David Moran · 57 min
After 39 major surgeries and a lifetime of pain from a rare incurable genetic disorder, David Moran proves that choosing a positive mindset every single morning is itself an act of profound courage.
Hear this story
At 13, David Moran was captain of his cricket and football teams, a natural athlete who loved sport. Then came the diagnosis: Fairbanks multi-epiphyseal dysplasia, a rare genetic condition that means every joint in his body except his spine was formed with rough, misshapen surfaces instead of smooth ones. He was told to stop playing sport immediately. What followed was a lifetime of watching his joints wear away, one surgery at a time. He's now had 39 major orthopedic surgeries over 40 years, with number 40 already booked. He has replaced both hips, both shoulders, and had 26 knee operations. He lives with chronic pain that no amount of movement can fix, because every step forward literally breaks him down further.
But David's story is not about the surgeries. It's about the morning he sat on his bed in his 40s and made a choice. He realized he could decide, every single day when his feet hit the floor, whether he would be a positive or negative influence on himself and everyone around him. That choice has become easier with practice, though he still has hard days. David has also learned to work closely with his surgical team, developing custom medication cocktails and nerve blocks that bypass his hypersensitivity to anesthesia and opioids, turning what once nearly killed him into a manageable process. He runs his own mental health business, has raised children who also carry this condition, and became a foster parent to children with severe physical disabilities. When asked how he is doing, he says he is one of the richest people in the world because he gets to do what he wants, when he wants. He is grateful to live in an era of medical technology his mother and grandfather never had.
⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses grief & loss, which some listeners may find distressing.
If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available: • Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au • GriefLine: 1300 845 745 · griefline.org.au
“I get to choose when my feet hit the floor this morning whether I'm going to be a positive influence on myself and everybody around me.”
“It's an enormous loss when you're 13 going through all those other life changes that early teenagers bring on.”
“Focusing on the bad stuff is not going to achieve anything positive. All you're going to do is make yourself bitter and twisted and it's going to have a negative influence on those around you.”
The hero, today
It is okay to feel bad about your loss; your loss is yours alone, and nobody else gets to tell you how to deal with it. When your feet hit the floor each morning, you get to choose whether you will be a positive or negative influence on yourself and the people around you, and that choice becomes easier the more you practise it. You cannot change the thing that breaks you, but you can change how you think about it and how you react to it. Every time David has moved through a major life change, it was not one single moment but a series of next steps, each one a small adjustment to what came before. Modern medical technology and the people who develop it, surgeons, anesthesiologists, researchers, have given David a life his mother and grandfather could not have imagined, and that is something to be deeply grateful for.
Yes. David Moran is a real person who shared their own story in their own words. Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit that shares first-person stories of overcoming adversity, told with the person's consent.
Kintsugi Heroes, a registered Australian not-for-profit. Every story is shared with the hero's own consent and reviewed under Kintsugi Heroes' trauma-informed content standard before it goes public.
It is okay to feel bad about your loss; your loss is yours alone, and nobody else gets to tell you how to deal with it.
When your feet hit the floor each morning, you get to choose whether you will be a positive or negative influence on yourself and the people around you, and that choice becomes easier the more you practise it.
You cannot change the thing that breaks you, but you can change how you think about it and how you react to it.
Every time David has moved through a major life change, it was not one single moment but a series of next steps, each one a small adjustment to what came before.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 00:07
Welcome to the Kintsugi Heroes podcast, where we share inspirational stories of everyday people going through different challenges and how they overcome them. Please be aware that the story you're about to hear may have moments of deeply felt emotions and personal experiences. If anything you hear has a triggering effect please reach out to someone who can help keep you safe. If you love this conversation, we'd love you to like and share it with your friends so we can continue to share more inspiration and hope to as many people as possible. Now listen up for our next hero story. And today's conversation is with the remarkable David Moran. And I say remarkable because of the way that he lives life and, you know, exudes this confidence and this positive mental attitude. He's so strong. And yet you hear his story and you realize that he has been through so much. As a young boy, a teenager, he loved sport and he was into all the different sports and he just wanted to be a professional sportsperson. Then he was diagnosed with a very rare disease. It's called Fairbanks disease, and it affects the growing ends of the bones. He was told, you've got to stop playing sport. He had to change his focus and he tried different sports to try and remove or limit the movement, but eventually all sports were off the table. To date, he's had, I think it's now 40 surgeries to replace joints and bones in his hands and his feet, all the joints of his body, uh, because they wear out. And he lives with pain, he lives with issues in being able to move. And this is a disease that is actually genetic as well. And he's just got such a can-do attitude regardless of what he's going through physically. I found him remarkable from that perspective, and it was a real heartwarming story. This beautiful man. I love this conversation, and I know that you're going to enjoy it as much as I did. This is David Moran.
