Introduction
[00:00:00] Detective Ev: What is going on everyone? Welcome back to another episode of the Detective Podcast by Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. My name is Evan Transue, aka Detective Ev. I will be your host for today’s show about someone becoming an FDN.
We’re still talking FDN and all things health. But I have an interesting guest for you today. Some would call it a special guest, I certainly do. It’s actually my girlfriend. She is currently going through the FDN course. She actually, at the time that we recorded this, submitted her written final so all that would be left is her oral exam. Then once she has done that, she is graduated in that moment and will be going out and doing this work immediately afterwards. So she’s basically done.
We were going to wait until she finished the course completely to have her on, but she kind of saved me here. I mentioned this in the previous episode, if you happened to listen. I had a bit of an unexpected wisdom tooth surgery coming up. If you’re listening to this, I definitely am in the midst of my recovery.
We had her come on, again, it’s not really that early. I mean, she would’ve been graduated almost within the next week or two of this being recorded, which is really cool. It’s a fun story because we talk about how we got together and even got her interested in FDN cause that was never the original intention. That was never what I thought was going to happen when we first started out together. It’s pretty cool to see this come full circle.
Becoming An FDN: About to Graduate
Maddy discovered quite a bit about herself from the FDN course when she ran the labs. I think you guys will appreciate that. We have a good back and forth here. We would probably make good co-hosts together on some other type of show. I think you guys will really enjoy this one.
I divided it into two parts that are slightly shorter than normal. The reason is just to help me out a little bit here while I’m having to delay some recordings with people. I just wanted this to be a little smoother and easier. You guys will still get the same great value, great content that you always do. You’ll have to listen to us bore you with our love story for the first 10 minutes or so. But outside of that it is going to be a normal FDN episode two-part series.
Then I should be back to normal with our regularly scheduled stuff. If it’s taking me a little longer to heal than expected, you might have one day that there might be an episode skipped but we will not do it for longer than one day. If you do see that skip, you will know why that is. Wish me luck with the surgery. Without further ado, let’s get to today’s episode.
All right. Well, if it isn’t Madeleine Junevitch herself. Welcome to the Health Detective Podcast. This is a long-awaited episode, not for anyone else probably, but at least for me is. I think this is so cool to be able to do this. For those that do not know, I mean the title of this episode will probably show this pretty clearly. This is my girlfriend, and she is currently about to graduate from the FDN course.
Becoming An FDN: The Myers Briggs Dating App
We were going to wait until she graduated fully to do the course, but you just submitted your written final tonight. She’s got her oral exam sometime next week or the week following, depending on when she can schedule for. We brought her on early, quite frankly, because I have my wisdom tooth surgery and we needed someone that could hop on with me last minute notice.
This is going to be a fun episode. Maddy doesn’t have like some crazy insane health story, but she’s got health symptoms, learned a lot from the labs, in fact, quite a bit was surprising, and is now going to be doing this as a job amongst other things. We’ll get into all of that.
But first things first, one thing we have to address is for the longtime listeners, we have like one of the wackiest ways of meeting ever. I’ll be pretty impressed if someone remembers this from back at either the late nineties in terms of episodes or maybe early 100s. I actually think it was late nineties, which is nuts to think about. We had my friend Anna, come on, and I was talking about Maddy because we were relatively early on into our relationship at the time. But I was talking about how Maddy and I met, and we met through a very special app.
Would we like to tell the fine people that listen to this show what app that would be and what that entails exactly, Madeline?
[00:03:54] Madeleine Junevitch: Absolutely. It was one of your favorite types of dating apps, Myers Briggs. For people who don’t know, that is a personality typing system. So, the little icon was a little ghost, and the app was called Boo, nonetheless than a ghost.
Becoming An FDN: The App Worked Beautifully
So yeah, we just put on our profiles and had to take a little personality typing test to get matched up. We ended up being like the ideal pair as the app would call it.
[00:04:21] Detective Ev: Absolutely. I swear we won’t do a whole episode here on our dating story, but I promise the first little bit of this is actually very entertaining, even if you’re not us.
What I thought was so cool is, yeah, I’m not a huge dating app person. In fact, I’m not a dating app person at all. I just can’t even imagine using that. I don’t like any of the traditional ones. I do think there is an application for it, obviously, it worked for us.
