37 Health is Wealth: Breaking Medical Taboos & Veteran PTSD

"Money ain't wealth—health is wealth. What good is money if you're not healthy enough to enjoy it?"

Coach Rodo gets incredibly personal in this episode, tackling a massive issue in our community: the historical reluctance to get regular checkups, ask doctors tough questions, and prioritize medical healthcare. Drawing from his own background as a U.S. Marine and athlete, Rodo opens up about his journey through the VA system, overcoming high cholesterol, and his battle with military-related PTSD. 

In this transparent discussion, Rodo breaks down why "walking it off" is no longer an option as we age. He shares how his wife helped him realize he needed help, the impact of entering joint therapy, and a tragic warning about medication side effects after losing a close friend to PTSD prescription complications. 

Plus, Rodo outlines his physical longevity regimen—including why he hits the gym every other day at 55+ and uses the sauna and steam room for detoxification and mental clarity. 

If you are a coach, a veteran, or a parent, this is a must-listen blueprint on how to protect your mind, your body, and your future. 

#CoachRodo #WinningRegardless #MensHealth #MentalHealthMatters #VeteransPTSD #HealthIsWealth #SaunaBenefits #JointTherapy #BlackMensHealth #PhysicalLongevity #VAMedical #kalamazoocentral 

(00:00) - Health vs. Wealth: Why money means nothing without physical longevity.
(02:15) - The Athlete/Marine Illusion: Believing "being in shape" means you don't need a physical.
(04:45) - Overcoming Medical Anxiety: High cholesterol, VA doctors, and asking tough questions.
(07:30) - Moving Past the "Guinea Pig" Excuse: Overcoming generational medical mistrust.
(10:15) - Dealing with Battle Fatigue: Admitting military PTSD is real.
(13:00) - The Power of Support: How Rodo’s wife navigated him into joint therapy.
(16:45) - Updating the Mindset: How medicine, diagnostics, and treatments have changed over 16 years.
(19:30) - Gym Regimen at 55+: Finding balance and pacing your workouts.
(21:15) - Coaching as Therapy: How working with Kalamazoo youth provides a "saving grace".
(24:00) - The Swedish Bath Concept: The science and detoxification power of saunas and steam rooms.
(27:15) - A Critical Warning: Asking questions about your medication side effects.

