Rick Czaplewski's Path to Recovery and Success

In this compelling episode of "Conversations with Rich Bennett," Rich sits down with Rick Czaplewski, author of the powerful memoir "Better Dirty Than Done." Rick shares his incredible journey of resilience, from being diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma in college to overcoming the disease twice. He details the challenges he faced, the emotional and physical toll of treatment, and his unyielding determination to live life to the fullest. Rick's story is a testament to the human spirit's capacity for recovery and success, inspiring listeners to find strength in their own struggles.

RICK CZAPLEWSKI

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Tune in to hear Rick's remarkable path to recovery and his
message of hope and perseverance.

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This episode of "Conversations with Rich Bennett" is sponsored by the Harford County Health Department. Did you know that regular cancer screenings can save lives? Harford County Health Department offers no-cost screenings for breast, cervical, colorectal, and lung cancers to eligible residents. If you're 45 or older, uninsured, or underinsured, you might qualify for a free colonoscopy. Early detection is crucial, so don't wait—schedule your screening today. Visit Harford County Health Department's Cancer Prevention Program to learn more and see if you qualify.

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Transcript

Rich Bennett 0:00
Thanks for joining the conversation, where we explore the stories and experiences that shape our world today. I am truly, truly God blessed because I have a remarkable guest, Rick Musky, author of the profound memoir Better Dirty Than Done. Rick's story is one of incredible resilience and a testament to the human spirit's unyielding will to thrive against the odds. In his early twenties, Rick faced a daunting battle with Hodgkin's lymphoma that threatened to cut his promising life short not once, but twice. He stared down the specter of mortality, yet refuse used to be defined by his diagnosis. Instead, Rick turned his journey into a powerful narrative, chronicling not just his battle with cancer, but his avid thirst for life and the adventures that ensued. Better than done is more than just a memoir. It's an invitation to reflect on our own lives. The 

people, those of you that are listening right now, and I haven't talked to Rick about this yet, but trust me, get this book better dirty than done. Listen to his story, because I know for a fact that you're going to be moved. And I was I was going to read more of his bio, but I don't want to tell too much about him. I want you to learn more about him from himself because he knows himself better than I do. At least I hope he does. How's it going? Welcome to the show, Chauvin. 

Rick Czaplewski 1:46
Rich. Thanks for having me. Nice to be here. 

Rich Bennett 1:49
Oh, my pleasure. My pleasure. Before we get into the book, in your journey, this is something I love to ask a lot of people, 

especially going to school. What was it that you wanted to be, you know, as you finish school, college or whatever? What was. I mean, everybody's got that dream when they were a youngster. I was going to be a rock star. I got kicked out of the band, so that didn't happen. So what was it that you wanted to do? 

Rick Czaplewski 2:17
Well, when I was a little kid, I wanted to play baseball. I wanted to be a baseball player. 

And then as I got older, I realized I didn't have the skills for that. Then I got into college and I'll tell my story soon. But the one thing I wanted when I was going through college is simply to be normal. Just to be average. Normal. That's it. I just wanted that. 

Rich Bennett 2:46
A college. 

Rick Czaplewski 2:48
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 2:50
All right, then. Now, this is where I'm concerned. So with the Hodgkin's, were you diagnosed during college? 

Rick Czaplewski 2:57
Yeah, I was. And and so what happened was, I. I entered college. I was very healthy. I was a big athlete when I was younger. When I was in high school, I wrestled, I played football, I played in three state tournaments. I was tough and I had a you know, I might not have been the most skilled person, but I was very healthy. When I got to college, I did what a lot of college freshmen do binge drank party, have a good time. And you remember those days, right, Rich? 

Rich Bennett 3:29
No, I went to USC. Man, that's the best college in. You're right. We did. Yeah. United States Marine Corps. We did the same thing, so. 

Rick Czaplewski 3:36
All right. Yeah. You remember. 18, 19 years old. It's. It's going. 

Rich Bennett 3:40
Uh huh. 

Rick Czaplewski 3:41
Some of that. So I was doing that and then I went to a college called the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire. And if you're not familiar with where that is, it's very northern and it gets very cold in the winter. As the temperature dropped, I started to wear a jacket to parties and I didn't like how that my jacket. 

Rich Bennett 4:01
Wait a minute. 

Not a coat, but a jacket. 