But the application that I always saw was, okay, I don’t like the idea of swiping through a bunch of people based solely off looks, but I do like the idea that I’m a fairly, some would say kind of eccentric person. So, the idea that I can now look at a lot of different people, or rather have them look at me and just give this bio, tell them what it is. Hey, I’m a little crazy here, but crazy fun. There’s going to be some good stuff. You can decide if this is your type of crazy or not. You can just go through hundreds if not thousands of people very easily to see who combines with you.
So, I was all for the Meyers-Briggs thing right away. I think it’s so amazing about how we got connected, cause obviously we’re extremely close, things have worked out beautifully.
Becoming An FDN: Looking for Quality Conversations
Can you talk about how you even ended up on the app, because you didn’t even know what Myers-Briggs was before this?
[00:05:31] Madeleine Junevitch: Yeah. I mean, I’ve heard about it in college. When I was taking my psychology class, I heard about the personality typing system. There was a couple, but they made us take like a typing test. I don’t remember what I scored back then, but that’s about my base knowledge with personality typing in Myers Briggs.
I was just kind of looking to make some friends and start talking to some new people. I had just moved back home and came across this app. I didn’t want to do Hinge or Tinder, nothing against those, just not for me. I am more of a quality over quantity type of person. So, when I came across the reviews for this it got 4.8 or 4.9 outta five stars. I’m like, nothing gets this good of reviews.
So, I was going through the reviews that people were putting on. Everything was like, I met my soulmate, the quality here is great. I’m like, okay, well now I gotta try. I just gotta see what this is about. The second that you download it, make an account, it makes you take a test to even get on.
I’m like, okay, this is the place for me. Because like you said, I’m not just trying to swipe for the fun of it. I am actually looking for quality conversations, someone I can actually vibe with on a more spiritual and mental level, not about looks or anything like that.
Becoming An FDN: Quite a Distance Apart
What’s actually really funny is there’s a lot of people on there, relatively speaking, and when I came across your profile, you had a whole page full of stuff that you were looking for, what you’re about. Many other people, they just had a paragraph or like something that said, DM me to learn more. That’s not my vibe at all. It’s like, I’m not here to waste time. I’m not looking for something like that. Tell me what you’re about and then we’ll talk and see if this works. So, that’s what I liked about it.
Yeah, it was mostly just looking for friendships, possibly talking to someone. I wasn’t really looking for a long-term relationship or anything like that at the time. It was mostly just to connect with people since I moved back to the area and ended up meeting you. You know, things obviously worked out beautifully. So, here we are.
[00:07:28] Detective Ev: Yeah, and this is where the story gets particularly interesting for people. Because what we have failed to mention is that Boo, if it’s not inherently obvious, is just slightly niche. The issue when you get a niche service in general, let alone a dating app, is sometimes there’s not an abundance of people in your local area. Apps like these might take you a little farther than the five-mile radius. I’m not sure what the exact mileage is, Maddy, but roughly speaking here, what would you say the distance was for us?
[00:08:02] Madeleine Junevitch: I was Washington State, so West coast. You’re Pennsylvania, East coast. So, it’s pretty far.
Becoming An FDN: This Takes a Different Kind of Person
I’m not even going to lie; I was talking to someone in England and there were definitely options even further than that. Would I travel to England? Probably not. PAs about as far East as I’ll go.
[00:08:18] Detective Ev: Well, I think if I was in England, you would’ve went there.
[00:08:23] Madeleine Junevitch: I guess we’ll never know.
[00:08:23] Detective Ev: We will never know.
How this ended up working out, it’s kind of hilarious cause FDN does play into this. This is a true story, 100% as wild as it is. We started talking in October of 2021, hit it off immediately. I’m like, okay, I love this person. This is awesome.
We of course, recognized the idea that this is a little insane. I’m in Pennsylvania, you’re in Washington. You gotta understand on an app like this, you’re having actually a very high amount of quality conversations. It doesn’t mean that you’re actually planning on doing anything per se, but it’s like you really do get connected with very compatible people. At the very least you just find them interesting.
The type of person that would choose to go on an app like that is generally speaking maybe not interesting to the people listening, but interesting to you because it’s a different type of person that’s going to do that, is what I’m trying to say. So, we hit it off though exceptionally well.
Here’s the thing, so again, started talking mid-October. I was actually finishing up the biohacking Congress in Miami, Florida. FDN applies to this in so many ways. I got sick from traveling, which is so stupid cause I was at a biohacking Congress, so that sucked.
