Dead Man Walking and Walking and Walking with Repeatedly Dead Fred

Our guest today is Fred Rutman. He has the book, The Summer I Died 20 Times: Because Lightning Does Strike the Same Spot Twice. We're going to talk about that. And sometimes he likes to go by the moniker "Repeatedly Dead Fred". We're going to talk about that. But Fred Rutman, welcome to our conversation here today.

Thank you, Brad, pleasure to be here.

Indeed a joy to have you with me. And based on the title of your book and are mentioned here, you, it's good for you to be anywhere, I guess, after having some really serious health issues. And so let's talk about that for a minute. Why are you sometimes called "Repeatedly Dead Fred?" And let's go from there.

Well, because that's what I was. I've been clinically dead. There's a number of definitions for clinically dead. So the one I use is your heart has stopped for 30 seconds and at the same time, you haven't taken a breath for 30 seconds. So that's not a really good combination.

Yeah. That's not what you want, really.

Yeah. So just, you know, by circumstance and some medical oddities. This happened to me over a period of 12 years. And my friend, Deanna decided to call me one day and said: "Hey, Repeatedly Dead Fred, how's it going?"

That got your attention, didn't it? Yeah. Because it was really accurate because you, as you said in your book, died 20 times. So this basically, in one form or another happened to you 20 times, that's pretty amazing.

The cure they gave me for what happened to me was a pacemaker. I was 100% dependent on the pacemaker. Unfortunately, I had a series of defective pacemakers, so in 2013, this all happened to me all over again. Because the pacemaker stopped, so when it stops, I stop. And then it happened again, in 2018. So the, the majority of the times when I would collapse, which you tend to do when your heart's not beating, and you're not getting any oxygen. And I would hit my head on whatever was the hardest object in the vicinity. So whether it was a curb, whether it was a cement countertop, whether it was a manhole cover, a lot of concussions, a lot of brain trauma.

So you had that it just exacerbated the problem and multiplied the impact of it literally the impact, you hit your head. And so you had these heart and pacemaker problems hit your head. So apparently, there was head trauma and things like this, and you were kind of a mess, weren't you, friend.

People have said that about me for a long time. So I think I could mess to another level though, with all this happening to me.

So here you are, you're still with us. And you've written a book about it and you share a little bit of joy in life in the middle of all this problems that you've had. And so, why are you still here, Fred? What do you think is your purpose, your meaningfulness of being here now, after being dead for 20 times?

I have my suspicions. But, you know, until I don't come back that last time, and you know, you meet the Creator, I don't think you can know for certain Sure. So you just have to go with your gut. And my gut tells me I'm supposed to try and take this ridiculously awful situation that I was put in and try and put a positive spin on it and help others put positive spins on whatever they're going through. And, you know, am I going to be successful every time? Definitely not. But am I going to be successful to some degree and help some people? Absolutely. So that's my best guess, for now as to why I'm supposed to be here. In Judaism, you know, we're supposed to be a light upon nations. And I think as an individual, I'm supposed to try and be a light upon those who are, I guess, downtrodden or struggling and need some extra light in their lives.

You framed it out or you described your situation as ridiculous and, you know, absurd I guess there's another word for it. And yet, you want to take that, and you want to do something with it. So let's be specific for a moment, Fred, what are some of the things? So what are you doing? What are some of the actions you're taking? What are you doing then to implement what you just said?

Well, one of the primary things is guesting on shows like this with amazing people like yourself, where arrive, making it, you know, making their platforms available to people like me, who can send their message out over, you know, digital airwaves, whatever those are called. And hear that, you know, there is a person here who went through something tremendously against the odds and has come through with it with some creativity and a positive attitude. Am I thrilled about everything? How my life turned out? Absolutely not. But I think I've been given many more blessings than curses at this point. And I need to take advantage of them. And one of the ways you do that is by sharing it with other people that could use a boost. If you want to, you can kind of descend to a dark place cancer, you can go to some pretty dark places, but you're saying it doesn't have to be that way. Is that right? Yeah, to a large degree, it's a choice, your attitude is a choice. A big factor in that is the food we eat, we have a saying trust your gut. And we say it very flippantly. But science now shows that your gut is where most of the serotonin in your body is produced. And that's your mood elevators, yes. And if you don't have good food going into your gut, you know, you're not going to produce all the serotonin that you need.

