EPISODE 14: Dave Piontkowski - a Three Kidney Strong, Colitis Conquering Comedian

STACY: Today on Autoimmune Adventures, join us as we chat with Dave Pienkowski, the comedian behind the show, Three Kidneys and No Colon. After a successful run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Dave brought his show back to New York City in early October, where he shares his personal experience with chronic kidney disease and ulcerative colitis, infusing humor and inspiration into his experiences.

We are happy to have the opportunity to laugh, learn, and find hope with Dave today. He's a great example of the first tenant of our Big Six, which is having a positive attitude and a sense of humor, because Dave does this for a living. So, welcome Dave. It's nice to have you here with us.

DAVE: Thank you, Stacey. Thank you to the entire family for having me. You guys, I love this, a family podcast. I think this is awesome. And I think what you're doing for people with autoimmune diseases is incredible. I actually can't wait to send this to my other family members who are affected by autoimmune diseases. It's really beneficial, and I'm so happy that I could be a part of this podcast and share my journey with my experiences.

STACY: Well, with that in mind, um, did you grow up without immune disease? Has this been something that's been a lifelong struggle or is this something that's new?

DAVE: Uh, well, I was diagnosed, you mentioned the chronic kidney disease, I was diagnosed with that at age 15. I would say from a pretty early age, I dealt with autoimmune issues and then the colitis a few years later was also autoimmune. And actually the way they were healing the kidneys was with a medication known as tacrolimus or Prograf, and they continued to use that for the colitis, and we're using similar meds because it was also an autoimmune issue.

STACY: Do you have any family members with autoimmune problems?

DAVE: Yeah, my father's side of my family. I, I don't want to get into details about what's going on lately with specific family members, but, you know, they told me about something happening and I just said. Our side is just cursed. It's just cursed.

It's just my father's side of my family. I don't know what our ancestors did. I don't know if it was like, incest or what, but it's something on my father's side. Like, everyone has some autoimmune issue. And the worst I saw it was with my uncle Shlomo, who actually passed away about 2 years ago. He battled autoimmune issues for decades.

And he actually, he was a doctor. He was probably the smartest person I've ever met. And he was so smart and so sharp. He was able to manage his medication, manage his healthcare, obviously with the assistance of other medical professionals, he took such good care of himself that he beat the expectations of how long he was going to live by years and years, he really beat the number. And I like to think I hopefully will do the same with the numbers they've given me with my illnesses. But yeah, so many people in my family with various illnesses.

STACY: Because we're sisters, we have this joke in our family that we don't have a gene pool, we have more of a cesspool. We, we just kind of joke about that. I mean, we have a tight, close knit, loving family, but genetically we're seriously challenged. As we've got to meet different people with autoimmune disease, that's one of the things that we've noticed is that hereditary kind of thing, you know, genetics play a big part in it, so we were curious if that was the case with you.

DAVE: Stacy, do you ever blame, um, distant relatives that you never had an interaction with? Do you ever get mad and think like, I do, cause I feel like some really gross stuff was happening before our time.

STACY: You know, I, I think that history is full of big messes. That have have kind of percolated down through the ages and now we're stuck with all the junk from before,

ALYSIA: I will say I think it's, I think we do have the advantage because we know some of our ancestors, like specifically my dad's grandpa who, who died without ever getting a diagnosis, and we all, the three of us have celiac disease. My dad had celiac disease and knowing what he died of now, we're almost positive he had celiac disease, but nobody knew that back then. Nobody knew the symptoms.

BECKY: Given the symptoms, that's probably what it looked like.

ALYSIA: And even just our parents generation, I feel like they just weren't as inclined to go to a doctor and say, "I feel like garbage, what's wrong with me."

And. I mean, there's just been a lot of advances in medical, um, in the medical world in the last generation anyway, but.

DAVE: Oh yeah. Yeah. You never, you never hear someone who was born before like the fifties saying like, "I better stop eating bread because it makes me sick."

BECKY: Exactly.

ALYSIA: Right.

BECKY; That would not happen very often for sure. So you've told us a little bit about your autoimmune journey. Could you, if you're comfortable, anyway, could you tell us a little bit more particularly about why your show is called Three Kidneys, No Colon, we were curious about the three kidneys part.