Transcript

0:30

money ain't wealth, health is wealth because what good is money if you're not healthy enough to spend it or if you're not healthy enough to enjoy it? I had a friend die from one of our PTSD medicines that they gave us. you know, it pays to ask questions if you have any when it comes to your medications. And I think that we, in our community, we lose that. think that, again, I think it's a case where we heard all of the stories of how the doctors would misdiagnose the black people or just wouldn't even tell us and guinea pig us Welcome everybody to another edition of Coach Rodo's podcast, Winning Regardless. um Today I'm gonna talk about being healthy, uh men's health, even, I mean, it can be women's health, whatever, we're just gonna talk about some health. ah The one thing that I know in our community that is a big deal, we don't tend to go get physicals. You know, I was one of them. I always thought, you know, because I'm in such great shape and, you know, I played so much basketball. I was in the Marine Corps. I'm always active, never sitting around, but I don't really need a physical. I don't feel bad. I don't feel nothing. I don't feel anything. But I've lost some friends, you know, who had that same that same mentality. And, you know, find out that, you know, diabetes and you can look normal. You know, can, one of them died just from an aneurysm, you know, that possibly could have been found before, but it wasn't. You know, um it prompted me to really take my health very, very serious. And I want to talk to my listeners about their health as well, you know, taking it serious. You know, as a coach, we preach being in shape, you know, we preach staying on top of your game mentally and physically, but. We have to do the same, you know, we have to stay on our game mentally and physically, especially physically. Because the thing about physically is you can't tell, you never know. I went to get my physical, I, you know, I said everything good shape, didn't know that I had real high blood pressure, or not blood pressure, but real high cholesterol, you know. then they give you the medicine to take for it. But then you hear all of these side effects from the medicines that they give you to take. You know, he gave me my cholesterol medicine, but I heard that the brain needs cholesterol to keep Alzheimer's away, to fight. So if you're taking your cholesterol medicine... then isn't that taken away from the brain's cholesterol? You these were all questions that I had and luckily, you know, I have a doctor that's, pretty young in the VA system and he's good and he sat me down and my wife looked it up too. The medicine that I had been avoiding taking has nothing to do with that cholesterol, you know? So here I am all of this time panicking and not taking care of myself the way that I should. because I didn't want to ask questions, because that's what we do. We don't want to ask questions. I think part of it is because we don't want to know the answer, because we don't want to live cautiously. living, period, is better than, you know, The alternative, um know, lately I've been listening to the Michael Beasley thing, man, and man, it's incredible, you know, how he talk about his depression and, you know, the things that he's going through and, you know, that dude just be dropping some gems and like one of the gems that I really, really, really liked was... when he said that, you know, yesterday didn't, doesn't, yesterday never happened and tomorrow doesn't exist. And if you really think about it, it is so, so true, which is why we need to live in it now, which is why we need to be going to the gym, which is why we need to be taking care of ourselves so that possibly tomorrow can exist. And if it doesn't exist, it won't be because we didn't do what we needed to do to take care of our bodies and our mind in the way that we needed to take. If you need to take care of your mind spiritually, you know, I think we need to do so at a higher clip than we do. As I said, you know, the one thing that in the black community, we don't really go to the doctor when something is wrong. We think that, you know, we'll walk it off, you know, um we don't go. to the doctor when we're sick. ah We believe that we'll get through it. Give us a... the robotesque or whatever that we used to take when we was kids, the motrin, which is what they call it, the Marine Corps cure-all, and you think you're gonna be all right, but as we get older, that's not the case anymore. There are more more things out here that we as older men and coaches and... You know, even females, we need to go see doctors for. mean, I remember being a kid. Only time I really, really remember having the physicals when I had to go for sports. And, you know, I mean, my dad had great insurance. You know, he worked at GM. So of course he had good insurance. But I mean, I don't know. I don't even think I ever remember my dad having to go for his physical unless it was work mandatory. We have to get away from that. I um didn't go to the doctor a lot while my kids were younger. you know, again, I gotta say that even I fell under that trap too with them. And I now have to get on them to find out when the last time they had physicals, you know, um because you never know. um It has no age group. has no, you know, of course as you get older things go more awry than they would when you're younger, of course, but you know, I mean, I've met young kids who, you know, passed away from cancer or... know, passed away from a stomach virus and never even knew that he had the stomach virus because again, he was a young kid, you know, athlete and, you know, it's the mentality that we carry and we have to get away from that, you know. Health is wealth. You know, it's not about money ain't wealth, health is wealth because what good is money if you're not healthy enough to spend it or if you're not healthy enough to enjoy it? we heard all of the stories of how the doctors would misdiagnose the black people or just wouldn't even tell us and guinea pig us and... um we kind