Rick Czaplewski 4:07
I'm tough, Rich. 

Rich Bennett 4:10
Okay, Go ahead. 

Rick Czaplewski 4:12
Yeah. So anyway, I'm, we're, we'll call it a heavy jacket somewhere in this thing to two parties 

Rich Bennett 4:17
Okay. 

Rick Czaplewski 4:17
that I'm, you know, you go to parties and it stinks and it smells like smoke in there. And then when I come home my jacket would, would stink up my room and I'd have to wear it all next week to class. And I'm like. I don't want to smell this. So my workaround was I would go to these parties and I just wouldn't wear a jacket. So long story short, I got sick. I got really sick towards the end of my freshman first semester in December. And my mom took me. Yeah, it was weird as kind of cratering. 

So I went home for winter break. My mom took me to an urgent care doctor who diagnosed me with mono, and I had some swollen lymph nodes or whatever, but we didn't think anything of it. And for the rest of that winter break, I sat on the couch, drink fluids and tried to heal. I went back to college at the end of that break, and eight weeks after I went back, my mom came up to me. I went back home for spring break. My mom came up to me and kind of put her hands on my neck and she's like, We've got to get you into a doctor immediately. So immediately I went to my pediatrician. He diagnosed me, he felt my neck and he had a second doctor come in for an opinion and he concluded, Yeah, we need to get a biopsy. Now, in the nineties, at age 19, I had no idea what a biopsy was. I didn't know what they were looking for. This could be a colonoscopy. This could be a dental cleaning. I didn't know anything 

Rich Bennett 5:50
Had no 

Rick Czaplewski 5:50
about 

Rich Bennett 5:50
idea. 

Rick Czaplewski 5:51
this. Yeah. So the next day. 

Rich Bennett 5:54
But hey, Rick, just let you know colonoscopies on the other end. 

Rick Czaplewski 6:00
I've had those, too. And as someone who's almost age 50, if you're in this age range, get your colonoscopy, because that one could. 

Rich Bennett 6:08
Absolutely. 

Rick Czaplewski 6:09
That could save your life. You need to do that. 

So I went. The next day I went in for that biopsy. I was I was 19 years old. I the I laid down on the operating table. They cut pieces out of my neck, and that was it. And I had a big bandage on my neck. I thought it was cool. I thought it looked really tough. And I did not know that there was any follow up from that. I just thought, okay, here we go. So I went back to school and people are seeing this massive bandage and saying, What happened to you? And I said, I had a biopsy. And they would say, Wow. And I'd say, Yeah, we like. 

Rich Bennett 6:51
God. 

Rick Czaplewski 6:52
Yep, that's what we were doing. 

Rich Bennett 6:56
Wow. 

Rick Czaplewski 6:57
If you can't believe it, I was actually an honor student doing this. So this really just shows the gross lack of information that was available at the time. I nobody knew 

Rich Bennett 7:08
Wow. 

Rick Czaplewski 7:08
what this was or or anything. 

Yeah. So. 

Rich Bennett 7:14
You went in there. They didn't even tell you what they were taking out or anything. 

Rick Czaplewski 7:20
No. 

Rich Bennett 7:20
They. 

Rick Czaplewski 7:21
And I mean, I just went 

Rich Bennett 7:22
You 

Rick Czaplewski 7:22
in. 

Rich Bennett 7:22
are going. 

Rick Czaplewski 7:25
No one no one. No one said that I didn't connect the dots. It was. It was a different era. Rich and I had blind faith, 

Rich Bennett 7:33
Yeah, 

Rick Czaplewski 7:34
but 

Rich Bennett 7:34
well, 

Rick Czaplewski 7:34
this is what 

Rich Bennett 7:34
that's. 

Rick Czaplewski 7:34
we're doing. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 7:37
Wow. 

Rick Czaplewski 7:37
And, you know, if I wanted to, like, look some stuff up online, there was no internet yet, so. So that was. 

Rich Bennett 7:44
Right, Exactly. 

Rick Czaplewski 7:46
I know. It's. It's a strange. 

Rich Bennett 7:47
You had to rely on what the doctors told you. 

Rick Czaplewski 7:49
Yeah, I'm just doing it. 

Rich Bennett 7:52
All right. So you had the band as you're back in school. What happened next? 