Becoming An FDN: Enjoying Quality Conversations
I ended up, I booked an extra day so I can be in Miami. I spent my extra day being sick in the Airbnb and it was awful. So, I’m like, all right, at least I can get my cheap dopamine hit by swiping. Lo and behold, I found Madeleine here, which is awesome. We start talking, totally hit it off. It was like, okay, this is exciting.
Now, just the day before, Reed and Raewyn, Raewyn is Reed’s wife, for those that don’t know, they were at the Biohacking Congress as well. That was the first time I had ever met Reed Davis in person. Reed and Raewyn invited me to come out to do the hundredth episode special for the podcast. The only issue was it was all the way in San Diego, and I was in Pennsylvania.
Now, obviously we were not going to go out just for the podcast per se. He was also having a Christmas party with a bunch of FDNs and other people. I’m like, dude, I’ll go to San Diego. This sounds awesome. I was totally in for this. Just the day before this gets planned, Maddy and I start talking and it was planned for early December.
There’s just enough time here that you can kind of figure out whether or not this is going to be a thing between you and the individual. What’s so special with Maddy and I, man, is we literally started talking on, again, October 17th, 2021, and we just haven’t stopped since. Like we literally do not stop. There is always something to say. There is always something that we’re learning and wanting to share. It’s kind of ridiculous, so it’s cool.
Becoming An FDN: Meeting for the First Time
What happened is I was definitely the one who pushed this, just to be clear. Maddy was the first one to reach out, but I was the one to push this. I said, well, listen, I’m going to San Diego. Spokane, Washington’s West coast. It’s only a minor detour, some would say. I said, well, what if I just stopped in first and then I went back down to San Diego.
It was like, okay, yeah, that should be fine. And we agreed to that. Then it was, well, hey, maybe you come down with me to San Diego. It was like, all right, well we’ll see about that. Let’s meet this guy in person first. Then it became, okay, sure. I’ll come down to San Diego, all before meeting in person to be clear.
So, my crazy self is on a plane by 6:00 AM flying to Minneapolis, St. Paul because there is no direct flights to Spokane, Washington from the East coast, other than Atlanta and Chicago. I fly out to there, meet this girl. It was awesome. We had a wonderful time. And again, we’ll spare you guys of all our dating stories here in its entirety. But this is about the final part, I’ll share. It’s just cool. It’s insane what happened.
We meet up, it was great. We did not stay together in the same Airbnb the first night. We wanted to be respectful, one to her parents, but two, we just met each other. It’s like there’s no need to even do that. Right? So, we skipped on that night and then the next morning, what was it, babe, like 5:45 in the morning, I think, or something. We met up pretty early, right?
Becoming An FDN: Trip to Reed & Rae’s
[00:12:05] Madeleine Junevitch: Yeah. We wanted to catch sunrise in the Idaho Mountains, so it was about 5:45AM.
[00:12:09] Detective Ev: Yeah. We got together in the rental car, and we drove into Idaho. By like 10:00 AM we are 3,000 feet up, 20 minutes into a road that was not favorable. What do they call that?
[00:12:24] Madeleine Junevitch: Oh gosh. Logging roads.
[00:12:26] Detective Ev: Okay. So, we’re 20 minutes into that, taking my rental car on this, and I don’t have any insurance on this thing.
We’re like 20 minutes in and are now elk tracking 3,000 feet up in the middle of nowhere in Idaho. If I didn’t know I love this person before, I’m like, this will do it. This solidifies it just fine. I am seven total hours into knowing this person in person and we’re tracking elk. We did see some, so that was cool.
The very next day we’re flying down to San Diego. I asked Reed if I can bring my girlfriend. Now, I didn’t tell him how I met this girl, or that I just recruited her from the state of Washington like yesterday. But I brought her down to the San Diego thing and we had a great time at Reed’s. Reed and Rae were amazing. It was so cool to see everyone. They let us stay there and the rest is history.
We’ve been living together now for like a year. It’s just a really special thing. Alright, these people are probably done with hearing all of that. Did I miss anything? Is there anything else in those first few days that’s really eccentric and cool?
Becoming An FDN: The Particulars of a Healthy Lifestyle
[00:13:20] Madeleine Junevitch: I think you hit the nail on the head. There’s plenty of details, we could go on for hours. So, we’ll spare the listeners.