David Moran (Guest) · 02:20
Well, here we are.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 02:21
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This conversation includes a sporty teenager before the diagnosis, the doctor's words at 13, taking up golf as the next thing, the first knee surgery and the warning about his future, giving up golf and trying table tennis instead and learning what fairbanks disease actually means.
It is another episode of Kintsugi Heroes. I'm here with David Moran today. How are you going? Today, David?
David Moran (Guest) · 02:28
Yeah, very well, thank you. And, um, thanks for having us.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 02:32
You are very welcome. I always like to thank the guests, obviously, you know, for coming. It's great that, that we have this, this platform, but I especially like to honor you for showing up and sharing a story that is challenging. Obviously, I don't know your story, but I know that it takes courage and vulnerability to be able to share a story Thank you for doing that. It does help people, it gives people inspiration, and it's a great thing.
David Moran (Guest) · 03:01
Thank you.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 03:02
Well, let's get started, shall we? I'm going to hand the mic over to you and ask you to take us back to the beginning of your story.
David Moran (Guest) · 03:10
Sure. So my story begins when I was in early high school. I was in just starting my second year of high school. I was in between sort of 12 and 13 years old. In the 2 or 3 years leading up to that, I had experienced a lot of pain in, in some joints, and so had my sister, who's 6 years older than I, and we had both, you know, seen various doctors and, and started to investigate what was happening. And we'd had some confusing diagnoses, which is not good when you're sort of, you know, going through those formative years, you know, going out of primary school and into high school. And I was, you know, really enjoying my life at the time. I was the captain of the cricket team at school. Captain of the football team. I played tennis, I did weightlifting, I did swimming. Yeah, I was a very sport-orientated kind of person. But during all those activities, I'd started to run into some difficulties. I'd never been a great runner, that wasn't my thing, but I had great hand-eye coordination. And so, you know, various doctor's appointments happened. And yeah, I remember going to a new doctor and my parents, both my parents took me along, which was quite unusual. Normally my mother would deal with all those things. And we sat down with this doctor and I, I can remember it as clear as it It was yesterday. Um, and this is, you know, 46 years, 47 years ago now. And, um, he said that I've got this condition called Fairbanks multi-epiphyseal dysplasia and that I would need to adjust my life to, to be able to live with that condition. And a lot of what he said after that I don't remember. Um, my parents were both, you know, very questioning and all that, but I sort of— I went into this. All I heard was he will need to stop playing sport, um, need to, uh, certainly no tennis, no football, no cricket. Swimming, you know, maybe, uh, definitely no weightlifting. Um, and that's really all I heard. Um, after, after that, I— it's hard to remember, but you sort of go into a bit of a fog. And yeah, you're going to school and telling everybody that you can't do the things that you were doing, and it's an enormous loss. When you're 13, you know, going, going through all those other life changes that, um, early teenagers bring on. Um, it's quite a, you know, significant loss that you're dealing with. So I dealt with it by changing my focus. Um, and I thought, well, if I can't play football, cricket, tennis, all these things I love. Um, and it was immediate. It wasn't like, oh, let's think about this for the next month or whatever. It was the next day I had to stop all that. I adjusted fairly quickly and I took up golf, which seems ridiculous now, but at the time it seemed logical. Golf's not a contact sport, it's a lot easier on the joints. And because my parents, you know, back then none of us really understood what exactly this problem was, so I took up golf and, um, I became pretty good at it over the next few years. From 14 to 18, I, I did very well. And I got to the point where I was a sponsored junior here in South Australia, and I'm always— I was sponsored by a cigarette company, believe it or not. And, uh, I was able to travel around South Australia and parts of Australia and play golf and thought it was, you know, the best thing that had ever— could ever happen to anybody. Um, I was eyeing off being a professional, but then around about 17, I had my first operation, serious orthopedic surgery, and that was on my left knee. If you know anything about golf, put a lot of strain on your left knee, and my left knee decided that that was enough and I needed to, to have an operation. So I had my first surgery in between 17 and 18, and That was a cartilage repair. Lots of people have these operations now and it's keyhole surgery and you're in and about 4 hours later you're out of hospital. But back then when I had that operation, I was in hospital for 3 weeks. The other thing that we didn't really know at the time is I have what they now call hypersensitivity to general anesthesia. And the general anesthesia made me extremely sick. And so I was in hospital for over 3 weeks for that knee operation. Didn't make me give up golf because when you're young and stupid, you don't do that. So I went back to golf and I got my handicap down to scratch and— or zero. Yeah, I don't know how many