In this interview, listen to how Tricia has overcome many medical setbacks to continue being persistent in creating value not only in herself, but in others that she interacts with through her career, her friendships, and her "stubbornness" to defy the odds. By having boats that are ready to set sail, especially with the relationships that we build with others, but looking at the bigger picture of how we can make changes to our outlook in our lives and being content and fulfilled with what we are set out to do.

Guest Bio

Tricia Renzi is a Rehabilitation Specialist with the United Cerebral Palsy organization, with her office located in Camp Hill, PA. Tricia is an over comer. God rescued and healed her from many obstacles. She hopes to use these experiences to help others see hope in times of trouble.

• https://ucp.org/- Learn more about how you can participate in this amazing organization through volunteering and donating to their mission, 'To be the indispensable resource for individuals with cerebral palsy and other disabilities, their families, and their communities."

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Intro/Outro By: Michael Dugan, Podcast Host: Voice4Chefs

Welcome to the podcast where relationships, confidence, and

determination, all converge into an amazing, heartfelt experience.

This is Speaking From The Heart.

Welcome back to episode number four of Speaking From the Heart.

Today, we're going to be interviewing Tricia Renzi, who is with the

United Cerebral Palsy Organization.

She is a Rehabilitation Specialist, located in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania,

and you're going to find that she has a very interesting story about how she

has overcome the odds and that God has really helped to rescue and heal her

from so many different obstacles that she has been through, and she's using those

experiences right now, not only at her job, but also with some of the things

that she's been going through as part of her overall development with helping

others and seeing what her true version of herself is, and we'll get into that

in a little bit with the episode, but I will say that this is probably one of

those stories that when you are hearing it, think about how you can make an

impact, whether it is something close to you with your family or your friends,

or even just helping a complete stranger, but with that, let's get to the episode.

All right.

I am here with Tricia Renzi.

Tricia, welcome to the show.

Thank you.

I'm so glad to have you be here after all this time.

I know that I've known you for a long time and then we kind of got

separated with life experiences and now we're back here, we're interviewing.

I'm really excited for this opportunity to just have you as a guest.

So I want to just start out with a question that I have is, What have

you been up to the last few years?

What have you gotten yourself into?

Well, up until two and a half years ago, I had been fully

disabled, for, 13 years, from 2007, to 2019, I was on disability.

I used a cane and I was not fully able to move my right shoulder

because, I had brain surgery.

Wow.

And when they did my brain surgery, they cut around my right

ear, and when they cut around my right ear, they cut my tricep nerve, so I

wasn't able to fully move my shoulder because my tricep nerve was damaged.

Wow.

So-

So, because all these reasons I was unable to work.

Yeah, so when you were disabled and not being able to

really walk around, tell me a little bit about how you handled that.

How did you get through that, those sort of, those difficulties?

Was there a resource you leaned on?

Was there a group of people that helped you out?

Just tell me a little bit about how you got through that time.

Yeah, it was honestly a very, very difficult time.

When I woke up from surgery, I was fully, paralyzed on my right hand side.

I couldn't move at all on my right hand side.

I was unable to do anything for myself for several months.

I was in long-term care facility, where they taught me how to swallow, walk,

and, be able to, do your everyday things that you don't think about:

brush your teeth, get dressed, anything.

I could not do any single thing for myself for several months.

So that was very difficult being from a fully abled bodied person one

day to a, like literally a complete involate, so that was very, very hard.

I think what really helped me a lot is when I was in the long-term care facility,

I was with different people in my similar situations, and I saw people completely

shut down and be unwilling to participate in their healing, and I decided, well,

I'm going to do whatever I can do.

I don't know what that looks like, because I wasn't able to do anything.

Yeah.

Oh, you, you were pretty much, you were pretty much not been able

to like just a, take any action whatsoever for yourself, essentially.

I couldn't, I couldn't do anything without help.

Yeah.

So, yeah, that was a really hard place because I'm a very independent

person and I don't like to ask for help, and here I was forced to accept

help every single day for three months.

So yeah, it was very humbling experience, but like I'd say, no, I

just resolved myself in my head that, I was going to do whatever I could do.

I didn't, and again, I didn't know what that would look like, so, I was in the

long-term care facility for three months.

I graduated from a wheelchair to a walker and left the facility in a walker, and

then I lived in a duplex at a time, so that was fun, uh, trying to go up and

downstairs when a walker just doesn't really work, and then when you get

upstairs, you can't really go anywhere cuz you don't have the walker, so it

proved to be very frustrating, and then, so once I was home, they sent me to

physical therapy and it wasn't very long.

