellers pay for that we don’t actually have to pay for out of pocket. But as soon as you’re released from the hospital, then like physical therapy, rehabilitation, yoga, rehabilitation, TRX or occupational therapy. Like we pay for all of that. Counseling we pay for. Right. Like all of those things, prescriptions we pay for if we don’t have benefits or insurance. So very different, but sort of same a little bit. So the fundraising that they did really enabled me to access the things that I needed for recovery, but also help buffer the financial burden of like still paying mortgage, still paying utilities, buying groceries. Like I, I couldn’t work, I could not work physically for two and a half years. And then that’s when I decided, okay, I gotta.

Amy Stone [00:43:43]:
Yeah, I love two and a half years.

Jodi Harty [00:43:47]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Amy Stone [00:43:49]:
That is. Wow, that’s a crazy, that’s a crazy amount of time. That’s it.

Jodi Harty [00:43:54]:
So even though like I was released from the hospital, I could only stand for about two minutes at a time.

Amy Stone [00:44:00]:
That part of it doesn’t surprise me.

Jodi Harty [00:44:02]:
That like, yeah, only do 27 stairs per day. Right. So there was no making meals for myself. There was no running errands, There was nothing. So I was very heavily dependent for like 9 months on found. Not 9 months, but like 9 months after the collision. And then I was able to live on my own, but I could only take care of myself. Like I still could not make a meal from start to finish and then sit down and eat it without extreme pain. So I only had my kids once, like on the weekends because I couldn’t, I couldn’t. Took two years for me to like, actually like, yes, I can take my kids back on 50. 50. Yeah.

Amy Stone [00:44:43]:
That’s an amazing amount of time that I mean the, the standing with the fractures, like that doesn’t actually. That, that, that I can see. I mean just, it’s so, it’s we. Okay, so when you don’t have an injury and when you don’t have something like that, the idea of the weight of your body being like a lot to hold up and like in fitness, right. In the fitness world, we poo poo body weight exercises and you have to lift heavy things, perimenopausal and lift heavy things. But the body all by itself is very heavy. It’s very heavy. And, and so to build back up to do that without the pain and you had all those surgeries which set your nerves on like super fire. I’m sure you had a bunch of phantom crazy things going on all over your body, which still do, still do. That’s the thing that nobody, I’ve never heard anybody say anything positive about that experience. And I just want to say that I. The closest, closest I ever had to was a root canal. And that’s. That’s enough.

Jodi Harty [00:45:46]:
No, I don’t do that.

Amy Stone [00:45:48]:
Yeah. All right. So you had an amazing amount of support. So the second part of the support that I asked people about, this may be a terrible question for you because you really did have a lot of support. Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, is there any support that you wish that you might have had? And the only reason I ask this, just so that for perspective, is not to like throw anybody under the bus, but for people who are like building their lives, you know, this is like forward looking advice. Like, this is like things you can do. So.

Jodi Harty [00:46:16]:
So I do have a piece of advice, but it wouldn’t be for things that I personally wanted.

Amy Stone [00:46:21]:
Okay.

Jodi Harty [00:46:23]:
I think when you have something like this, like, caliber of this or like even if you just lose a child. Right. Or like, I think that both parents should be committed. Right. Like, I was committed. I was in a re, like icu.

Amy Stone [00:46:41]:
Okay. So checked in for support.

Jodi Harty [00:46:43]:
Yeah. And then I was moved to a rehabilitation hospital for three months. Right. My husband had nothing.

Amy Stone [00:46:49]:
Yeah.

Jodi Harty [00:46:50]:
He didn’t have the doctors behind him. He didn’t have the psychologist behind him. He didn’t have, you know, the specialists that I had behind me because I was in the hospital.

Amy Stone [00:46:59]:
Right, right.

Jodi Harty [00:47:01]:
And so I think when something like this happens, that professionals need to rally around the parents whether the parent is together or not. Right. Like they need an intensive, for lack of better word, rehabilitation counseling program. Right. Because yeah, I had everything at my fingertips. Like, I was so lucky. I was at one of the best western rehab, Western provinces rehab hospital. You know, I was at the state of the art university hospital when I had to go through my surgeries in icu. Right. Like, I was very lucky that that’s where I lived and that’s where they brought me. It’s just my husband, besides family support and some friends support there. There was no professionalism to help.