people understand golf. But, um, yeah, I was really looking forward to a career in golf. I was examining the pathways to become a professional and all of those things. But then my right knee collapsed and I had to have a right knee operation at 18. I was also at the same time running my own business. I bought a small cleaning business and I was doing that, and I was, uh, working on somebody's, uh, factory, and my right knee collapsed underneath me, and I had to go to hospital. My surgeon came in to me after the surgery, and, um, again, I got very, very sick with the anesthetic. And, um, he came in to me after the surgery and he said, look, you need to consider what you're doing because if you keep going down the pathway you are with golf especially, um, you will probably be in a wheelchair before you're 30 because you will not be able to sustain— your body will not sustain that sort of exercise and your knees will fall to bits and the only options will be, you know, crutches and then a wheelchair. So I gave up golf at 18. Again, experienced all that loss. I still feel that loss today. I was talking to, uh, a person on the weekend, and I said, you know, given the opportunity, I would be out on the golf course right now. Um, but I couldn't do that, so I gave up golf. And then being 18 and still pretty stupid, I decided to take up table tennis. And you think back now, oh, what the hell, why? But I had to do something, so I took up table tennis. A friend of mine was playing district table tennis, took up table tennis. Within 2 years, I'm playing A-grade district table tennis, you know. State level. Um, and yeah, I went in for another knee operation. Again, my left knee couldn't cope, and the doctor said to me, seriously, what the— yeah, what are you doing? You know, just think about this. There's only so many operations that can be done to preserve your, your knee, and if you keep going down this path, it's not going to be good. It's, it's going to get worse and worse and worse. And, you know, the, the ultimate result of all that will be, you know, um, medical devices, dependence on others, and, you know, so not, not much fun. So it was about this time that I actually did the thing that I probably should have done 6 or 7 years earlier, and I started to learn about the condition I had. And so what Fairbanks multi-epiphyseal dysplasia does is it's a genetic condition that means that every joint in my body except for my spine— for some reason, it just loves the spine— um, is never formed correct at all. So in utero, your joints are not formed in a normal way, um, and each rubbing surface is— instead of a smooth rubbing surface, it's a very rough, misshapen surface. And this immediately, from the moment you are born, means that every movement you make, these uneven surfaces destroy the connective tissues within your joints, uh, with the exception of the spine, as I've said. Um, and quickly you are in a position where you have no connective tissues. Your tendons, your meniscus, all these types of things within your joints disappear, and you are walking bone on bone. Uh, every finger, every shoulder, elbow, toe, everything is like that. Um, and I thought, okay, well, the doctors, the doctors told me a few times that, you know, this is my path and it's probably time I start believing that this is the truth and, you know, start taking some action. So I sold my business and that was not very done very well, very professionally. I just gave it away. Basically, I'd spent 5 years taking a business that was turning over $8,000 a year. And when I sold it, it was turning over $350,000 a year and I gave it away because I just thought, well, I can't do it. I can't spend the time. Worrying about it. Just had a baby and, you know, wanted, wanted some, uh, calmness in my life about these things. So I just gave it away and I started working for, you know, a fast food organization. So then the, the consequences of that are I'm on my feet all day. And at the time, I thought I was doing the right things. I gave up golf, table tennis, I gave up sport, everything. And I took up a job where I wasn't working so much, you know, up, down, round and round, ladders, all of that sort of stuff. I was working in a fairly, for my mind, calm environment. Um, and then within, oh, the first 5 years or so, I started to get extreme pains in a hip, my left hip, and I ignored that for a lot of years. I went to the doctor and he said, yeah, your hip is wearing out. Now, I was in my late 20s by this stage. And he said, you know, the consequences are going to be this. A hip operation means, you know, breaking, you know, putting new bits in, steel, ceramic, you know, blah blah blah. We can do that once. Maybe if you're very, very lucky, we might be able to replace that hip replacement, you know, 10, 15 years down the track. And after that, we will break your hip you will have no parts for hip left and you will be immobile from that point on. And for me at that time, that meant from about 45, 50 years old, I would be, you know, completely dependent on somebody else. And that's not a nice thing to hear when you've just heard, you know, you've just had a baby, you're building your life, you think you've done the right thing. In adjusting all your lifestyles to, um, make accommodations for this illness. Um, but the doctor goes, well, no, you haven't done everything you can, and these are the consequences going to happen. So I put off having the hip operation, is the consequences were You have the operation today, you've got 10-ish years where that will work. Then you might have another 10-ish years after that if they can redo it again. So the longer you can put it off, the longer