It seems like it was maybe four or five months that I was in physical

therapy, and then at a certain point the insurance says, okay, you're not making

any progress, we're gonna stop paying for physical therapy, but I was still

not able to do very much of anything.

I wasn't capable of going outside of my house by myself, and I wanted

to, I wanted to have some sort of life, like I didn't wanna be in

my house for the rest of my life.

So at the time I lived in New Cumberland and they have a little bus that senior

citizens and disabled people can use for a discounted rate, and so I would

go every day, or every other day, I would go to the gym and I actually paid

a, a physical, or what do you call it?

Kind of like a discounted fee for attending services that-

Yes.

You-

for rehabilitation purposes?

Yeah, I paid for a gym person to help train me to be able to be

strong enough to like open doors, because I couldn't open doors.

Wow.

You know, like on the outside world, like if you go to

a bank or even a gym, you know how those big heavy glass doors.

Yeah, I've had my battles with them and I've lost, yes.

I cannot, I cannot open them by myself, so I was like, well, if

I'm going to be out in the world, they have to be able to open the doors.

I paid for an additional three year, well, not three years full, I paid

for a year, and then I went on and used what they had taught me for

another two years before I was able to go back to at least I could drive

myself, I could go shopping by myself.

I was capable of doing just lead tasks, but I still wasn't anywhere

in the realm of being able to work.

That just wasn't on my horizon at the time.

When you were going through this time and you were relying on all

these people to kind of surround you and help you become really the best version

of yourself, as I've been mentioning about the mission of my business, my

listeners have been hearing a lot about that, but when you, when you are talking

about just physically pushing yourself, were there times in your life that you

were, during that time I should say, that you were saying to yourself, "Man,

I don't know if I can keep doing this.

I don't know if there's really anything else I'm able to really do other

than just listen to what this is."

Was there a point of just having to submit and just say, "If I just do this,

I'm going to be on a better place?", in other words, what is it that you

have done to walk yourself through some of these tasks that you've had to

set forth in your life in order to get the energy and the commitment to just

keep going, especially with something as what you've described, a medical

condition that was really out of your control, it was something that you had

to pretty much set yourself into, right?

Right, so, I don't know if you know about this about me,

but I'm a very stubborn person.

The best way to tell me or get me to do something is tell me "I can't do it."

Say, "I can't do that.

Yes, I can.

I'll figure out a way to do it."

it might not look at like the way you do it.

I might have to do it a completely different way, but I'm very, very

stubborn, I guess, is a good quality to have if you're disabled, but,

yeah, of course, there were days where it's like, "What is the use?

Why am I putting myself through this is I'm not any closer to what

my life was", and I just came to the realization that life was dead.

That there was no going back and that I just, I had to, I

had to enjoy what life I had.

Hmm.

And my husband at the time and I started living life like this was

our last day, so we went on vacations, we went traveling, we weren't waiting

to retire to do things like we all went on trips almost every year;

went to Europe, which I don't really recommend to people who are disabled,

because they're not very handicapped friendly, but that didn't stop us.

I went to to Germany three different times and I've been all over the

US and I feel so blessed that I have see things that a lot of people

fully bodied having gotten to see.

I find that very fascinating because I had my first guest, Chris

Hulse, who we were just talking about before that we started recording this

show, talk a little bit about his own travels and how he has been able to

make those really awesome connections with people themselves, so I'm curious

when you were going through that time where you thought, "This is it.

I have no other choice.

I really want to live life to the fullest", and you started to travel

across it sounds like you traveled a lot internationally, was there

particular people, maybe there was some particular interest or two that made

you think, "wow, I got to experience this just because my mindset changed"

and or because of seeing this, my mindset has changed and here's why.

Was there something like that, was there a light bulb that kind of

switched on for you when you were going through those things and how has that

affected you even to how you are today?

Mm-hmm.

Well, I know that, like I said, when I was back in the long-term care facility,

one of my roommates had some sort of brain injury which is very similar

even though mine was medically, but I also conserved to be brain injured,

apparently her complete demeanor changed.

I don't know what she was before her brain injury, but she was just a very

unpleasant person in the nursing home, and she was one of those ones that

were unwilling to the point of biting and scratching and participating in

anything that would enhance her life.

She just didn't want anybody to help her do anything, and that really I decided

that I was going to do the most I could with what I had, and okay, maybe

I'll be in the wheelchair or dressing, like, or maybe I'll be using the walker

for the rest of my life, or maybe I'll use a cane for the rest of my life.