of let that be our excuse as we've gotten older when it can't be an excuse anymore for us because now we can pick and choose who we want to be our doctors. If you're worried about a certain ethnicity, what they might diagnose you with or say misdiagnose you with, you can always choose to go to someone of an ethnicity that you choose to go to. We don't have the excuse that we used to have anymore. We don't have the right to mistreat our health, I would like to say. And you do, you do, but those who love us would rather that we didn't. oh know, again, you know, talking to my buddy, Greg Jennings, when we get to talking about mental health, that goes along with, you know, our physical health. oh You know, just listening to him talk about going to therapy, you know, to get his mental health. in order and in knowing what that feels like of going to therapy and, you know, trying to... I was kind of stuck in a rut because, you know, of course I had PTSD from military service. Again, I would always say that I'm okay because that's, you know, how we came up. You're all right. Ain't nothing wrong with you. You know, it's just battle fatigue. That's what they called it, know, battle fatigue. You know, some things that'll pass, you'll have the nightmares, they'll go away. That's what you tell yourself. Things like that. So it was until my wife came again and sat down with the doctor and myself and, you know, told the doctor, yeah, he's messed up, real messed up. I didn't know that. Again, I thought I was fine. didn't, you know, but... It took her coming with me to realize how messed up I was. then it took me. being accepting of them wanting to help me to get better. And as I started to get better, because I'm never gonna be all the way good, you know, because of the things that we've been through, the things we saw, the things that we've done. I'll never be all the way okay. But I'm much better than I was. I learned coping mechanisms, you know. listening to Michael Beasley, these are things that, know, obviously he had to teach himself coping mechanisms. We in the black community, we tend to do that. You know, we don't tend to go get coping mechanisms from doctors or from um therapists or anybody like that. We tend to figure out our own way to have a coping mechanism. And right now he, I believe he's doing an incredible job. somebody's gonna have to help that young fella. But as for me and us, my audience that I'm talking to, the mental part, you don't know how mentally stressed or messed up you may be until you talk to somebody who can tell you what your feelings are. I always, know, having a minor... in psychology and sociology, I always thought that I knew, but I got my degree in 2010. Medicine, treatment, diagnosis have changed. in the last 16 years that, you know, unless you stand up on it, which I wasn't because that's not my profession. So of course I wasn't staying up on those types of studies. You don't know about them until they brought to your attention. So obviously I didn't know about some of the things that I'm still going through today until. I started going to therapy with my wife and then eventually her therapist said, well, we can just have joint therapy. And we started having joint therapy and my wife was able to tell her some things that I couldn't articulate properly. And this lady was able to tell me and talk to me about um some of the feelings that I was having and without even knowing. That's when I knew that I need to get myself back into some therapy and get a little bit of help because I'm fighting a few demons that I don't have to fight. And so that comes along with, I go to the gym every other day, being 55, 56, I can't go every day anymore. So I got that physical part licked. It's that mental part that I'm... constantly working on as of probably six months ago, maybe a year, you know, I started working on that. I started, you know, talking about things that bother me more, whereas to I kept them in and, you know, of course, everything that you keep in eventually it comes out. You know, it's like a powder keg. So eventually it's going to blow. I'm learning coping mechanisms to keep that powder keg from blowing. um You know, because after I had, after I lost coaching, not lost it, but after my son grew up and I'm not actually doing the X's and O's and on the sideline, I kind of lost uh a little bit of desire and, and one of my coping mechanisms. And then again, when I started back doing what I do at Kalamazoo Central with my buddy, that brought back a nice sense of uh normalcy for me. It gave me something to look forward to because kids are like my saving grace because they're so, you know, they're your chance to write a book. You know, they're your chance to teach, you know. teach them how the world is really gonna be. This is your chance to maybe reach the one kid who couldn't nobody reach. um They're so refreshing, they're so honest. um And I like to be around that. I love that part for my mental state. And I'm sure a lot of my coaches out here that are listening and a lot of people out here, I feel the same way. that coaching is big to our mental health. And sometimes when you lose it, you don't understand the struggle that you're really having until something forces you to make a choice to get help for something that you have absolutely nothing to do with coaching or with what you thought it did. And then you get in there and find out that it had everything to do with it. And that's what happened with me. I had to come to the realization that there's other ways that I could help. There's other ways that could, you know, coach. There's other ways that I can be a, be of service to these children. And I found them. I found other ways. I love to volunteer. I volunteer for First T, my mental, physical health, which is a golf program here. My buddy who just started a little rocket football team here, he was on my podcast last week, told me anytime I want to come out and help and volunteer, I'm welcome. I have the elementary school that we deal with. I get during the summer. um