DAVE: I mentioned I had chronic kidney disease starting at age 15. The way that kind of developed was it was like swelling of my legs and it lasted, there was at least a few months to a year where I had a significant swelling in my legs and they were using water pills to train the fluids. And eventually I got on these medications that slowed down the progression of the kidney disease, but long term, my kidneys were just declining a little bit each year, like a little bit, a little bit.

And present day, I'm in my 30s. So when I hit my mid 30s, In February, 2020, I started having really bad muscle cramps and I was...I talk about this in the show, and I was put on a kidney transplant list. I was on that list for about two and a half years until receiving a kidney in July of 2022. That's where the 3 kidneys comes from, because I had two kidneys that were failing, and they added a third kidney to get me back up to life,

It was a long, hard struggle that I described in the show. And I make it funny. Don't worry. It's not, it's not a bummer, but it's like, that was the struggle I had with the three kidneys aspect of the title. Yeah. That's where that comes into play.

ALYSIA: We know we're all three women, obviously, and autoimmune disease is typically, but predominantly a female associated struggle. How was it like, what is it like being a man in with autoimmune disease?

DAVE: I guess maybe like, if you consider like a masculine trait is to maybe be like tough and try to be like, "I can get through this pain." So there's a lot of times where I didn't. I have a lot of very painful experience and I'm like, "No, I gotta, I gotta be tough. I gotta be a man." You know, like, um, I watch like a lot of like UFC or pro wrestling. I'm like, oh, those guys are tough. I'm tough like them. You know, I gotta like, uh, who cares if I'm on dialysis and in massive pain, I gotta toughen up and get through this.

ALYSIA: Well, that kind of leads me. Do you have people around you that you can count on?

DAVE: Yeah, I do. I do have people I can count on. I would say, in terms of what you actually go through, that's where I find a lot of camaraderie with the people I've met doing the show, other comedians with the same illnesses.

That's where I find people I can really connect with, you know. I have family members and friends who they'll drop everything to come help me out if something really crazy is happening. But at the same end, those people that are very close, I can't communicate with them about what it's like to have no colon or what it's like to have a third kidney as much as they can with, you know, a person comes to my show and they had four kidneys or no colon or whatever, which has been some of the cases that are the people I've met doing the show.

ALYSIA: And I imagine being somebody who comes to your show. It would be rather refreshing to have somebody be so honest about this. I mean, we always joke, I'm an oversharer. I doesn't bother me to tell people my whole health history. I don't care, but some people that's very private and personal to them. You know, I think that when somebody like you gets on a stage and just lays it out there and turns it into this, well, this is what I'm dealing with and it's kind of miserable, but I make the best of it.

I think that that is very validating for other people to see that that are going through something. Similar and they say, okay, well, maybe if this guy can deal with it with some humor, I feel seen and validated. Maybe I could look at it that way too.

DAVE: I heard exactly that. I heard it from someone who had colitis and saw my show, and they said, "I felt seen watching the show."

That's at a base level. What I want to get out of the show is get people who are going through these situations and maybe, uh, Lately, like the most recent show, I'm adding photographs, so I show photographs of me, you know, when I'm on dialysis or I'm on a lot of medication for with the colitis. I'm like, really, like, very bloated looking very bad.

And if you look at those pictures, when you look at me now, it's like two different human beings. And I think that's great to show people that there is. I don't know, some, some sunshine at the end of the nightmare, light at the end of the tunnel.

ALYSIA: Right, right. We, we like to say your autoimmune disease doesn't define you. It doesn't define your life. We define our life. And I think you were kind of a perfect example of that.

STACY: There are times in life where just knowing you're not alone is the most important thing. Part of the reason why we started this podcast was we knew there were a lot of people out there that weren't lucky enough to have a strong support system like we have.

It's a very real thing and it's very lonely. And like you said, a lot of people who are your support system may not totally understand what you're going through, but they're still there for you. And I know people with autoimmune disease who are doing this by themselves, who's, spouse or significant other has left them because they just couldn't cope with what their person was going through anymore.

It's good that we have people like you who are willing to get up there and say, "Hey, I lived with this. I'm still living with it. It's not ever gonna go away, but I can still make a good life for myself. I can make a difference in the world." And I, I really appreciate that you do that.

DAVE: I think the show really highlights just how much it's changed my life how much it impacts your everyday situation. When, you know, I, politest, I had to go to the bathroom upwards of 15 times a day. When you have an illness like that, your priorities change and your life changes. And when you're not healthy. Every other problem goes away. You know, you might be dealing with a messy relationship situation. That's a problem. It's not as big as the health problem. And especially in autoimmune disease.

