How to Live Your Life After Great Loss – Amanda Kloots with Dave Asprey – #837 Announcer: Bulletproof Radio, a state of high performance. Dave Asprey: You're listening to Bulletproof Radio with Dave Asprey. Dave: Today is going to be a show that talks about the human side of grief and loss and love and community and courage. These are things that you might often say, "Well, wait. What does that have to do with biohacking or human performance?" These have to do with the parts of being human that we all go through in our lives and they're parts that we often times don't talk about because they're uncomfortable and we're wired in ourselves to avoid things that are uncomfortable. However, if you do think about them, it gives you enormous opportunity for growth, enormous opportunity to be a better human being, to be of better service to others, and what inspired my interview today was an interview that Maria Shriver did with Amanda Kloots. Amanda co-hosts The Talk, a really popular CBS daytime talk show, and she's a former Broadway dancer, a Radio City Rockette, and creator of the global fitness brand AK Fitness. She met her husband Nick Cordero, who was a Tony Award-nominated Broadway star and musician, when she was performing in Bullets Over Broadway. In her memoir, Live Your Life, Amanda writes about their life together and their family's experience with COVID in the early days of the pandemic. Maria decided to interview Amanda Kloots about what happened when she lost her husband Nick Cordero to COVID and Amanda wrote a book about this to tell her story and she built a huge movement around building community to support her as she was going through what she went through. I thought, let's talk with Amanda today and let's see what she has to teach us about the stories she tells in her book and, also, just to learn what really happened here. Amanda, thank you for taking the time to be with us on the show today. Amanda: Thank you so much for having me, Dave. It's nice to be here. Dave: Some people listening might not know what happened with Nick. Nick got COVID but you didn't know it. Let's go through a little bit of that just to catch everyone up. Amanda: Well, you know, I mean, it was these early days. You know? We can't forget what those early days were like. We were all glued to the television hearing that it was something that old people get and the symptoms were you can't breathe, lost your taste of smell, and Nick was 41 years old and he was tired. Disclaimer: Bulletproof Radio transcripts are prepared by a transcription service. Refer to full audio for exact wording. We just didn't think that it was a possibility. You know? We had just moved across the country, spent two weeks packing up our entire apartment in New York City, and I just thought he was exhausted with a little slight depression because he had lost his job, like so many other Americans. Dave: There just weren't the common symptoms that you would expect or just a little tired, right? Amanda: Yeah. He was just tired. He was just not able to keep his eyes open. Then one thing led to another and the respiratory issues started coming apparent and when those got bad, then that's when we finally took him to the emergency room and he was admitted into the hospital at Cedars Sinai. Dave: He was in the hospital for about three months, ended up in a coma, and eventually had a leg amputated and passed, right? Amanda: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. Yes. Yeah. July 5th. Dave: That was almost a year ago. I want to ask you about your grieving process but I also recognize that you may still be doing it. I'll ask some questions that are meant to help others who may be going through things like that but if you don't want to answer something, just don't. Amanda: Okay. Dave: Was writing the book part of your grief process? Amanda: Well, I didn't know it at the time but, retrospectively, absolutely. At the time, I started writing for two reasons. One of the reasons was I had a deadline. I had to start. Two, I had all this information in my head, so many numbers and machines and names and hospital rooms and dates and times and I wanted to start writing that stuff down. There were things I did not want to forget because as we all do, your life goes on and then you can't remember certain things. You're like, "Oh, yeah. Wait, what day ... Oh, yeah. That was that ... No, it didn't happen like that. It was this and then that happened." I didn't want that to be the case with this story. I have a little boy. I wanted to make sure that I had everything documented the way it happened so that one day he knew this story, that I could tell him this story. It was a couple different reasons why I started writing away. Dave: There's so much that you share in the book and I remember watching as you were openly sharing and I want to talk in a minute about why you decided to share the way you did but when you're talking with a Disclaimer: Bulletproof Radio transcripts are prepared by a transcription service. Refer to full audio for exact wording. dancer and you get to the point of making a decision to amputate a leg, my heart went out to you because it felt like such a big thing to make that decision. What kind of support did you have to make that decision? To me, that was one of the more painful things I'd seen on social media in a long time. Amanda: Yeah. I mean, it was absolutely. One of Nick's greatest things was that he was 6'5. When he walked into a room, you couldn't help but notice him. His stature, his [inaudible 00:05:57] is what got him jobs. As an actor, we use our bodies and, unfortunately, as an actor, vanity becomes very important. We're very concerned about what we look like and what our body looks like and how we move and walk, especially. I knew that this decision was a rough one and that Nick would have a really hard time accepting it, as we all would, but there really was no choice. The infection in his leg, the blood clot in his leg was taking over his body and so much of his body was already compromised, that if his leg was drawing so much attention, it was taking off the attention of the other parts of his body that really needed to heal, like his lungs, like his heart, like his kidneys. It wasn't really an option. It was we either amputate this leg so that the body can focus on the things it needs to focus on or it's going to take over his body. Dave: There are many people who are facing tough decisions, medical decisions, who are in a situation like yours, who don't share and the fact that you're willing to share publicly your thought process and what you went through, it's incredibly beneficial the way you're sharing it. Amanda: Thank you. You know, for me, I always [crosstalk 00:07:13]. Yeah. Well, I'm a very spiritual person. I have a very strong faith and it's always been a part of my life. That's where I go, when I need strength, when I need support, that is exactly where I go. It was a situation, for me, that it was a leg, yes, and it's terrifying and horrible but you can get an amazing prosthetic and I ended up talking to different amputees as well, which was a huge support system to me. They confirmed, listen, this is a hard road, this isn't something that you wish for but you become a whole different person in a beautiful new way and the prosthetics these days are incredible. Those two things, my faith and belief in God helped me absolutely emotionally and then the support of talking to other amputees and making sure that ... They just gave me so much confidence that Nick is going to be okay and he'll have a new life, it'll be a different life but it'll be a new life. Dave: Did you go through a period of being angry at God when things didn't go the way you wanted? Amanda: Oh, yeah. Every day I would get mad at God. I mean, that's just ... Listen, I grew up never ... That was not something to be ashamed of. I was always taught to question God and to look for those answers. Of course, you're going to get angry at God and be like why is this happening? Why isn't my husband receiving the miracle I'm asking for? Why do things keep going south? Absolutely. That's just being a human being. Dave: Disclaimer: Bulletproof Radio transcripts are prepared by a transcription service. Refer to full audio for exact wording. How did you deal with that? Are you still going through that? Amanda: One of the days that I was really upset and yelling about it and I said to my dad, "Why isn't he listening to my prayers? I have the whole world praying for him.