[00:13:26] Detective Ev: Oh, you did get stung by a stingray on the beaches of San Diego. That’s worth mentioning.
[00:13:33] Madeleine Junevitch: I guess that’s noteworthy. Yes. I thought it was a great idea to frolic in the oceans when apparently there was a stingray warning. I learned my lesson, that’s for sure.
[00:13:42] Detective Ev: Yeah. We gotta take those seriously. We were too high on life. We didn’t even read the dang signs. They were everywhere.
Anyway, thank you guys for listening. I’m guessing a lot of you skipped this, so we’ll get to the actual show.
Here we are and Maddy’s about to graduate FDN. It’s been an awesome thing. Not that you weren’t health conscious before, but I think for a lot of people that are in the functional health space, Biohacking space, one of the biggest issues is actually dating and marriage and stuff.
Because you’re wearing blue light blocking glasses, you’re waking up super early, you’re eating very particularly, it does kind of create some barriers in dating and stuff. So, even though you weren’t totally into this, it’s not like you were not healthy or at least wanting to be. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be healthy? You were reasonable. But you were always very respectful to the things I brought up and I always really appreciated that.
What were you dealing with health-wise overall, because there was some stuff that you went through and then we’ll connect this to FDN a little bit later.
KetoCon 2023: A Bunch of Friendly FDN Faces
Hey there, friends. It is Detective Ev popping in here really quick. I just wanted to give you one of our final announcements for KetoCon 2023.
It is an awesome event. Very well ran. I always say this, the best ran conference that I have been to so far in the health space. That is my personal opinion, but I will always give credit where credit’s due. Robin runs a really tight ship, and she knows what she is doing in terms of event planning and running. So, if you want an event that’s actually going to have a lot of people at it and is well organized and on time, then KetoCon is the place to go.
Reed Davis will be actually key noting on Friday the 21st. He is the founder of FDN, if you don’t know. I will be there. My girlfriend will be there. My best friend will be there, his girlfriend will be there. It’s going to be great. They’re all coming by the way, because they are all in FDN. We didn’t just randomly recruit these people.
Reed’s wife will be there. Clinical advisor, Ryan Monahan will be there. His significant other, Lindy Curtis will be. We’ve got a bunch of wonderful friendly FDN faces. If you want to meet the team or just come hang out, we’d love to see you. Definitely check out our booth if you are there.
KetoCon 2023: Reed is Speaking
I will have a link in the show notes to where you can learn more about KetoCon.
You can see the speakers and see if any of the vendors or speakers resonate with you. Then if it does, you can buy a pass for only one day. Definitely come Friday by the way cause that’s when Reed is speaking. But you can also come for the entire weekend.
I will be down there all Friday, all Saturday, and half the day Sunday before we gotta fly our butts back to not so fun, Pennsylvania. With that said, I will get you back to today’s episode, but if you’re looking for an event to go to, KetoCon 2023 is the place to be. The link is in the show notes below, just go check it out.
Okay, here we go. Back to the episode with Maddy.
Becoming An FDN: Maddy’s Health Journey
[00:16:30] Madeleine Junevitch: That is a great question, and I am still trying to get all the details of this answer together myself.
For the longest time I always thought I was healthy, you know. Like I always thought oh, I have no diseases, I have no conditions that I know of. Yeah, I’m relatively healthy. I never thought these constant headaches that I’m dealing with, or this acne that I’ve had since I was little and it just won’t seem to go away, that’s normal, right? People get acne, it’s common. You look around and you’re definitely not the only one.
So, you think that, okay, I’m still a healthy human when I’m suffering with this, fine. But then I started getting, I guess a little bit foggy headed, I wasn’t able to think clearly. Talking, in general, just trying to find the right words were never a strong suit of mine.
But even when I was a kid, I had developed this weird rash on my leg, and I wasn’t sure what it was. Over time, probably about the span of a couple of days, I started getting white pustules coming and stuff out of it. Then that rash started spreading to my upper thigh area. I was really concerned about this. At the time I was like 16, possibly 17. I told my mom about it.
She’s a nurse. She’s been a nurse for, at that point, probably almost 20 years, maybe a little bit less than that, but that’s beside the point. She knew what to do. She’s like, okay, we’ll draw a little circle around it, see if it keeps spreading. It kept spreading, so we went into the doctors, and they took a biopsy of it.