STACY: Yeah. I think that's an important thing for people to remember. When you went to Edinburgh, how do you handle the constant never ending demand? How do you deal with that when you're out traveling and trying to make a career for yourself?

DAVE: Stacy, this is a fantastic question. I, I started comedy when I was, uh, 16. Actually, after I got the kidney disease, cause I guess it showed me life was short and I kind of, you know, hey, I'm going to go for it. But then the years I had colitis in my twenties, I stopped doing comedy because it just didn't see it as a feasible thing to pursue with how much I was going to the bathroom. Then after I had surgery for it, where, you know, the no colon aspect of the show title comes in. After I had the surgery, I felt like, okay, I'm still weary about it. I was kind of dabbling. But after a few years with it, I started to realize, okay, there's certain foods, there's certain things I can put in my body. There are certain ways I can control and manipulate the situation. So I don't have to go to the bathroom for an hour or two. I know I can be okay to do a show for an hour and not have to go to the bathroom.

And guys, it wasn't perfect. Did I have an accident during one or two of those shows? I absolutely did. But you know, like guys, the show must go on. And I got to say the worst one was in the first two minutes. That's a rough one. That's a rough one. But I'm doing an hour show. So, you know, that's, that's 58 minutes where I'm just like, I really wish I could pause the show and check the bridge, but you know.

But basically it's diet, and I also, there was a fantastic bathroom at the bar next door to the venue I was performing at, and I would walk in like it was my office an hour before the show and yeah, and I also found something out for people who are in the UK, go to the Crohn's and colitis UK website [https://crohnsandcolitis.org.uk/] become a member. Donate a little bit of money.

They will give you a bathroom key that is universal around the city of London. And I got this key. I was opening doors at Wembley stadium that were locked. I was using bathrooms at bars that were locked. VIP bathroom experience in London for a small donation, I highly recommend.

BECKY: That's incredible. My experience has been the UK seems really aware and proactive about a lot of autoimmune diseases, not that we're not aware of them here in the States, but they seem to do very positive proactive things like that for people that are actually dealing with autoimmune diseases.

DAVE: I have the key in my, in my apartment and I'm looking forward to going back next year.

ALYSIA: The golden key. I love it.

DAVE: The brown, brown key. The brown key.

BECKY: One of the things that we've talked about, we do try to keep our stuff upbeat, but we also recognize, we try to avoid toxic positivity, because there are a lot of people who are still in the beginnings of getting their diagnosis and are feeling more helpless, and they're not quite to that point where they can feel like they can have a sense of humor about it, and some of them are even struggling to have a sense of hope about it.

Did you ever have that point in your diagnosis where it was before you were able to get a sense of humor about it, or were you able to laugh in the moment, like, how was that for you?

DAVE: I always had a sense of humor about it, but no, not even the funniest joke or the best sense of humor will outweigh the nightmare of being woken up multiple times throughout the night, having to move your bowels, having to cancel multiple plans socially, because you don't feel comfortable leaving your home or apartment for more than like an hour or two, because you're going to the bathroom so much and just feeling so weak.

Those aspects of it are just undeniable, but I think the beauty of this show is being able to look back at all of those horrible, horrible situations and going, I lived, and that's the best part. I lived and I can laugh at this.

ALYSIA: You mentioned using humor to lighten the mood. How did you develop that coping strategy? You said you could all, you always had a sense of humor, but like you said, it's not always easy to find the humor. In those situations. So how did you develop that coping strategy?

DAVE: From an early age, I had, you know, I had kidney disease and I was a teenager going to these doctor's appointments. And I just thought, well, these are ridiculous.

Like the every, my doctor had all these medical students that would like come into the room when I would be at the appointment and the doctor's doing like a real checkup on me. And these people are just staring at me, and I feel like I got to make some stupid comment to these people just, you know, to make myself laugh and then I make some of them laugh, but they're a tough crowd.

They, they, I've been told by friends of mine who are doctors that yeah, they're told like, don't laugh, but like, I'm constantly trying to pop them. So I'm just, I did that when I was a teenager, just because I thought the whole scenario was just so ridiculous. And then throughout these procedures, I just remember thinking, well, if I don't laugh, I'm going to cry., so it's better I laugh, cause this is, this is, it got very dark at times. And, you know, especially through the colitis, the transplant years, when I was on the transplant list, those were dark times, if I didn't have a sense of humor about it, I don't know that I could have survived it, to be honest with you, it's, it's really, you gotta, you gotta laugh at the ridiculousness of life sometimes.