You know, I kept progressing, but I never knew, I'm going to continue

to be able to be more abled.

It wasn't until two and a half years ago that I no longer needed the cane because

God healed a lot of the issues that I had, which led me to be able to return to work.

I didn't know that was my future, I thought, I would be using a

cane for the rest of my life, but I was perfectly okay with that.

I was glad not to be in the wheelchair.

I was glad not to be laying in the bed and not being able to do anything

for myself, so, yes, it was hard.

Yes, I definitely had discouragement and it seems now like it was so quick.

It's such a short time, like three, like you say, three years now three

years doesn't seem like a big chunk of time, but back then three years was a

long, long time and now that I am two years since back into being, more fully

abled, the 14 years of being disabled feels far removed, and that was only

like two and a half years ago, you know-

It sounds, yeah, it sounds like time has gone by a lot quicker

than what, what it had been like before where it was going really slow, right?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

I'm curious when you were talking about just some of the people

that you've interacted with, so like you were just mentioning about how

someone just had this very pessimistic view and then you, in turn, had

a completely different view of "I'm stubborn and that is empowerment for me."

How do you turn something that some people say, " You shouldn't be stubborn",

because I hear that in the personal and professional world a lot of time about,

you should be open to new ideas, you should be able to change your group think,

how do you use that stubbornness to help you realize that you need to learn new

skills or do new life skills, because obviously you've had to change some of the

things that you were doing before, because you said like in the past that the same

things that you were doing in the past were not going to work now that you have

this condition or what you were trying to do to heal, so how do you overcome that?

What are your strategies with, with that?

Well, I think each one of us, I just use stubbornness because my mom

used to tell me I'm stubborn headed.

I think all of us have that want or need to persist, to have a good life,

to have joy in our life, and how do you accomplish that and, so I was

very determined that, okay, maybe this is the best health I'm going to have.

Okay, what can I do at this?

What am I able to do?

Not what I couldn't do.

What am I able to do?

Can I try this?

Maybe I'll fail, but I can try this.

Okay, maybe I can adapt it this way, and I think it also helped that I'm a gamer.

I love to play games, so I would look at everything as a game and how could

I play this game or beat this game to move forward, to get better at

it, all these like kind of facets of my personality that God gave me, this

ability to, to look at every obstacle and be like, okay, I cannot do this.

It's not possible, but maybe I can go around or maybe I can go up or

maybe under, or there's some other way that I can still at be at my goal,

even though I can't do this particular step, I can still reach my goal.

How do I do that?

So I would rethink of different ways to do and I would go hiking and not

like a flat terrain, you know, hike.

They would have branches and stumps and rocks and things.

I had help, I had physical assistance.

I wouldn't have been able to do it myself, but with assistance, I was

able to overcome a lot of obstacles.

So sometimes, even those of us are not great, asking for help, just look for

somebody who's willing, or even some people tell sweet people just offer you

help and you don't feel like you need it, maybe just be like, put it in the back of

your mind, oh, that person knows how to do this; maybe that will help me someday.

I'll just remember that, oh, this person experienced something

very similar, maybe I could talk to them and that would help me.

I'm really curious to ask you this now because you bring

up so many good things about what you have done to overcome.

I want you to just put yourself in a moment when you were finding out that

you needed to have the surgery to get healed and you had to put yourself

back into your shoes of, "Man, I don't know if this is, I'm going to be able

to get through this or not", I just want you to envision that for a moment.

What would you say to somebody when they get that devastating news about something

that might have been traumatic, and looking back at that time knowing that

there were probably a lot of things going through your mind as to how am I going

to overcome this, and how am I going to get through what I'm going through?

What would you say to someone that is listening to something to this for the

first time and they're listening to this podcast, they might have something

that they're going through traumatically that they just learned about.

What would be your best advice to them?

The one thing that you would say that would help them grieve or to get through

what they're going through in order to be productive or stubborn to use your

word in a good way, to overcome that.

What would you say to them?

I know it be, it's very difficult, but you have to hold on to whatever

little glimmer of hope that you can see.

It might not be very bright that every doctor in the world might

tell you you're never going to walk again; you have stage four cancer.

You, you know you're gonna die tomorrow.

Whatever horrible thing doctors normally have coming out of their mouths is you

just have to believe that there's hope.

Every doctor in their right mind seeing me three years ago, and then I

know this is true, would've told you that there's no way that nerves can

regenerate after being dead for 14 years.