you extend the possibility of being in a wheelchair for the rest of your life. And you have to remember all this happened 30-some-odd years ago. Um, we didn't have the technology then that we have now. So I put it off and put it off and put it off, and eventually I was working in retail, and my days would go like this. I would get up in the morning, I would take a lot of pain medication, um, I would have something to eat, and I would go to work. I would work all day, I would come home in the afternoon, By the time I got home, my body was so sore I literally could not get out of the car. I would beep the horn, whoever was home would come out, assist me to get out of the car. I would go inside, I would get straight into bed, take more medication, um, that would hopefully put me to sleep, have something to eat. Go to sleep, and then get up the next day and do it all again. And that was my life for many months. And I always look back at that now and go, that was a really crazily stupid thing to do, because it made me miserable and it made everybody around me miserable as well. Around about 1996, I'm 30-ish now, I had my first get the hip surgery because I couldn't put it off any longer. My lifestyle was— yeah, well, I didn't have a lifestyle. Everything was dealing with pain. And I eventually gave in and said, right, I, I just have to get this done. So I went in the hospital again. I had a general anaesthetic, and this one nearly killed me because when you're allergic to those types of medication it, the, it gets worse each time you do it. So I was intubated for 4 days, um, I couldn't breathe, etc. I didn't know any of this, of course, because I was unconscious. And yeah, it was, you know, not a good time. But I did get my hip replaced, and luckily I had a great surgeon here in Adelaide who used the absolute latest and greatest technology to put into my body, and that turned out to be a great thing. So had my hip replaced. Within 2 years I had the other one done because the other one started to hurt, and I thought, I'm not going through all that again. So I got the next one done. And one of the things that people don't realize or don't think about— oh, is each time I have one of these operations, that's 6 weeks I have to have off work as a minimum. And you don't, you know, when you have the lifestyle that I have and you've got the illness I've got, you don't have a lot of spare sick leave because you've used it up. You don't have a lot of spare holidays because you've used that up. So quite often you're having 6 weeks off with outpay without any other financial support. Uh, you can't get insurance for it, and so you're on your own. Yeah. And like, sitting here today at 60 and a half, 61, in— since my first operation just before I was 20 to today, 40 years, I've had 39 major surgeries. And I'm already booked in for number 40, which will be a full right knee replacement on the 17th of May. So if you, if you just took 6 weeks and go, okay, 6 weeks each time without paying, 6 weeks by 40, that's 240 weeks. That's 5 years that I've spent without any financial support and things like that. So it takes a massive toll on your psyche, your finances, everything. Within a couple of years, I had both hips replaced. Um, I had two children by this stage, both of which I passed this illness on to, so I've dealt with that as well. One of the best things I did during that period, though, was keep studying about the illness and find out what was happening in the world around this illness. It's very rare. When my sister and I were diagnosed in 1974, we were the only two known cases in the southern hemisphere. Now there's many, many thousands of us that, that know that we have this diagnosis, um, and there's a full genetic study being run by one of the big hospitals in London and we send genetic material to them every 5 years, my whole family does, to assist them to, to try and study more about this illness. But it's not like cancer where everybody's raising funds to do studies because that's just not what it is. The most famous person with this illness is, um, probably Danny DeVito. He has this illness And whenever I see him and I see his movements and the way he walks, especially, I see myself. So going back, I'm 30-ish, I've had both my hips replaced, and I've been either dismissed from a job or, you know, ushered out of other jobs. You know, people don't want to say, look, We don't want to take responsibility for if you hurt yourself, or we don't want to have to keep worrying about you taking more time off. They don't say things like that, but you hear people talk to you differently. And prejudice is an interesting thing. I've heard it and seen it. And it's awful what people will say. And I'm sure they're doing— well, for the most part, people are doing it because they're trying to do their best for them and for you. But it doesn't change the fact that they are biased against you for something that you can't do anything about. And I guess that's one of the reasons I'm very, very very careful, uh, cautious, uh, interested in the dynamics of prejudice and bias and things like that. Because, um, I've had it in my life. I've had people go, well, hold on, do I trust you to do that? Because what happens if this— you go, well, hold on, it's all fine. So Yeah, so once, once I'd had both my hips replaced, I had two children, and I passed this illness on to them. And one of them has had children. She's got two children, and she's passed the illness on to one of those children. So we— my daughter, for example, it's— this illness is a lot worse for females than it is for males, and that's just a true statement. It's not biased or prejudiced. It's just true. And