Rick Czaplewski 7:56
So it was a Tuesday night. I was in my dorm room. I was alone. I heated up my dinner and I heard a knock on the door. Okay. So I went answer the door. And there were my parents. And my college was for a four hour drive away from where my parents lived. So they made a four hour drive on a Tuesday unannounced. And they're standing at my door. And both of them had tears in their eyes. My mom's glasses were fogged up and they said, You have Hodgkin's disease. And I didn't even know what that was. 

Rich Bennett 8:37
Right. 

Rick Czaplewski 8:38
And so, like all college freshmen who are 19 diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease, I said, okay, you guys got to get out of here. And I and I kicked them out, so. 

Rich Bennett 8:49
Your parents are your friends. 

Rick Czaplewski 8:52
My parents kicked my parents out. Told them you got to get out of here. I didn't know what was going on. So then the like, the information started to sink in, and I did not know what Hodgkin's disease was. I just knew it was a name. I thought, Oh, I have a disease. So I called a woman the smartest person I knew at my college, and she and I went to the library and we were trying to research it. And we're going through medical journals. And, you know, we look through one and then slam it on the floor if we didn't have anything. And then we went into, like the reference area and were in the encyclopedias in the ages trying to look this thing up. We didn't know what it was. And we left that library with nothing. We had we we gained zero ground on what it was. So I had I had no idea. I knew was I had something called Hodgkin's disease. So I went back to my parents home for about a week and I got a series of blood tests and other tests and. People are asking me, What are you here for? And I'd say, Hodgkin's disease. And then, like the hospital staff would almost like, freeze or just get like these really pale looks on their faces. And I had no idea what was going on. I just had Hodgkin's disease. 

Rich Bennett 10:15
Still didn't know what it was. 

Rick Czaplewski 10:17
Didn't know what it was. So I met with a doctor who explained that I was going to get radiation to treat this, and there was no there was no tipoff here other than. Okay, radiation. Cool. I, I asked, what can I do this at the hospital directly next to my my college, which is Sacred Heart Hospital. And he said, sure. Okay. So we made an appointment with the radio. The the radiation doctor. The radiology, what he called radiologist that doesn't celebrate. 

Rich Bennett 10:53
Radiologist, I believe. 

Rick Czaplewski 10:54
Yeah. And. 

Rich Bennett 10:56
To do that makes you glow. 

Rick Czaplewski 10:59
So, I mean, now this is a rural hospital. They had an older generation of technology and nobody really explained 

Rich Bennett 11:05
Oh, 

Rick Czaplewski 11:06
what radiation was. So to me, it was like, okay, I'm going to be going in for x rays, need to go 

Rich Bennett 11:13
right. 

Rick Czaplewski 11:13
through 48 of these. So they fit me in 

Rich Bennett 11:16
48. 

Rick Czaplewski 11:16
a. 48. Yeah. From my neck down to my waist. 

Rich Bennett 11:20
Wow. 

Rick Czaplewski 11:22
Yeah. So. All right, So now go into this hospital. And my day was I would wake up in the morning, I go to class after class, I'd go have some lunch, and after lunch I would take my stuff back to my room. I would walk over to the hospital alone. I would get this treatment. And then what really started to hurt was radiation is some serious stuff. And I had no idea. I started to lose weight. The hair was burning out of my head. 

I had burns really bad on my neck, in my arm, my armpits and stuff. And then after I was done with my radiation treatment, I would come back to my dorm room and I would throw up. And, you know, when you're in a like a a men's dorm bathroom, throwing up, you get like a cheering section because there's people out there like, yeah, man, party on. 

Rich Bennett 12:19
Drinking at all. 

Rick Czaplewski 12:21
Yeah, they think I'm like, like going nuts, like, boozing it up. And, I mean, I'm sick from this. I'm like, Oh, crap, this is bad. Like, I, I, I couldn't eat anything. So here's so what happened to me at this point was it was about, I don't know, halfway through those treatments, the doctor's running late. He says, Why don't you take a seat in this waiting room next to the next to the room? So I go in there and there's a medical magazine on the on the desk or whatever. So I start thumbing through it, and there it is. List of blood cancers, June, June, Hodgkin's disease. I'm like, I have cancer. I just thought I had a disease. 

Rich Bennett 13:00
While 

Rick Czaplewski 13:01
So yeah. So then I call my mother. I'm like, Mom, I got really bad news. And she's like, What happened? And I said, I have cancer. And she goes, I know, I know. 