I'm not sure what the correct diagnosis is, but the dizziness that I had

constantly just overnight went away after 14 years, like there's no medical reason

why I should be walking without a cane, without dizziness, without pain with

all, all the nerve damage that I had from the surgery and from the tumor that was

in my brain stem, crushing my nerves.

It is just hope.

It is just clinging onto that hope like you're drowning

and it's your life preserver.

There's no boats in sight, but you just hold onto it hoping a boat will come by.

Wow.

A boat that comes by.

I think that we all have boats that are stationed ready to go, while some boats

are mostly stocked up and they're ready to set sail, there's others that have already

set sail and you're waiting for 'them to come back so that they could come pick

you up, and that's such a, that's such a beautiful analogy too that sometimes that

boat, although you're waiting for it, is going to come back and it sounds like

it definitely has for you, which we're getting closer to the end of our time and

I just want to give you an opportunity to share a little bit about what you do

because I've already told the listeners this but I'm just curious if you could

elaborate on what you do specifically, because I think it's such worthwhile

work that you do, and is there anything that listeners can do to help support

what you're doing or just the group in general that you work for right now?

I'll give you a few minutes to go ahead and do that.

Yeah, it is really a privilege for me to work at United

Cerebral Palsy and I worked at the one in Central Pennsylvania;

there's several all over the country.

I get to work with people with different disabilities, some mental, some physical,

some both, and I get the privilege to spend the day with them taking them out

into the community, helping them learn and become, on a name to name basis with

people in their community that they would not necessarily have the opportunity

or skills to do so on their own.

I take them out.

We go bowling, we go shopping, we go to the library and people, because we go

there every week, know them by name and address them by name and they know their

names and it's just a beautiful thing to see people opening up and letting them

even just slightly into their lives.

Someone who looks and acts different than themselves in a perfectly natural way.

I'm just curious when you are working with those clients that come

in through the organization and they are working specifically with you because

they're assigned to you and you get to take them to all these places, is there

something that they say to you, you don't have to be specific or mention

names, I'm sure there's confidentiality-

mm-hmm.

With that.

Mm-hmm.

But, have you heard a consistent thing from all of those individuals that

maybe gives you a sign of hope that even something that is as terrible as

cerebral palsy can be and debilitating.

Is there something that you've heard that kind of gives you that warm feeling?

It's so funny because I really haven't been working

there a very long time.

This coming August will be my one year there, but even in the short period

of time, the people that I work with, I've seen in that, just that short

little window of them opening up to me, sharing things with me, telling me

they trust me, and that just, I can't even explain how good that makes me

feel, and I think that we really connect in a lot of ways, because I've shared

with these people that hey, I was disabled and technically still disabled.

I'm just able to work now and I just have this really unique connection with

them because I can show them that just because you're disabled, we not be able

to do a certain thing a certain way that that doesn't mean we cannot do it.

Mm-hmm.

You just have to, you tell me what you wanna do and

we'll figure out a way to do it.

Just transversing the different qualities and trying to find what that

niche is is always half of it in terms of getting that person to feel a lot

better about themselves, and I'm glad that there's champions like you and

this world, Tricia, that are willing to help so many people, even despite

all the difficulties that you have.

You definitely have a great story that you've shared today with us and my

listeners about the importance of not only the word perseverance, because I'm

going to replace that now with the word stubborn with what you said, but I think

that is so important to just be able to connect with people with what their

situation is where they're going through and being able to help uplift them, and

it doesn't have to be just the typical run of the mill conversation that you have.

It can be with all kinds of activities.

I really think that is enlightening, and Tricia, I want to say thank you so much

for being a guest on Speaking From The Heart, and I hope that you continue to be

the light in the world that so many other people need to have, especially in these

very difficult times, especially a lot of people are going through, whether that

is what you have been going through too.

So thank you so much.

What a great interview with Tricia and I know that for her work that she does in

the community with the United Cerebral Palsy Organization, I'm going to throw

a link into the show notes if you have any interest in volunteering or doing any

sort of monetary donation to them as they continue to do great work with people

like Tricia in the organization helping others be able to find and get some stable

footing, especially with such a terrible disease that cerebral palsy can be.