the reason it's true is because of the hormones that females have that males don't have related to childbirth mean that their joints are going to become looser, rub and scrub and make more damage to themselves. Just because they do. So my daughter had both her hips replaced before she was 25. So yeah, there's all that stuff to deal with as well. So, um, over the next number of years, I then had, yeah, multiple surgeries. I'm sitting here today, I've had both hips operated on, 4 times. I've had 26 knee operations. I've had both shoulders done 3 times. Uh, just 12 weeks ago, had a full shoulder replacement on the right side, and they had to do what's called a reverse replacement because I have no connective tissues left. So instead of a ball on the arm joint which goes into a socket in my shoulder, I now have a ball on my shoulder which goes into a socket on my arm. And the only thing holding that together is the two main muscles in my arm. So I've had to retrain those muscles to hold my shoulder together. Whilst all that sounds not great. I don't want people to think that it's all awful. Sorry for the interruption. This is Ian Westmoreland, the founder of Katsuki Heroes, and thank you for listening to this story from one of our amazing heroes. Our mission is for these stories to provide hope and inspiration to people experiencing life challenges and to also educate the broader community on how best to provide support. If you would like to help us to continue to produce more hero stories and cover more adversity themes, we would welcome all donations. These can be made via our website, kintsugiheroes.com.au. The donate function is at the bottom of the home page. We'd also welcome any feedback. You can email me direct using ian@kintsugiheroes.com.au. Now let's get back to the story. I, I, I think one of the other really positive things I did around about 30-ish was my sister and I were asked if we could be mentors to other people that were given this diagnosis. And of course, you know, my sister and I both said yes. And so we had the opportunity to give out information to others who were given this diagnosis, um, and wanted to talk to somebody who'd been through it. And that's a really, really good positive thing to do because it makes you think about all the good things that have happened in your life, and it helps you help others. And that's a wonderful thing to do. So I did that. I only did that for a few years, but it was a great thing to do and it really taught me a lot about myself and a lot about more about this illness because it makes you become properly informed. And, you know, it allows you to help some other people understand that, yes, this is not great. It's not, you know, but it's not the end of the world either. And this was a hard thing for me to come to grips with. I really didn't come to grips with it until I was in my 40s. And again, I remember this as clear as if it was yesterday because, you know, when you're a little bit different and when you are going through surgeries and when you've got a lot of pain in your life, you can sometimes you just get overwhelmed and just go, why the hell do I have to put up with all this? And I was sitting on my bed one morning doing my routine to get out of bed, because it is a bit of a routine, and I thought, you know what, I get to choose. I get to choose when my feet hit the floor this morning whether I'm going to be a positive influence on myself and everybody around me, or I'm going to be a negative influence. And I can get up and I can whinge about how much pain I'm in, and I can carry on about how, you know, I lost my career. I wanted to be a professional golfer and I lost that. Or I can get up and do the best I can with what I have.. And I remember thinking, well, there's really only one choice. I've got to get up and I've got to do the best I can with what I've got. So I got up and from, you know, it took some time and some practice to keep being able to do that. And look, I still have bad days, um, as everybody does, but I made— I— it took me a long time to practice to make sure that when my feet hit the floor in the morning, I try to be the best positive influence on myself and others around me rather than just focus on the bad stuff. Because in the end, focusing on the bad stuff is not going to achieve anything positive. All you're going to do is make yourself bitter and twisted, and it's going to have a negative influence on those around you. Whereas if you don't, if you make a different choice and go, no, I'm going to be the happiest, brightest, curious, you know, move forward type person that I can be, then that has an influence on you and it has an influence on the people around you. But it is a choice. You have to choose it, and it's not an easy choice. As I said, I still have some not crummy days, but if you make the choice, it becomes easier. And then you keep making it over and over and over and over again, and it becomes easier to make that choice every day. Um, so I then went through my 30s, 40s, 50s. Uh, I saw my children grow up and struggle with this illness. Um, but you know, technology moves on. So when I was due for my second hip replacement, my original doctor— so my, my fake hip, my metal and ceramic hip that he had inserted into me, uh, had worn out, and they do, that's just the way it goes. Um, my original doctor had retired. About 3 months before then. So I asked him to recommend somebody else, and he said, nope, not gonna do that. I will not recommend somebody else because then if you go to that person, doesn't work out, comes my fault. And I went, yeah, that's actually right.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 33:05
Yeah.