Amy Stone [00:47:54]:
Yeah, that’s a really good point because there’s everybody who came into contact with you while you were in the hospital and walked into your space with the awareness that you were in recovery, like, that you were recovering and that you were injured. And they spread the information about your story and your injuries from one person to the other. So you didn’t have to tell that you didn’t have to introduce. But there’s a weird thing that happens right. When you’re going through grief and you’re not in that bubble, which is the sensation, it’s like, how can people be doing, how can people be going about their day when this horrible thing has just happened, which is very jarring to experience. And most people have felt a version of that. And I can, I can. I never thought about it the way you said it, but that is a, that would be an amazing, an amazing amount of support. All right, so very good. All right, so in a minute we’re going to do the final questions, the final fun questions, which is going to be like a crazy segue after a story this intense. But I do want to give you a chance to tell people about what you do and how they can find you and connect with you online.

Jodi Harty [00:48:55]:
Yes. So I decided to re educate as a certified health and life coach after the collision because I couldn’t just sit and do nothing. And then I kind of got bored of that because I was like, well, I need more. And so I added to that education and became a board certified drugless practitioner and a board certified hormone coach. So I implement everything that I know from like 1996 to how the body heals, how the body like recuperates, and I implement that into health and life coaching. And I provide dried urine, hormonal testing, and I also do DNA testing for customized supplements made for you. Because if we’re not functioning on a cellular basis, we can do all the somatic work, we can do all the Reiki, we can do all the energetic meditation work and the self care, but that will only take us so far if our cells are not getting what they need. So I take a really comprehensive approach when I’m coaching a client and I look at the body as a whole and I’m like, what are you doing cellularly? What are you doing with life? Because supplements will not cure you. You have to get your life in line with what the supplements are there to help boost. But your life has to match. And then what are you doing on health wise? So I integrate everything that I know into my coaching practice.

Amy Stone [00:50:19]:
So before we move on, I have some questions about this DNA testing because, yeah, I think this is so interesting because one of the things that drives me bananas about the fitness, nutrition. And so I have a hobby of running in triathlon, like, like really, really long events. So like supplements and all the things, you know, that is that I always say I’m like, every body, like every meat sack is different. And so the idea that it would be the same for everybody doesn’t work for me. I’m like, some people do, you know, because somebody, somebody Will say, well, you can’t ever do this. Or, this doesn’t work for anybody. I’m like, no, I don’t. I don’t know. Like, you know, I think it does work for some people. Some people like this and some people like that. That’s why there’s all the different products. Right. Like, you give me. There’s a protein drink called muscle Milk. I don’t know if they, like. I can’t. It’s like an instant puking project for me. It’s like, project. It’s like, watch Amy projectile vomit instantaneously.

Jodi Harty [00:51:14]:
Yeah.

Amy Stone [00:51:14]:
But other people love it. Like, it’s great for them. Right. And so. So you do a DNA test for absorption of, like, vitamins.

Jodi Harty [00:51:23]:
Okay. So I have. So I am a. I have a professional account with a company called Nucleogenics. And they are in. Okay. And what they do is they test the genes. You get four different reports. So you get a healthy aging report, which is what your custom supplement would be made from. You get a healthy weight report, which then, like, tells you why certain things are a struggle. They give you a healthy sports report. This would interest you. It tells you what exercises are most beneficial and which ones are not.

Amy Stone [00:51:55]:
Except I don’t want to know if it doesn’t agree with the things that I like to do. I don’t want that. Like, I know I’m supposed to do more.

Jodi Harty [00:52:02]:
Well, okay, but we think.

Amy Stone [00:52:03]:
I’m just. I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding.

Jodi Harty [00:52:05]:
But then actually. Right, so. And then it gives you a healthy skin report. So I focus on the healthy aging and the healthy weight report. And with the healthy aging report, they only test the genes that can be activated. So a lot of people will say, well, I’ve done ancestry. I’ve done 23andMe. This is not it. This is not. It’s not going to tell you who your mom or dad is. It’s not going to tell you whether you’re adopted. It’s going to tell you whether your mom had this gene, your dad had this gene, or both. Right.

Amy Stone [00:52:33]:
Okay, that’s interesting.

Jodi Harty [00:52:35]:
Yeah. And they’re only testing the genes that can be activated through nutrition and supplementation. They don’t care about the other genes that, like, are just whatever. Right.