So it sounds like one of the actions that you have taken in relationship to your Health Matters has to do with your diet and your, your physical well-being in that regard. So you would say that's one of the important things you've done in the 15 years, you've been around for 15, 16 years since this first started happening to you. So have you had a change of lifestyle and a change of how you do life?

Absolutely. At one point in the early 2000s, I was about 340 pounds. In 2018, I was introduced to intermittent fasting. And that has literally changed my life. Intermittent Fasting is something that a lot of people should look into we, as we developed into an industrialized society, nobody had regular meals. And that's what our body likes to do. So without getting heavy into the science, intermittent fasting literally has saved my life.

Because more than likely all those health problems you had with your heart and so on, if you hadn't changed your practices, health wise, fasting, and otherwise, your outcome might not be so good is that when you have something dramatic and traumatic happened to you, in your case, with your cardiac and issues and your head trauma and my case with cancer, it does get your attention. And sometimes you, at least for myself need that drama or that extreme episode, in order to truly change behavior. You know, there's some things we know intellectually even emotionally. But sometimes you need this this thing to happen to you. Do you agree with that, that sometimes you just kind of need a literally a knock on the head, so to speak, to get you need to change your ways?

Well, that's hitting a little too close to home for me.

Sorry about that.

Absolutely. Yeah, I'm a little foggy on the source. But somebody once taught me that, if you have no barriers in your life, you should start to worry. Because that's a sign that that God has kind of given up on you. He's not giving you that smack on the back of the head and saying, hey, let's do a course alteration here. You know, you're going down the wrong path.

One pathway is to try to avoid it at all costs. You try to avoid it by ignoring it or be in denial and things like this. And I just understood it to be, you know, people tried to avoid that obstacle, and they go this way to avoid it to go that would avoid it. But eventually, then they're going to hit hard, much harder into whenever, you know, a physical aspect or the emotional aspect hit you much harder when you run into that wall. If you've been avoiding it for so long.

For sure, there's a multiplier effect. Like if God's tapping you on the shoulder, and you're ignoring that little tap, you know, those taps are going to start getting harder. And, you know, finally it's like walk you know, Hey, dummy, like what do I have to do to get through to you?

And my case is taken so have all episodes where I've had to be shown my errands My ways through some difficult circumstances. And I think that's what you're sharing here but the repeatedly dead Fred here. And so you've learned a lot of lessons and you've shared a lot of your life and one things you touched on here was a little bit your pet you betcha, Jake faith and tell me a little bit about the role if any, that a connection with something higher than yourself or a spiritual life or anything along this line, what role has that played Fred, in you come coming through these episodes and having some healing and wholeness and some new directions. What role has the has your faith played?

It's played multiple roles. I didn't grow up in a religious family. So actually, this is weird to say, but I grew up Jewish, but I didn't know a lot about Judaism. Okay. And I didn't start really delving into my Judaism until I moved to Toronto about 20 years ago, because there's a much bigger Jewish community here with more learning resources, okay. But one of the ways I got through all my trauma is my synagogue communities that I became part of people who barely knew me, just, you know, took me into their lives into their homes, became care givers for me, supported me, everything from visiting me in the hospital. You know, countless times, I have a couple of buddies who were there, like, every day, 12 days straight, you know, and they have their own families and their own businesses and stuff. But they're just these people, and I'm sure you've met people like this through your ministering. They're just on another level. Sure. You know, it's like, angels feel bad when they meet these people.

That's awesome. Because I just gotta say, I like to talk with people, angels and jaegers kind of twisted that are out there. Okay, go ahead.

Yeah. So, you know, they've just been amazing to me. And I think I've become a much better person, because those people have come into my life. And there's a writer, I think it's Malcolm Gladwell, that says something along the lines of as you age, you become the composite personality of the five or seven or 10 people you spend the most time with. Because I've been spending so much time with these, you know, angels on steroids. And, you know, that's what the world needs, we need a variety of better people in all aspects. That's the first way I think that that impacted me.

Before you go on, let's just say, I want to reflect with you just a little bit about your target, though, you know, the power of community and the cap power of congregation, if you will, you've talked about your Jewish synagogue, of the people congregating for the community to be, you know, speak into people's lives. And that's such a powerful thing, Fred, about the emotional relationship, which brings with you the spiritual elements. And that's, I just want to say, you know, kind of a gay God for your synagogue, it came through and that's a great thing. And for those that I love your Fraser angels on steroids, I love that because that's the people who step forward and go on, but you got to another point you want to make around this.