Becoming An FDN: Young & Invincible
Doctors didn’t know what it was. They ran multiple tests, couldn’t figure it out, and so they just put me on some hydrocortisone cream and all that. I don’t know if it was the cream or just my body just pushing it away, but thank goodness, after about like a month, it just kind of went away on its own. I always thought that was weird, but again, I’m healthy, right?
I have no diseases, nothing that I really knew about. Sure, I struggled with anxiety, with depression since being a kid, but that’s not something that I really ever talked about with anybody. So besides like the mental health issues, I was normal. So, yeah.
I mean, the past couple of years specifically though, that’s when it really started getting kind of bad. In my past, I just recently publicly shared this, so it’s a little bit easier for me to say now. But I did struggle with like my school, my college was kind of a party college, so I definitely got into the drinking scene. I did drink a lot of alcohol.
I would party with friends on the weekends and sometimes it would be like, you go out, have a bunch of drinks, you go party, have fun. Then the next morning you do it all over again because hey, it’s the weekend and it’s syllabus week. Like why not?
Then that kind of also, started turning towards like substance abuse. Which I mean, I was in Washington, THC was legal, so I would do some of that. I just thought I was young and invincible. I just didn’t put two and two together. Like, hey, your actions have consequences, and these things were starting to catch up to me.
Becoming An FDN: Climbing Out of the Exhaustion Phase
I never really put it together until about two, three years ago. Just the decline got really bad. Like my mental health issues were just getting worse and worse. My mental clarity was getting worse. I wasn’t able to like hold conversations with people just because mentally it wasn’t clear for me at all to form sentences.
I just kind of got to this point where I’m like, okay, enough is enough. I need to basically put all that behind me. I need to look towards my health and start putting that as a priority. The funniest thing is, at the time in college I was a nursing student. You always hear this quote that like, doctors make the worst patients.
Now I know I’m not a doctor. But going into the nursing thing, I’m like, I know what I’m doing, right? I’ve studied health. I know physiology. I know anatomy. I know microbiology, I know nutrition. I’m fine. I’m totally fine. Like, obviously, I’m not having any signs or symptoms. Yeah, I definitely was and it was catching up to me.
That’s kind of when I had my aha moment where I’m just like, what I’m doing is not working for me. That’s when I started climbing out of this, I guess, exhaustion phase. Doing FDN and like getting my test results back and seeing that, hey, I was in exhaustion phase, and I’ve probably been in it for a while. That was just kind of like startling to me.
Becoming An FDN: Gluten, Pollution, Smog, and Tap Water
One, it’s just kind of validating what I’ve been feeling for the past years, thinking, oh no, I just need to work harder. I just need to keep pushing. I just need to get past this. I’m healthy, I’ll be fine. But no, the older you get, the harder it gets and the more these actions have consequences. They catch up to you.
I started getting healthier, started trying to eat healthier, at least what I thought was healthier. I was eating brown rice, organic vegetables, and try to get organic meats. I would still eat a lot of pasta. At the time, I didn’t think there was anything wrong with gluten.
Also, I was drinking tap water. I lived in a big city at the time, so pollution and smog were definitely an issue. So, all of these things were just contributing to it, and I had no idea until I went through FDN. FDN has kind of saved me. It’s been kind of great with that, but I’m just rambling.
[00:21:37] Detective Ev: No, that’s okay. This is awesome. I’m excited to kind of dissect some of those labs and the results that you got overall.
Okay, rewinding a little bit. We talked about how you’re one of those people that is really relatable to so many out there. You kind of have these baseline symptoms almost your entire life that got progressively worse, especially the college thing. That is almost par for the course. I cannot tell you how many times I have gotten calls from people, because we’re both 27, people that went to college, that’s like the final straw for their body.
Becoming An FDN: The Last Unhealthy Straw
Their body is like, what the heck are we doing? We were already not doing that great. You’ve been eating like crap your entire life, and then you go to college, binge drink, eat even crappier somehow and now you’re staying up late on top of it. I mean, it really is the straw that breaks the camel’s back for a lot of people. I have seen this. I’ve seen women walk out with Hashimoto’s diagnoses after college, it stinks.
So, you were kind of going through this, again, being a nursing major and not necessarily understanding the irony of it at the time. I think that’s really, really common. When we met, one of the ways that we were able to get Maddy out here, because it wasn’t one way or the other. It wasn’t like someone was trying to get anyone else to move. It was more like we originally planned like, hey, we enjoy each other a lot, so no matter how long we have to wait, we will figure this out. But it turned into this thing of we don’t even want to wait, so how can we figure this out even quicker?