ALYSIA: I love that you said, I can either laugh or I can cry. Who, who enjoys crying? Like who wants to be doing that? Who wants to be miserable? It's a choice you made, which I love. You made a conscious choice. Yeah, this sucks, but I can at least try and lighten the mood, at least point out the ridiculous qualities of, of my whole experience and in the meantime, connect with people in a way that you wouldn't have otherwise, which is cool.

DAVE: I don't think it's a bad thing to cry. If you know, sometimes just life. Just gives you in a very unfortunate situation and you have to kind of, you know, deal with the situation. Sometimes it just happens. If you have a choice of a matter, I'd much rather be laughing than crying.

STACY: Did you have a lot of bouncing around with doctors when you were 15 and trying to get things figured out? Or was it pretty straightforward?

DAVE: Just you're going to encounter bad doctors. And you know what, you got to do your due diligence and just get yourself to a second or possibly third opinion in these situations before I got my surgery. I think I got like three or four opinions on if I should have the surgery.

They all said I should have it, but I was in the mindset like, yeah, but you might be wrong. So let me, let me check it out. And I've talked to people who've had other kidney issues and other medical issues of it. And they all told me 1st doctor. I've heard so many experiences, many experiences of people go, "Yeah, my first doctor said this, and then I saw the second doctor, and they said, you know what, we could actually handle it that way." And I think it's just important on the, you as a patient, to not just take face value what one person says to you and just get a second opinion.

STACY: I, I would agree with you. I think it's really important for us to advocate for ourselves. And that sounds like what you were doing. Um, one of the things that we are constantly telling people, "self advocacy is one of the most important things you can do." You have to remind yourself, I am the one in this body. I am the only one that knows what I'm really going through, and if I want help, I have to be stubborn enough to get it. I have to look at things and say, I want more than one opinion. I don't want to do this life changing surgery. If it is not really what I need to do.

DAVE: I mean, I'll even give you an example. The first gastro I saw, he insisted on doing a sigmoidoscopy to me. And when you're pooping 15 times a day, what a sigmoidoscopy is, it's like a colonoscopy that's not as deep, but you're also awake for it, and any sort of penetration of that region was just a very difficult thing when you're pooping 15 times a day. So I had a very horrible experience with it, even though it was, you know, maybe a minute or two experience. And then when I saw gastro's after him, I would tell them in the initial interview, I'd be like, "Listen, just, if you think you need to do that, give me a colonoscopy, and see whatever you need to see and put me out. And if you can't do that, then I'm not even going to come in."

And eventually I did find a gastro who was cooperative with that, but that took some, that took a lot of me advocating for myself and saying what I'm comfortable and not comfortable with.

ALYSIA: We also feel like it's really important to educate yourself because your doctor can only do so much to educate you about your condition while you're there in their office on their exam table or whatever part of self advocacy is educating yourself on your conditions, like the website that you mentioned in the UK. That's awesome.

There's stuff like that everywhere. And we can do that homework. We encourage our listeners really do that homework. That way, when you do go to your doctor, you are informed about what's happening to your body. Not only because like what Stacy said, this is our body. I'm living with this every day. I'm the one that feels it and lives with it and deals with all of the issues. I feel like for me, when I started educating myself, when I would go to the doctor, I was braver to speak up for myself and say, "Actually, can you run this panel of tests? Actually, can we do this? Or do you have a different option for treatment than this?"

That's just not always effective for autoimmune disease. It's just not.

BECKY: I thought it was great how you were talking though about how you did advocate that you learned this was something that was not going to be pleasant for you. And you weren't afraid to say, "Nope, I'm not going to do that. If this is what we're doing, we need a different plan because there are other options." Some people are afraid to do that sometimes. I think it was great that you were able to advocate for yourself that way.

DAVE: I just recommend asking questions if they want to do X. All right. Why do you want to do that to me? What do you think is the benefit of that? I'm really just being open book about my medical situation.

My gastro wanted to do a test for my sphincter control when they put a balloon in your butt and they test your sphincter strength, and I said, "Why are we doing this?"