You know, daily prayer. One of the things we're supposed to do is pray and a Minyan. Minyan means a collection of 10 men or more. And everything is very community based. So we don't want you sitting alone in a closet, you know, talking to God, we want you to know that there are people out there. We're all in different boats. We're all in different situations. We're all saying the same prayers at the same time. But yet, we're all asking for different things that can all be answered by God or not depending on his mood. So again, you know, prayer is a form of meditation, which is also very helpful and healthy for people. And it gives you an extra set of purpose. I find it's often easier to feel an obligation to others more than it is to feel an obligation to myself. So it gives you that external motivation to do things you might not normally do.

Love that you talk about community. You talk about prayer, and I think I've also heard you say a bit about service and how this has been. You know, involve where you, you get a spiritual connection by serving others, as well? And what are some of the ways you've ended up doing that yourself? How are you serving others? Within the congregation or the synagogue? Or otherwise? How are you serving others?

There’s a lot of ways. You can do all sorts of volunteer work, either in your place of worship or outside service agencies like United Way or whatever, you can raise money. But one of the things I found the most powerful is just saying something positive to somebody. You know, we, we don't hear a lot of positive things. And you can really change somebody's day, by their week or their month, by just acknowledging that they're doing something different that you appreciate, wow.

That's powerful. But it's, you know, there's so much negativity in the world, and the negative vibes are out there. And if you just kind of change the narrative, how cool is that? Give me an example of something. Have you seen a change in a person where you said something or something happened, where, you know, they kind of maybe there was a negative vibe and stuff that you said, or did kind of lit them up?

I have a friend who is possibly the hardest working person I've ever met, partly because of the circumstance she has been put into. And she's got great messages. She's very religious. She's got incredible levels of faith. But there was something about the way she spoke, she would out speak her breath, if that makes any sense to you. She would start speaking, and then she would forget to breathe. I'm not sure but talking.

Okay, all right.

But I knew she could be so much more effective if she could learn to speak a little better. And I coaxed her to enroll in Toastmasters. And for people who don't know Toastmasters, it's a not-for-profit speaking group all over the world and they teach people to be better communicators, and how to give speeches and impromptu speeches. And wouldn't you know, within three months, she was winning speaking contests. Wow. And it dramatically changed her life, it made her a more effective communicator that, you know, she got to deliver her great messages. And it gave her so much confidence that she could do other things.

Fred, let's talk, let's talk for a minute about the kind of, I'll just call it the cognitive of the processes, here are the disciplines that you have or that people need to have in order to have fulfillment in life, which you obviously have now. And after going through some tough times, what I'm talking about now is some of the habits or the practices or the routines even, that you either do now or advocate now that are part of your life that help you to navigate each day, you know, when you have a major trauma like you've had, it changes everything. And you have to kind of learn how to live again, in a new way. What are some of the things you're doing in your life that help you to navigate life that might be lessons learned for other folks?

Well, I've definitely gotten more serious about exercise. And, you know, because I still have some balance issues and stuff from all the head trauma. I ride my bike a lot, and I walk a lot, that's, I'm a little nervous about doing anything, like going back to playing hockey, because I don't want to do something for, I'm going to get bumped in the head again. I definitely eat better, you know, it'd be kind of hypocritical of me not to actually do what I'm promoting other people to do. So and part of that is intermittent fasting changes your taste buds, believe it or not, and, you know, it makes you crave more quality Whole Foods, and tries to get you off the ultra-processed food. And that's been huge. It relieves brain fog and helps you clear up your general thinking. I've also started learning with a group of guys on a regular basis, four or five, six times a week. And so we're studying the Talmud, which is very high and it's, you know, the Jewish law books. Yes. And it's very difficult to follow, especially if you didn't grow up speaking Aramaic I can Hebrew, which I think most people haven't. So, the guys I've been learning with had been doing this for 4050 years. And it's very generous of them to let me come in and be more of the comic relief trying to hang out with the big boys.

As we talk about scholars in the Talmud, which, for our listeners, May is basically the first five books of the Old Testament for those people from a Judeo-Christian perspective as such, you are talking about Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, but it's deep, deep, deep academic resonance, my goodness.

Yeah. And, you know, it seems so easy to the guys I'm learning with, but then you have to remember, they've been learning it for 50 years. I've been learning it for six.