David Moran (Guest) · 33:06
So I said, so what do you recommend? He said, Chopperette. I did. I went and visited 8 different orthopedic surgeons, and then I narrowed that down to 3. I went back and saw 3 orthopedic surgeons, and then after the second visit, I sent them all a questionnaire based on the things that I cared about, and only one of them answered me back. So he's now my orthopedic surgeon, has been for over 20 years. Lovely gentleman by the name of Rob, and he now does all my lower body surgeries. And he's operated on me over 20 times in the last 20 years. And I have another gentleman because things become really specialized. My original surgeon did it my whole body— toes, ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, everything. Now I have a different surgeon for toes and ankles than I do for knees and hips, than I do for shoulders and fingers and toes, uh, fingers and stuff, because these people become highly specialized in really doing a great job. So I picked a surgeon, young man by the name of Rob, and he did my second surgery. Second replacement. And it turned out that he was actually trained by my original surgeon. I didn't know that when I selected him. It was only after I'd selected him as my surgeon that I talked to him about who had done my previous surgeries and all that sort of stuff. And, um, he went, ah, let me tell you tell you about that. So turned out he was trained by my original surgeon, and, um, it turned out my original surgeon had actually done a wonderful thing for me that I didn't know. He put the absolute latest and greatest, you know, right up to the minute, um, technology in regard to hip prosthetics inside me so that when I was due for a replacement it became not as bad as we originally thought. Uh, the— what they were able to do was to just remove the rubbing surfaces, so the ball and the cup, and put in new ball and new cup and make all the appropriate adjustments and everything. And yeah, and For that surgery, I was in hospital for a grand total of 3 nights and recovered and back at work within 4 weeks, as opposed to the first one where I was in hospital for 3 weeks and didn't recover and didn't get back to work until after 12 weeks. So, you know, technology moves on. I had this shoulder replaced 12 weeks ago. And it's like it never happened. Yeah, technology is amazing and the things they can do are just unbelievable, things that I wouldn't have thought of. And one of the main things that have worked for me is the, the progresses in anesthesia. So I, as I told you, I have a, what they now call hypersensitivity to general anaesthetics, but so I don't, I never have general anaesthetics anymore. I have cocktails of drugs that the anaesthesiologists and I have worked on and developed, you know, that work for me, uh, nerve blocks and these types of things. So now, instead of not waking up from the surgery or waking up feeling like, you know, somebody has flattened me with a Prat. I now wake up as if I'd just been to sleep. I'm ready to eat. All my body functions are fine. With this surgery on my shoulder, my pain score never went over 1. The other thing I probably should have told you half an hour ago, um, I have what's called hypersensitivity to opioids as well, so I can't take painkillers. So the last time I took an opioid, I had a Panadine Fort, which a lot of people would be familiar with, and it put me into a coma for 4 days. So I can't take any of those. But again, as technology progresses and medications progress, there is medication regimes that I've worked on with my team that now gives me wonderful cover for pain relief throughout all these episodes. So I take a mixture of things every day to keep me okay. And whenever I'm leading up to a surgery, there's a 2 or 3 week lead into that surgery. A whole heap of things are done on the day before, the day of, and the day after to get me set. For a really, really well-managed recovery. And quite often people, you know, even nurses come into my room the day after a major surgery and go, what's your pain score? And I go, zero. And they go, are you sure? Because, you know, they know they haven't given me any pain relief and they know I've had major invasive replacement surgery, and they go, how can that be? But, you know, if you work hard at it, you can, you can do these things. So I guess we're pretty close to where I am today. So I'm 60, gonna turn 61 in September. I've had 39 major orthopedic surgeries in the last 40 years. I'll have my 40th on the 17th May, and I will have 41 somewhere out there in the future. I can already feel— but my, my next one is a full right knee replacement because my, my guy who does my lower half of my body, Rob, he said to me 2 years ago after my last, um, knee repair, he said, next time when you walk through that door, point at your right knee, there's only one choice, and that is to replace it. There's nothing left to do to make it any better. It— there's just nothing left. So the next time you walk through that door and point at your right knee, we're, we're replacing the whole thing. So that happens on the 7th, 8th of May, and I can already feel that my left hip might need some attention within the next year or so. Um, not sure. I've got a couple of toes that I'll do. I've got a— the middle finger on this hand needs to be done in the next couple of weeks. I'm just holding it off, um, because I've got to position it correctly for when it will recover to support me to have this knee operation and all that sort of stuff. These are the games I play in my head, you know, how long am I going to have to recover from that before I have to do that sort of thing. So, you know, so I'm fine. Everybody says to me, how are you, Dave? And I go, I am, I think, one of the richest people in the world because every day I do what I want, when I want, how I want. I run my own business in mental health. I support people's mental health all day, every day. Mentally healthy, playing the bad stamp. I eat what I want, I drink what I want, I do what I want. So I'm, you know, I've got wonderful kids, grandkids, house, family. You know, I do what I want. I don't think there's anything that you could have or that I could have that would make me any richer than the ability to do what I want when I want. What, what else do I need? I, I