And he said, "Oh, so I could refer you to another doctor who's going to help you strengthen your sphincter." I said, "Why don't I just go see that doctor, and you don't do the test, and then if, you know, if it helps great, and if it doesn't, well, whatever. I saw, I wasted my time, but I'd rather just go see the doctor that you recommend than do this test."

And like, all right, obviously, we think it's a problem based on the conversation. So, you know, it's like, So yeah, that's, that's life with no colon and ulcerative colitis. You gotta get your, you gotta have a strong sphincter.

ALYSIA: So talking about other people that are going to be dealing with or are dealing with similar situations for those that struggle with auto immune disease, oftentimes, as we mentioned, it can be depressing. Mental health is often linked to our autoimmune health.

And so, what advice could you offer somebody who is struggling right now with whatever it is they're dealing with in their body? How can people find humor in that? Like, what would, what advice would you give them?

DAVE: Well, I don't know if it's always finding humor. I think it's realizing that the present moment is temporary.

The pain you're experiencing right now is temporary. The situation you're in right now is temporary. I face the situation where I could get my colon removed. I'd have a temporary ileostomy bag. The key word there for me was temporary. Now I knew if the surgery didn't go well, or there's complications, I could easily have an ileostomy bag.

There's still a chance that the pouch fails and I could have an ileostomy bag knock on whatever purpose you have to not have that happen, but I'm in a situation where I don't think about the what ifs. I don't think about the things I can't control. I look at it very objectively. Okay, what can I control?

In the present moment this sucks. This is terrible. But if I do this, this and this treatment, maybe I'll be better. And then even though the next few weeks or a few months or whatever it's going to be, are going to suck, I'm going to get through this, and I'm going to figure out a way to live with this. Because once you do figure out a way to live with this, that is when things really get better.

And I know everyone else is, you know, everyone's different. And sometimes things progressively do get worse, but you just have to stay positive and just, uh, hope things really do work out. And even if they don't, you know, you're alive and there's always, it could always be worse. Trust me. It could always be worse.

ALYSIA: So what I hear you saying is it's really about your mindset.

Yeah. Mindset's huge. You know, I, I, for me, when things got really dark was, uh, February, 2020, I'm on a transplant list. And then, you know, the pandemic full lockdown in New York, and I'm extra paranoid because I have kidneys that are borderline non-functioning. I was totally isolated.

And I just read a lot of books, and I read a lot of books about meditation, and I read a lot of books about focusing on the present moment and different breathing exercises to calm yourself down. And, you know, there's so many things out there. So there's so many resources that you can. access

I started doing a lot of yoga, started doing long meditation sessions, exercise and meditation, and eating a healthy diet, I think all help you because when your mind is strong and your body's strong, it's all synced up together.

ALYSIA: Oh my gosh. I love that you just listed like three or four of our Big Six, and this...the six big things you can do when you live with autoimmune disease to take care of yourself. And one of them is what you do all day, every day. It's positive attitude and a sense of humor. Healthy diet you talked about, we talk about avoiding toxins and supporting your liver and kidneys. Obviously, you know how to do that. Exercise.

Specifically, we really love yoga because of the other benefits besides the movement. It's also relaxing and good for you getting good sleep and stress management. Those are our Big Six. So you kind of covered several of those. I love that you say it's, you know, it's a choice because it's not easy work reading the books and learning how to think differently about taking care of yourself, being mindful, being in the moment, breathing, really, really paying attention to your body. That's actually hard work.

DAVE: Yeah, What helped me, I read a lot of books about forming habits. I mean, the most common one is probably Atomic Habits, but there's a bunch of them out there that and a lot of them. You'll notice if you read multiple, they say a lot of the same things. And if you're not comfortable with reading, just, you know, audio book, whatever is easiest to digest.

But get the information in, if you can listen to an hour podcast like this, you can listen to an audio book. That's maybe a few hours and knock it out. For me, those books showed me a path. So the simplest one where you talk about exercise, do one pushup a day. And you know what, when you're doing one pushup, it might encourage you to do two. It might encourage you to do 10, but just set a base minimum. I'm going to do at least one a day and don't break it. And if you do that every day for a year, now you've worked out for 365 days straight. Some days you're only going to get in that one push up. Other days, maybe you'll do a little more and do some crunches and do other things.

And before you know it, you're developing a whole routine. It's just getting that habit down and getting that habit consistent. And just starting with the most base level of like, what's the simplest thing I can do.