Well, here's a couple things I'm hearing, hearing you say here, which is so important for people who want to get who want to deal with their trauma, their drama, whether it's cancer, or cardiac, cardiac issues, or head trauma, whatever it is, you've had a change in your exercise habits that you mentioned, you were at one time where 340 pounds or something like that. So you've lost weight, I can tell by looking at you in our video here. You had that going on with your exercise, your diet has changed dramatically. You've mentioned intermittent fasting and, and the changes the nature of your food cravings, and so on. You mentioned how that changed your brain chemistry. And I'm familiar with how this, how this kind of works, it makes you clearer, and makes you more cognizant of the things that you're doing and probably gives you a little more energy to get more done and that type of thing. And then also, I heard you say you are very intentional about exercising the mind, even if it goes to place, it's a little stretching you a little uncomfortable, you're dealing with this big time, you know, he breaks scholars here, and you're there and you're participating. And they haven't rejected you either. They're not, you know, they're not coming at you like, okay, you're just, you know, you're just, you know, Junior person here, they seemed like they accepted you. And so you're learning, you know, your exercise your brain as well and

continually blown away by the wisdom of these people from 3000 years ago. And the things that they could figure out without our modern conveniences, sure, but I think you can do anything that will exercise your brain in a way that it hasn't been exercised before. So even if you decide to try and take up a musical instrument, or you decide to start drawing, and you go on YouTube, and you look, you know, how do I draw drawing exercises for a six-year-old, which is, when I started drawing, that's what I looked for. You know, and it was embarrassing that the six-year-olds were drawing better than I was.

But you are doing it right, something you may not have done before you are doing it, you're exercising your brain and also, you're getting to the creative part of things. And that kind of thing can be a bit your music and art and so on. And so it's an intellectual endeavor. It's a creative endeavor. Therefore, when you start to connect those parts of your brain it becomes it. You start to connect the cognitive, with the emotional and to and what comes along with all that kind of stuff. Read comes joy, I believe. And what's it all about? It's a joy, you know about having fulfilment in life. If you're going to live, let's enjoy it. So what brings you joy, man, well puts a smile on your face, what turns what turns your grim mind to grin is one of the things I like to say,

seeing other people thrive. It's a very external thing. You know, seeing a couple get engaged, seeing somebody achieve a goal that they've been really striving for. I love those things, especially if I've been a part of it. I think I've set up eight or nine couples that have gotten married.

Oh my goodness. You've been part of matchmakers. You've kind of had that kind of rolling.

Yeah, but I've always been a networker. I've always liked connecting people. I've always like connecting with people. I guess it's part of my I have a natural curiosity about life. And I always thought I should have been a talk show host like, well, let's play with that for

a second. Let's just say you were a Johnny Carson style talk show host who would be you know, either alive or dead or fictional or whatever, who would be kind of an ideal guest for you to engage in a conversation with well,

The easy answer would be, you know, some of the Talmudic rabbis because they're just so smart. But I don't really think I would understand a word they were saying. They're just, you know, at a different level, they operate at a different level than the rest of us humans. But I would love to talk to, you know, some creative geniuses like DaVinci. Or, you know, Paul McCartney, or Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin who just took standard music. And then I think Jimmy Page was actually self-taught for the most part, and created some of the greatest music ever produced, you know, how do they go through that process? And can I have a little of.

You're speaking to my heart, man, because I'm on Oh, rock, I will disc jockey and a big fan of classic rock, deep intellectual thought, as well. And so I love where you're going with this. So it's not just online influence? Or is that kind of thing, you want to have a little a little deeper kind of a thing? Because you are a learner? Aren't you, you really like to learn, I can tell by spending some time with you. You'd like to get those synapses firing off. And

Fun is a word we didn't use the word joy before. So, I know in the Old Testament, the word fun is never used. There's never a commandment to go have fun. There are commandments to be with Simcha, which, you know, translates to joy.

Well, and I believe in that. And I think you do, too. But let's just talk about that for a second. What are, you know, we've been talking about some pretty serious stuff here, we went to have some good fun with it about, you know, head trauma, and cardiac and cancer and so on. And the name of my show here is canceled comedy, I like to play this area of how we can see hope and healing through humor and things like that. What were some episodes here in your whole process, everything you're about, that just kind of made you, you know, you kind of had just think, okay, this is just flat out funny, or this is humorous, or ironic, or, you know, sarcastic or whatever.

It's funny, in a not funny way, but how I continuously came up against people with cognitive bias, that just couldn't move off their place to say, okay, what we're doing here is obviously not correct. We're not getting a positive diagnosis. You know, we've got all this training, maybe we should be looking at something else. Okay. And I don't say this to disparage the medical community, because, you know, the medical systems and medical system, and every system has its, its good parts, and its bad parts. But that's just what happened to me. It was astonishing how time after time, I just met these people who just wouldn't listen to what the papers were saying.