know I positively affect thousands of lives every year because that's the feedback I get through our business. And yes, I'll have a full right knee replacement on the 17th of May, and then sometime in the future I'll have the next one and the next one and the next one. My shoulder surgeon asked me after the last operation, how does that actually feel, Dave? And I went, well, there's really two answers to that. One, yeah, it feels great. And I said to him, it's an adjustment that I have to make in my head. Because now when I move my shoulder, there's no pain. He went, yeah. I went, hold on, I don't think you understand. What, what you've given me is a gift that, that I haven't had in my whole life. Every single time I've moved my shoulder between, you know, when I was 12, 13, and now, there's been pain. And Now, today, there isn't. So that's the first part of the answer. The other part of the answer is, how am I? I'm great. I am blessed to live in this time of human advancement where I can come to you and say, this hurts, chop it all out and put new bits in, please. And you just go, eh, no worries. 'Come and see me next week,' and I just walk in. You and your machines do your thing, and I walk out with no pain. So I am blessed. I, I have— I, I really am lucky because the people in my history who passed this illness on to me— my mother, her father going back, they didn't have that. The only thing my grandfather had to support him was alcohol, and he used alcohol to numb his pain. And I understand why he did it, but he didn't have the opportunities I've had, you know. And what, what will be the technology of the future? Will my grandkids' grandkids be able to have their genes altered to eliminate this before they're even born? I don't know. But what I can tell you right now is I feel blessed to be living in a time where within— like, if something broke today, within a reasonable period of time, I would have that thing replaced. And that thing that it's replaced with will remove the pain and last longer and be better than the thing that they took out. And that's, that's something that I'm very, very thankful for because it's made my life easier. And my sisters and my children fine as well. So here we are.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 45:06
Wow, that's the first thing I've got to say. You're like this modern medical miracle, you know. You're this walking poster boy for medical and technology and innovation, aren't you? Um, to a degree.
David Moran (Guest) · 45:24
Yeah, yeah, I understand what you're saying. And I, you know, it is a bit of a joke with some of the people I know, you know, oh, here comes the $6 million man. Yeah. And it's pretty close. Yeah. I don't have the x-ray eyes. I don't know if that's even possible. Certainly, you know, I, I can move it like I spent all day yesterday training people how to support others with their mental health because I can. I can get up, my, my legs will work, my arms will work, um, because of this technology. It's just, it's amazing. And yet you have to actually, you have to think about, you know, 100 years ago 60 years ago. My mother didn't have that opportunity. Um, I do.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 46:22
So did your mother have this as well? You talked about your grandparents.
David Moran (Guest) · 46:25
Yeah, with, with my mother, it was very difficult for her because she contracted polio when she was very young. My mother's first 9 years, um, 8 of those was spent in hospital because she contracted diphtheria, and she was put in the hospital and isolated because it's very contagious. And then while she was in hospital, she was due to be sent home. And on the day that she was due to be sent home, the hospital were doing all the things to send her home. They realized that she'd contracted polio while she was in hospital, and they rang the grocery store around the corner from my grandparents' house, because nobody had a phone, and said, 'Can you go around and tell Mrs. Nelson that her daughter's not coming home?' And the grocery store owner said, 'Yeah,' and he walked out the front door. And my grandmother was standing out front, even though it was still 2 hours before her daughter was meant to come home. She was already standing out front waiting for the, the ambulance to arrive because she hadn't seen her daughter for 3 months. And then the next 6 years my mother spent in hospital, and she saw her mother once a month for an hour and her father once a week for an hour. That was her first 8 years. And then she came out of it and she had polio. And so all her her joints and that were physically— she walked with what, quite a significant limp. She had significant, you know, deformities of, you know, other parts of her body, especially her feet and ankles. Um, but she never ever complained, ever, ever, because she said the same thing. If it wasn't for the Iron Lung, I wouldn't be here. She was in an Iron Lung for months. But she said, if it wasn't for that iron lung, I wouldn't be here. Think about the kids 100 years ago, didn't have the opportunity to be put in an iron lung. The only thing she complained about was soup, because they gave— in the hospital, they gave them soup every day. That was— they had to eat it. And her and her friend, who we called Auntie, um, in the bed next door, always swore they would never eat soup again once I got out of hospital. And she didn't. People would offer her soup and she would politely decline. No, no soup for me, thanks.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 49:02
But, um, yeah, what a journey, uh, that you've had, your family's had. Just incredible, David. I do have one question. It, uh, you mentioned that it took you a few years to wake up, so to speak, from your initial diagnosis as a teenager. And that makes sense, right? You're a teenager, you— and you obviously were sporty. You love sport and how devastating it would have been to, to have to come to terms with— finally come to terms with not being a sports person. After that, was there a point at which you figured out how you needed to construct your life? Like, was there sort of a moment where you went, you know what, I finally realized now that I can't live a normal life like everyone else, and I've got to do things a bit differently.