For myself, for those that listen regularly, it’s like I’m speaking in this area that I’m in, I have an in-person business. It was a tough situation cause it’s like, I’ll wait for you as long as we have to and Maddy was in the same boat. But it was kind of hard to say, like, what will this actually look like? How does this work?
Thankfully, Maddy had just gotten this job. Well, we didn’t even mention this. You served in our military. I mean, that’s worth mentioning.
Becoming An FDN: Almost a VA Surgical Supply Technician
What job were you about to get before you came out here? There’s a lot of people that have come on that have been in the military or have family in it. I think they would just respect what you did.
[00:23:33] Madeleine Junevitch: Absolutely. I appreciate you bringing that up.
I honestly, totally forget that I was in the military for a little bit. I was in the Army National Guard for five years, just to clarify that. But I was actually applying, and I had been offered the position at the VA, the veterans’ hospital for surgical supply tech. I’d be working with sterilization of the equipment that they would use for surgeries. They were offering great pay; they were offering great benefits. It would’ve been a good, comfortable job, I guess. But still something was kind of missing. You know, I didn’t really have that passion for it, but that was about to be my route.
The process to get hired for any government job is extremely long. I think this took like two or three months. By the end of it I had been offered the job and literally, they offered me the job that week. They sent me a call and said, okay, here’s the hiring process. Now I had to jump through all these other hoops, get fingerprinted, again, and do all these other types of things. At the very last moment, I just decided it wasn’t for me because that would’ve kept me stationary in Washington.
By this point, we’ve been going back and forth seeing each other for the past like six months, like once a month. There’s a bunch more stuff that goes into it. But, yeah, I almost had a position there as a surgical supply tech.
Becoming An FDN: A Blessing in Disguise
[00:24:56] Detective Ev: Obviously, it wouldn’t be a job that you would’ve hated, but it wasn’t your passion. You know what I mean? You’re kind of just saying, this is a smart thing to do, pay the bills, whatever. It’s kind of exciting what the health side of things can do to people in terms of inspiration.
Anyway, if anyone else doesn’t believe that this is fate, the story just gets better and better. The in-person light therapy studio that I’ve talked about on here, we were not open yet, but we had a young woman who was basically guaranteed a position there for many months prior to us actually opening. What was nuts is two or three days before we were supposed to open, she hits me up and lets me know, I’m so sorry I can’t do this. I needed another job; I got another position. I couldn’t wait any longer.
She’s a great person, so this is not any dis to her. In fact, it worked out beautifully. I was like oh my gosh, on one end, but then on the other side, wait a second. If Maddy wants to do this, this is the ticket out here. It’s one thing to come out here, it’s another thing to get a whole crappy job that you don’t really want to do out here that has no flexibility and wouldn’t allow her to travel back as much. This was just a blessing in disguise.
You came into Bucks County Light Therapy, not even knowing what red-light therapy was at the time. Now, you have completely done so much for that place and made it so awesome. How has it been like working there? I feel like you’ve learned so much about health just from even being there.
Becoming An FDN: Learning and Applying
[00:26:20] Madeleine Junevitch: Oh my gosh. Not only did I learn about health, and I guess the science behind red light therapy and how it really helps produce energy and reduce inflammation, but I also learned a lot about social skills and talking with people, talking with clients, getting their stories of what they’re dealing with and being able to apply my newly found FDN skills.
It really just developed me more as a person. It’s been great working for Bucks County Light Therapy. Honestly, I’ve kind of just started making that place my baby, and we’re just trying to make it grow as much as possible. I’ve learned a lot, love this opportunity. Honestly, things are just working out for the best, that’s for sure.
[00:26:59] Detective Ev: Funny how that works. So yeah, Maddy’s done an awesome job there. It’s been a blessing to have her. It’s a risk, you know what I mean? Like I think anyone listening is like, holy cow, like these guys put a lot on the table up front.
But you know what, to both of us, I think we have a similar philosophy on this. It’s like, when you’re looking for something serious and you’re not just looking to engage in the hookup culture, you might as well go all in, man. Because if you go all in and it doesn’t work, it’s like you figured it out quick. I don’t want to sit around and wait for years to figure out whether or not it’s going to work. Tell me yes or tell me no. I want to know in two months if this is going to work.