Amy Stone [00:52:45]:
Okay.

Jodi Harty [00:52:45]:
So the goal is to get gene activation so that you can actually absorb what’s in your supplement. Because we can take all the supplements we want off of the shelf, but if we don’t have the genes that know what to do with them working. Yeah, we’ve got Expensive urine.

Amy Stone [00:53:06]:
And you know what, here’s the thing with nutrition, right? It’s like it is complicated to figure out what we digest and what we absorb because it’s a closed box. Like we eat it, we put it in our body and then it’s like, woo, ta da. Yeah. So, and that’s, that’s fascinating. I find that really, really interesting. Okay, so you have a, an offer for the listeners that I’ll share with people, which is called get your hope back. Is that right?

Jodi Harty [00:53:33]:
Yes.

Amy Stone [00:53:34]:
All right. And it’s available on your website. This is a call with you, a zoom call with you. And normally they’re $135 for new consults. It’s $50. And you can find that on your website, which we will put in the show notes and in the link that goes out to everybody who subscribed. The easiest way to get these links and all this information is always to be subscribed at Imperfect adulting because then you just click on it from your inbox. So that is fabulous. I loved all of that information. All right, so now we’re going to wrap up with three final questions. These are rapid fire, just for fun. And here we go. Okay, so do you consider yourself a morning person or a night owl?

Jodi Harty [00:54:20]:
I would consider myself a midday person.

Amy Stone [00:54:23]:
A midday person. All right.

Jodi Harty [00:54:27]:
All right.

Amy Stone [00:54:28]:
I love that. I didn’t even.

Jodi Harty [00:54:29]:
I don’t like mornings and I actually have a bedtime, so.

Amy Stone [00:54:33]:
Very good. No, that’s the perfect answer. All right, so if you could take, if you could only in your life take one more like big vacation type trip. Like so you have to pick one thing, right? Not because it’s a fatalistic thing, but just because the choice is just for one. Money is no object, time is no object. Where would you go and what would you do?

Jodi Harty [00:54:50]:
I would love to go to Egypt. Grade school, grade three. Couldn’t even read at that time. Was bringing home, you know, massive thick books that, about Egypt in the pyramids and the mummies and the kings and everything. I’m just fascinated with the Egyptian culture and ancient Egypt.

Amy Stone [00:55:12]:
Wow, okay, that would be a very cool trip. They also have, I don’t know if they still, they. For a while they had like an indoor ski thing in Egypt, I think. So I might be mixing up my like countries over there. So if I’m wrong about that, then it’s some other place. But it was an indoor like mountain in like a very hot place, which is like a crazy thing. All right, so Last one, it’s 2:30 in the afternoon on a rainy and cold weekend day, you’re hungry, and you head to your kitchen. What’s a snack you make that makes you feel happy?

Jodi Harty [00:55:41]:
I love making homemade pretzels.

Amy Stone [00:55:45]:
Really?

Jodi Harty [00:55:46]:
Yes. Yes. That is, I don’t make them often because it is Armageddon in the house, then.

Amy Stone [00:55:53]:
Yeah, it’s a process.

Jodi Harty [00:55:55]:
But I make amazing giant, fluffy, crispy on the outside, soft in the inside pretzels.

Amy Stone [00:56:03]:
So I have made pretzels. Do you use. How do you get the brown on the outside? Do you just use, I think, is it like, baking soda or there’s, like, a crazy chemical you can use, like bakers?

Jodi Harty [00:56:11]:
No, no, I just use, like, I glaze it with, like, egg yolk.

Amy Stone [00:56:15]:
Oh, egg yolk. Okay. Some of the recipes have, like, a very specific, like, have to order it online. Ingredient that comes with a lot of warnings about how dangerous it can be. I did not do that. I was like. I was like.

Jodi Harty [00:56:27]:
That sounds like the warnings.

Amy Stone [00:56:29]:
That sounds like something I should not have in my kitchen. And also rethinking the whole land of pretzels.

Jodi Harty [00:56:36]:
Yes.

Amy Stone [00:56:37]:
All right, that’s it. Jody Hardy, thank you for being an amazing guest on the show.

Jodi Harty [00:56:42]:
Thank you for having me. It’s been a pleasure. Thank you.