ALYSIA: I love that. That's great advice.

BECKY: Shifting gears just a little bit. We were wondering, but have you found any unexpected benefits or positive outcomes from your experience with autoimmune disease?

DAVE: In terms of what's helped me personally, toughness, you know, I went into the surgery for the kidney transplant and it didn't phase me, because I already had my colon removed. I was like, this is like minor. This is nothing compared to that. You know, so I'm like, all right, if I can get through that, like, this is so nothing.

And it just changed the way I kind of treat a lot of fears. Stand up. That's scary for a lot of people to get on stage in a public forum and talk publicly, especially about autoimmune disease that you deal with. When I first started getting back into it, it freaked me out. I was like, oh, my God, I can't believe I just did that.

Because when you bomb talking about stuff that is really personal, boy, that cuts deep. That cuts deep. So I had to get through that fear. But to me, it was like, what could be scarier than having to have an organ removed or an organ added? You know, what could be scarier than the uncertainty of, I'm in the hospital, I don't know when I'm going to get out?

I'm on this medication. I don't know if it's going to fix it. I've dealt with some dark, dark situations and come out of the other side. So to me, it's like, it's made me more fearless, I would say I'm definitely more present, but there also is this thing in the back of my mind as a guy with a transplanted organ that has an average lifespan of 10 years, where I'm thinking, well, I'm going to try to beat that number by dieting and exercising and like, you know, really being as healthy as I can. What if in eight years I got to get another organ? I better do all the things I want to do now while I am healthy, because I don't know when the shoe's going to drop.

I don't know when I'm going to get autoimmune disease number three. I hope I don't get. A third autoimmune disease. I hope I don't get sick again. I do feel a sense of urgency, which probably leads to why I'm doing this show. I got back into the standup was just, what if something happens? But at the end of the day, I am definitely more present and more willing to slow things down. I don't pack my schedule like some other comics I know in the city. I could stress myself out and try to get on stage five, six times in a day. But I also did that and I was miserable. And I just said, you know what? I, there has to be a balance.

STACY: I agree. There has to be a balance. As we wrap things up, we want to say thank you so much for coming. It's been a delight interviewing you.

DAVE: Yeah, thank you for having me.

STACY: As a parting thought, is there anything that you would like to say to our viewers who are facing similar challenges or a suggestion for finding strength and resilience in their own journeys?

DAVE: Specifically for the people with colitis, Crohn's, IBD, IBS. Everybody sharts. We all do it. Men, women, um, regardless, it doesn't matter. Everybody sharts, so don't feel don't feel bad. Don't feel ashamed. It's unfortunate when it happens. Be prepared. Pack some extra underwear. You'll be okay.

BECKY: Can you let people know where they could see your show if they were in New York.

DAVE: Oh, yeah. I mean, right now, I might be switching venues, but if you go to my Instagram at DavePComedy, uh, it's P as in penis, DavePComedy, and check that out on my, on Instagram. You can sign up for my email list there, and you can find out all about the show. So just go to my Instagram page, DavePComedy, and you can find out about the show.

And I'm going to be in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2025. So, I need the UK people who are listening to this. I will see you there in August of 2025. I'm already working on it. In the meantime, I'm actually planning a tour as I'm doing this interview. So all those dates will be out very soon on my social media and just sign up to the email list and I'll let you guys know.

ALYSIA: Awesome.

STACY: Great.

BECKY: Awesome. Thanks for joining.

ALYSIA: Nice to meet you.

DAVE: It's been great. This is like, I, I'm looking forward to, um, sending this to friends and family who are also dealing with autoimmune issues. And, uh, my hope is, uh, if this can even reach one person who's dealing with these kind of issues and it helps them, and if you are listening to this and you know, you need someone to speak to reach out and and I'll do my best to get back to you. I don't want to make guarantees, but I'll do my best.

STACY: That's really great of you. Thanks so much.

DAVE: Yeah. Yeah. You're welcome. You're welcome.

STACY: Thank you, Dave. We're so glad that you could come and join us to share your autoimmune adventure. I think we would all agree that it is always wonderful to interview someone who understands what it's like to meet the challenges and the adventures that autoimmunity brings to us.

If any of you have questions or suggestions for future episodes, we want to hear from you. Leave a comment below, reach us on social media, come on over to autoimmuneadventures. com and subscribe. And remember everyone, you are worthy of joy. Your disease does not define your life, you do.