The cut, what do you say cognitive disconnect? Is that what you said? cognitive bias, cognitive dissonance, cognitive bias, a very interesting way of seeing that how, it's, it's one of those phrases that I certainly relate to kind of the humor edit. Is that okay, you just don't get it. And you know that there's more going on here that says, not that you've cheered you're choosing not to understand? Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I remember a couple of times, you know, when I was in ambulances, and we had the cardiac strips, you know, they put you on the monitors. And you go into emergency with, you know, 40 feet of tape, or, you know, strips and it's clearly showing and, and the doctors who say, oh, that can't possibly be true, you know, the monitor must have been malfunctioning. Okay. You know, the ambulance drivers and I are just looking at each other like, no, like, you know, process doc, like, this is accurate. It is so nice to move off your spot here.

Or Fred. What you're also all about is serving others and you obviously do it with some joy and love and one of the ways you've done that is through your book. The summer I died 20 times because lightning does strike the same spot twice. Who's this book for? What are you offering here in this book to people who may need it? What's

Sure, a lot of it is the inside story of what happened to me and how ridiculous this was. I was on a podcast last year with a former ER doctor in Australia, Dr. Steven Neff, and what's his podcast name's steps to sobriety. And he told me what happened to Mi was a one and 100 event of survival, odds of survival if it happened to me once. And each time it happened to me; the odds got worse. So if you want to read a story, with such improbable odds that it would be the equivalent of winning a lottery every week for five years straight. This is the book for you. So just by taking the

odds, as you said, there, you almost you almost literally Fred, or a one in a million guy, aren't you and know your own way, right?

Yeah, billions I'm wanting to build. Because you know, we're an aging society. And there's so many people in and out of the medical system right now. People can get a pretty eye-opening insight into what they may have to deal with. And you probably had to deal with this to a degree yourself. And, you know, it's about maintaining a positive attitude. It's about learning to advocate for yourself, which you know, when you're in distress is not exactly the easiest thing to do. It's about learning how to ask for help. It's about coming to grips that people want to help you. There are so many people out there that are looking for opportunities to help others to serve others. And people just either won't ask or won't let them. Because they think if I let this person help me, I'll be indebted to them.

Not about the services for the sake of service. It's about what's in it for me? Yeah, let people help you.

I had a, after one of my surgeries, people were very generous in offering me lifts home after services. And when I was feeling better eyes, I said, you know, I'm feeling better. I'd like to walk while I can. Excuse me, appreciate the offer. And then one of the one of the rabbi's took me aside, he says, you know, if you keep saying no to people, people are going to stop asking. Even though you want to walk, and you know, it's better for you, you have to find a way to say yes. And I thought that was really, really insightful. And then I just started having to make compromises like, well, I'd like to walk, could you maybe give me a lift halfway. You know, we could have, we could have a little time, you know, to chat and stuff like that. But I can also get some exercise in here's your steps.

I love that phrase that your rabbi use finds a way to say yes. Because it's about the relationships, isn't it? And that's awesome, because that's part of the as part of healing and that's part of the wholeness and part of the joy at the part of the healing has to do with this relationship. And the humor part comes into play when we have this relationship that can bring a smile to your face. And it sounds like these folks put a smile on your face. And you bring a smile to the face of others. So Fred Redmond, how can people bring a smile to our to my face or the day? And to our listeners here on cancer comedy? How can find people more about you get your book or get connected to your podcasts or anything else? You're about? How can people find out more about you?

They can find me on Amazon, they can find the book on Amazon. It's available both on Kindle and paperback and we're working on getting an audio version for people who prefer that. I have an Instagram account. Under repeatedlydeadfred. You can find a lot of the podcasts that I've done. And I've started my own podcast, the Dead Man Walking Podcast, you can see there's kind of a dead theme running through all this. And so the podcast is on YouTube and Spotify and Apple and probably a whole bunch of other platforms.

Great. Great. Well, it's a fascinating conversation we've had here today, Fred and you got some great things to offer man. And I'm Moses, a believer that you know God's using you for some great purposes and it includes your inspirational story in your book and otherwise, and I certainly committed to people. The name of the book is the summer I died 20 times subtitle because lightning does strike the same spot twice. He is Fred Rutman or Repeatedly Dead Fred. He's been our guest today on Cancer and Company. Thank you for being our guest today, Fred Rutman.