David Moran (Guest) · 49:55
Um, I don't think it was any one moment. I don't think I— I still don't think I'm over the loss of some of it. As I said just last weekend, that loss came thumping back into my head. Um, so I don't know whether you ever get over it. I think you just get better at dealing with it. And there have been moments, and I've relayed a couple of those moments, but the changes in lifestyle were all, okay, well, this is the next step, and this is the next step. I'm giving up that, and I'm going to be doing that. But You know, the, the critical moments were, and, and I guess the absolute one was sitting looking, and I went to a doctor who I didn't know. I was on a, a business placement to Port Augusta, which is in the mid-north of South Australia, and I went to this doctor who I didn't know, and I specifically chose somebody I didn't And I walked in and he said, why are you here? And I said, because I just feel awful. And he said, hey, let me see if I can guess. I went, okay. He said, you eat too much, you drink too much, you smoke, you never exercise. I went, yep, all those. He said, cut out any two of those, you'll feel a lot better. Anything else? I went, um, that didn't go the way I thought it would. And I walked out of his room going, man, I get to choose. And I did. Like, weight has always been a problem because you can't exercise. That thing that people say, move it or lose it, that's counter to everything I know. Every time I move, that's another step of loss because another bit of bone breaks off or another piece of pain comes or whatever. Every time I move, the only profitable exercise I can do is non-weight bearing. So it has to be in the pool, but people will still say to you, well, why don't you just do some exercise? And what if you did some exercise, you can strengthen that. You go, okay, let me tell you a story. So I, I don't know if that helps. I don't know if that answers the question.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 52:41
Yeah, no, it's, it's very, very interesting. It's fascinating. Uh, you know, I've had a lot of conversations. Um, a couple of people have been in wheelchairs, and, you know, there's been a couple of stories shared with, you know, health crises and, and these diagnoses. But, you know, yours is a very different story. And what I love is your positivity, your strength, what you've learned from it, the way that you have continually said over and over again, you get to choose. And you've learned that firsthand. And I think we all can— we all get to choose how we live our life.
David Moran (Guest) · 53:19
Yeah, we do.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 53:21
We really do.
David Moran (Guest) · 53:22
Yeah. One of the things my wife and I did when my children were growing up, they were getting a bit, woe is me, why do I have to— what, you know, why do I have to put up with this? My wife and I were talking about how we could help them think about it in a different way, because you can't— you can't stop the thing. Much as I, I, you know, I really wish I could, I can't. So I can't change it, but what I can do is help think about it a different way. So my wife and I became foster parents for disabled children. So all of a sudden in our lives, we had children with no feet, no hands, um, you know, serious physical deformity, you know, developmental delay, all these types of things. And we would bring these children into our house, and our children would become carers for them and go, yeah, I really don't know. Yes, you know, my arm hurts today, but you know, this kid's got no feet and he's still riding a bike, or he's still, you know, playing drums or riding a skateboard or whatever. You know, this child was born with no mouth. How do you even survive that? So it, it It really helped us see that whilst things can be tough, somebody else has got it tougher. Never forget that. Never forget that somebody else has always got it tougher than you. And yeah, I look, I still have bad moments, days, whatever, huh? But I, I hold on to I get to choose how I'm going to react to this.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 55:11
Beautiful. I love that story. Wow. Last question, David, and you may have already answered this, but if there's someone listening to this or watching the video who has had some kind of big health diagnosis that's going to change their life, so anything sort of similar, or they resonate with your story, what would you like to say to them?
David Moran (Guest) · 55:33
Um, it's okay to feel bad. It's all right. You— your loss is your loss. Don't let anybody tell you how to deal with your loss. It's okay to feel awful, but one day— I know where it is, it's for everybody, it's going to be different— one day you will find that thing, that next step, that light, you know, that hope for the future. As Andy Dufresne said, hope is a wonderful thing. It is.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 56:17
Perfect, perfect way to finish up. Thank you so much, David, for your story. It's been—
David Moran (Guest) · 56:22
thank you for having me. I've really enjoyed it.
Aveline Clark (Host) · 56:26
You're welcome. Thank you. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of Katsugi Heroes. Please like and share the show to your friends so we can get this out to even more people. If you have a story you'd like to share with us, please reach out using the contact details below. And join us next week for our next Heroes story. Until then, keep being being you, and remember that we are all heroes in our own unique way.
David Moran (Guest) · 56:59
Only when it's broken, only when it's broken, when it hits you in the middle of the night and the truth burns so bright. Only when it's broken. Only when it's broken. Take pride in those cries. It's only for tonight. And then you rise. Only when you're broken. Only when you're broken. Only when you're broken.
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