You know, their summer program, you know, was told we can come out and volunteer and help with that. I mean, that's the stuff that a person like me needs. And it's not the need to be wanted. It's the need to give. See, people always think that. They get the need to give and the need to be wanted totally wrong. They always say, you know, well, that's because you want to do all of those things because you need to be wanted. You need to be wanted. No, I need to give. I have so much to offer children in the sense of knowledge, in the sense of motivation, in the sense of just listening, just uh ear. know, well, tell me about your day. don't care what's happening around, this is your time to talk to me and tell me what it is that you want to talk. So I have the need to always want to give to kids because I feel that. That's the group that we're leaving behind. And they're the ones that are suffering the most mentally. And a lot of it is driven with us. They're suffering physically. A lot of it is driven through us. ah I mean, we let our kids be lazy. And I like to fight against that. You can always find something fun for a kid to do to keep them healthy. That is... you know, something that they'll want to do. can ride a bike or something. know, those are the things that I like to do to try to, you know, just coaching and helping a kid period is my therapy, is my way of healing myself. Because physically, like I said, I go to the gym. Every other day I hit the steam room, hit the sauna, I hit the steam room while photo and men, women, steam room, sauna, very, very important to your workout. Do the research, look it up. It contributes to, I think the steam room contributes and sauna gives you a 90%. mortality rate as far as Detoxifying the body getting the toxins out it increases your life expectancy Let's per se let's just say that and it is a proven fact. That's why you you know It used to be called the Swedish bath, know, and it's the whirlpool You know, I mean they they have you know, the these funny names for what is nothing but a sauna and a steam room but I'll tell you what it is it I've been doing it for 30 years and man, I'll tell you it probably the greatest part of my workout because I know that that part is cleansing me and plus I can go in there and you know sit down and I can relax a little bit and you know talk to some of the guys that's in there you know shoot the the the shoot the shit and uh You know, just you see people you haven't seen in a while, older people, because it's mostly older people. We got the young guys into it now, but you know, because they start to understand how us older guys are sticking around. And that is a great, great tool for, you know, maintaining physical health. But it also is great for the mind because. It allows you, if you feel like you can have an outer body experience, you know, you can, like I'll go in there and if nobody's in there, I'll go in there and I'll just work on my breathing for 20 minutes. And before I know it, I could still do another 20 minutes when usually if I'm not doing my breathing, I can do like. 10 to 15 and I'm good. But when I'm in there by myself and I'm doing my breathing, I find myself being able to go longer because I am doing my mental healing along with my physical healing. So the sun in the steam room is big in that aspect. Again, I just wanted to do this one on mental and physical health because... I want us to be around a little longer. I want us to be healthy. want us, as coaches, we can't give our all if we don't have our all. And I think that we have to set the example for these young kids that we're coaching and that we're involved with. If your kids see you working out at the gym, well, true coach works out. mean, of course you got your out of shape coaches, but that's, that might be something, you know, physically where they are working on it or they can't work on it. Possibly you can't walk or whatever, but then the eating habits can change. you know, I, so I, so I try not to judge other coaches. I just always wanted to be one of them coaches to where if my kids looked at me, they just saw me looking good as a coach that they would want to look good as a person. Because again, it does help your self-esteem. as a child if you're in the gym working out, coming out feeling good, that's great for your self-esteem. So again, coaches, again, I just wanted to really talk about that. you know, maybe some of us are in a mental place and just needed to hear somebody say, go get some mental help like I did, you know, continuing to get some. There's nothing wrong with that. Hopefully. This podcast resonates with someone who's having issues, maybe physically or mentally, or with taking the medicine. Ask the questions to your doctor. If you don't know about this medicine, if you're not sure about the medicine that they give you, there's nothing wrong with asking them about it and then doing the research yourself. I found myself being that guy now that I go get physicals and stuff. Whenever he says he wants to put me on something, I'll... ask him what it is and what the side effects are, and then I'll decide whether I want to let him do it or not. And, you know, he's given me something to help me my sleep, for my nightmares, and my cholesterol. Those are really... And the vitamin D, because we live in Michigan, but I can get that over the counter from anywhere, but it's better to get it free. you know, and those are the three things that he gives me, because most of the other stuff that they tried to give me, I've learned the side effects, oh and I've asked questions about them. And consequently, those who don't ask questions about them and take them, I had a friend die from one of our PTSD medicines that they gave us. you know, it pays to ask questions if you have any when it comes to your medications. Again, I just wanted to touch on our health a little bit and I hope this helps someone. Thank you for tuning in to Coach Rodo's Winning Regardless podcast and I hope you have a great day. Remember, health is wealth and stay healthy.