Becoming An FDN: Wanting to Do FDN
I’m not so ignorant as to say that people can’t work on each other, work on themselves, and develop the relationship. That’s ridiculous, of course you can. I’d rather just know right now. Just tell me what this is going to be. Let’s figure this out and if it’s going to work. I think, we will know pretty quickly. It was really cool how that happened.
But then this transition into FDN, I think is what we really need to get to. What was nuts about the transition to FDN is that Maddy was working at Bucks County Light Therapy, again, mostly by necessity. That’s just how this was in the beginning. It wasn’t anything other than that. She found it very interesting, but it’s not like, again, you came with this as your passion.
In fact, Maddy is like a super, super gifted artist and paints people’s pets too. So, that was another thing that she was working on, on the side and still does that. But you came to me one day, I remember I was shocked. This wasn’t even until September of 2022. I remember, we’d been talking for a year now. We’d been dating for like 10 months at the time. There was nowhere on my radar that I was thinking that Maddy would ever go through something like FDN. Then you literally hit me with this one day.
You’re someone that I know that you’re not going to say that unless you mean it. So, I was like taken aback in such a good way. Can you explain to people, where did this come from? How did this all come to be where you’re like, I want to go do FDN?
Becoming An FDN: Too Little Time with Patients
[00:28:45] Madeleine Junevitch: You’re talking about all in or nothing. That’s how I am too.
So, when we met, of course I’m going to do some research on you, find the podcast, see what you’re all about. I joke you not, I have listened to probably 97% of the podcasts that you’ve put out. I just fell in love with it. Stories. I fell in love with just how people really let their passions come through and shine. I just fell in love with the whole philosophy that FDN had to bring.
I fought it for the longest time because I was a nursing student. I loved the medical side of it. But then when it got to the practical side, I just, I wasn’t in love with how little time we spent with patients. I know as a nurse, I’m not the one with patients. But still like how doctors only have 10 to 15 minutes with each person. There’s not enough time to hear the stories, to hear the individuality of what the client’s going through. That kind of put me off, I’m not going to lie.
So, I kind of went and pursued art, but then something always felt missing. Painting, drawing animals have always been a passion of mine since I was very little. I remember I started drawing like in pre-kindergarten. My teachers were like, oh my gosh, that’s really good. That’s always been a part of my identity. It was never enough for me to just do that on my own. So, there was always something like missing.
Becoming An FDN: Getting Both Passions
Listening to this podcast for a little over a year and a half, I just started falling in love with it. After probably listening to about 70 episodes, something switched off in me and I’m like, I need to do FDN. Like, this is how I’m going to be able to help people. I love that I can do this from home. I love that it’s all remote.
I can still paint at the same time. Look at that, best of both worlds. Now I’m getting my painting and I’m helping people with something that’s very fulfilling, and it helps them. That’s kind of what just sealed the deal for me with this and taking on the FDN course.
[00:30:43] Detective Ev: It’s just so cool.
I could be wrong cause I know everyone’s not like this necessarily, but I do believe a lot of us have this, I don’t know if it’s a dream, but like this vision of how cool would it be to work with your significant other in one way or another. It is special; and it’s really special when they come to it on their own accord. You don’t necessarily want to force someone one way or another. Again, this was just never on my radar as something that you would do.
So, when you came to me with this and were like, hey, I’m gonna be doing FDN. I’m like, what? Like, I know you’re serious. I’m like, wow, this is awesome. I’m more, I’ll get excited about the idea and I’m ready to go. You know, you’ve thought through the thing before you are going to say something like that, and it was just exciting. It’s really cool.
Conclusion
Now we can kind of get back to where we were originally going with this before, where you did get your labs back and you found a lot of different stuff. This was someone that by traditional standards was not super sick guys, but you did have stuff going on. Let’s just jump to that part where you actually do the labs on yourself.
What were you finding? Were there surprises? I mean, I kind of know there was surprises, but what was your interpretation when you did get the labs back when you went through the course?
All right, guys, I’m going to leave you on a bit of a cliff hanger there. That’ll do it for part one with Maddy.
I’m looking forward to talking to you guys in part two where we kind of dive into the labs and what Maddy learned and what she’s planning on doing next. So, tune in Thursday the sixth. We will have part two out then. But until that time, please take care.
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