I just want to recap a couple things that Tricia said during this episode that

really helped me to focus on what I even learned from listening to her in this

sort of conversation that we had, and one of the things that we were talking

about after this recording ended was about having brief eye contact and just being

able to acknowledge the person that you are dealing with, and I think that is so

important in this world that we're living in, especially as some of us are returning

from a post COVID world, and we're also trying to facilitate relationships with

people that we are working with and what we're trying to do to help each other

become not only just the best version of ourselves, which I try to do, but

I also want to see people be able to unlock something that maybe has been

lying dormant, and the very basic thing that each and every one of us can do is

simply start to have that conversation.

I think in Tricia's case with having such a traumatic brain injury and having

surgery done, which impaired her sort or feeling that she had, I think that

it was really hard for her for a period of time to accept that, and I got that

feeling during the interview, but what really sealed the deal for me was the fact

that when she started to talk about not just the stubbornness, which I replaced

at the end with perseverance, I started to see some of the light bulbs turn on

for her as to what she's been able to do for not just the last few years, but

what I have projected in my own life as being the course that we set for

ourselves, and I love the analogy of the boat because we all have boats that we

get into that are different shapes and sizes, and they might be big boats, they

might be medium sized boats, they might be small boats, might be little things

that you have to row yourself, but we all start somewhere when it comes to

that journey, and I think Tricia's boat was very small to begin with, but as she

started to see what the possibilities are with just working through what she had

to deal with, with getting that physical therapy and relearning some of the basic

things that she has been able to do in her life, I think it started to really

piece together the importance of not just being a stubborn person anymore, but being

able to realize that she has a gift that she can share with others, which she's

able to do now with her current work.

I love the fact that when she started to see this happen, the big shift happened

with traveling and getting more involved and using games as a way to help cope

with some of those situations, and I think it's an important lesson that for all of

us, we need to find ways in which we are coping and why are we are able to find

some of those niches that help us to grow and facilitate some of the conversation

that we have, not only with others, but even with ourselves, because the internal

dialogue that we have, especially when it comes to overcoming barriers to success,

often start with understanding what those barriers are in the first place.

It's almost like going through Alcoholics Anonymous, where you have to understand

first what the problem is and acknowledge that you have the problem so that you

can continue to go through the several steps that that program has, and I really

think that this lesson is universal and not just the way that you might

lead your life, whether that is a God filled life, which Tricia's life is, or

whether that is filled with possibilities that you even have for yourself.

It's about not just looking at what the construct is in your current life, but

also looking at the bigger picture, and I think that she really expressed that

well towards the end of the interview that we had and just sharing with us that

even in this world, when we are going through that persistence and trying to

give ourselves that ability to do that, she mentioned about we thinking the

ways that we do things, and she used the analogy of hiking, and I really

think that for all of us, we are always gonna start out with the basic path.

In the basic path, there's nothing wrong with doing that.

It actually creates ways in which we can grow and facilitate getting

to that medium difficulty hike to then that extremely difficult hike.

All the good hikers in the world are starting somewhere, and that's the same

thing, of when you're wearing the shoes of those sort of aspects happening in

your life, whether that is disappointment or guilt or frustration with a certain

coworker or a boss, or even a significant other, it's all about stopping and

saying, what is it that you want to do that will help me become not only

better at what I need to say and do, but how I can move my mindset forward?

If someone out there is struggling with that, know that there's a boat that's

going to be waiting for you, and it's not about just helping others which you can

do right away with even just helping out the United Cerebral Palsy Organization

or even just a local volunteer bank that is located in your community, but

I think that if you are willing to just see what those possibilities are with

those boats that are anchored right next to you, even if you're not even

aware of them, getting that awareness and being able to shore up what you want

to do in your life, you can start to make progress in the right direction.

That direction is totally up to you, whether that is

right, whether that is wrong.

What it's about in life is about experimentation and being able to

do the things that are necessary so that you have a completely different

mindset, and as long as you're able to do that, you're able to accomplish so

many different things that will help you become not just the best version

of yourselves, but helping you to take it to the next level to help you

see what is out there, and if you're able to do that with somebody; Great!

Do that.

Make that something that's important and try to take steps in which you're

able to help yourself see that bigger picture, and there's nothing wrong with

having the time spent on just the small things so that you get to that point.

If you look at Tricia's journey and how long it took her to get to this point, it

took her 13 years plus then some to feel like she can get back on her footing.

It doesn't matter how long it takes, it's about what your willingness is.

The ability to see what is ahead of you and not letting go of it, no

matter how hard or how difficult it can be, and I hope that Tricia's story

today brings some influence for you.

Thanks for listening to episode number four of Speaking From

The Heart, and I look forward to hearing from your heart very soon.

Thanks for listening.

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