Rich Bennett 13:13
much. 

Rick Czaplewski 13:13
You didn't tell me that. What do you mean you didn't know that we totally had a disease? That's how archaic information treatments in medicine was in the mid-nineties. And that's one of the reasons that's a main reason I want to get my story out, is because there's such a lack of information about cancer and survivorship and heartiness that I did this alone. I walked to and from that hospital by myself 48 times, and I didn't tell anybody in my university because I wanted to be normal like everybody else. I didn't want anybody to know that I was doing something like this. I didn't want people to know I had a disease that when I had cancer, I didn't want to be the cancer guy. So I just completely kept everything to myself and and. And did that and. 

Rich Bennett 14:06
Actually wait, because you're right, you say Hodgkin's disease, and that's what they used to call it. 

Rick Czaplewski 14:12
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 14:13
Any idea when they changed it to Hodgkin's lymphoma? 

Rick Czaplewski 14:16
You know what? I've tried to look that up. I couldn't figure out the time. But I tell you what, it makes me 

Rich Bennett 14:23
Right. 

Rick Czaplewski 14:23
damn proud to have outlived the name of that disease. That it is something different 

Rich Bennett 14:28
Yeah. 

Rick Czaplewski 14:28
now that nobody can be diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease. That makes me very proud that that I. 

Rich Bennett 14:35
Yeah. 

Rick Czaplewski 14:36
Yeah, that's like a way of beating it. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 14:40
That's. But I mean, that's. Yeah, you're right. That's scary as hell because you're told you got a disease. You're thinking, Oh, damn. Okay, well, what I get. But what gets me. So you didn't really ask your your parents what did it what it actually was. 

Rick Czaplewski 14:58
No. And I mean, I didn't get chemo the first time, so it wasn't like you didn't make the like, I thought if you have cancer, you get chemo. Right. And I 

Rich Bennett 15:06
Right. 

Rick Czaplewski 15:07
know we're treating this with radiation and I'm thinking, Oh, cool, this is just going to be like an x ray. And it was obviously far, far greater than that. But yeah, it just. 

Yeah, just. 

Rich Bennett 15:21
Hello. So how long were you in college going through all these treatments? 

Rick Czaplewski 15:27
So this app. 

Rich Bennett 15:28
First year still 

Rick Czaplewski 15:29
This is my first year, so I continued with radiation. I the semester ended. I stayed there. I had about another month to get through the rest of the treatments, and at the end of my treatments, I went back to my parent's house and I had lost maybe 50 something pounds. I look like a skeleton. 

Rich Bennett 15:50
while. 

Rick Czaplewski 15:52
I formerly, as a wrestler, as a football player, is very strong and healthy. Now, I looked emaciated and my frame looked awful and. 

Rich Bennett 16:02
Hold any food down or anything. 

Rick Czaplewski 16:05
That's right. The best thing you can eat during radiation, whatever you can. Whatever you can get down. And for me, I was eating like a watermelon a day in and drinking like ensure drinks. And that was all I could. That's all I could eat. 

Rich Bennett 16:19
Which is just water. 

Rick Czaplewski 16:21
Yeah, that's. 

Rich Bennett 16:22
Wow. 

Rick Czaplewski 16:22
That's it. Nothing else. No protein. I mean, no carbs, nothing. Just. Just that. And it was enough just to keep you sustain to the next day. And 

I went home after my treatments were done, the doctor said, Congratulations. You no longer have disease in your body. It's gone. You know, all the scans are clean. Um, and then you're kind of like, okay, now, at this point, nobody knew what I went through. Everything was kind of quiet. I just. I wanted to go directly back to where I was. I moved into the same room in the fall and just resumed college. I just wanted to get back to normal. Just like, All right, we're done. 

Rich Bennett 17:05
Right. 

Rick Czaplewski 17:06
And so then 18 months later, I had some back pain. And long story short, I had to get another biopsy, a bone biopsy this time. And this time I knew what a biopsy was and what I was in for. So ignorance is bliss was 

Rich Bennett 17:21
Right. 

Rick Czaplewski 17:22
no longer a luxury. And I told my mom this time, I said, if you know, when you hear the results, just give me a call. I don't want a dramatic showing up at the door thing. And and she called me and said, bad news. It's it's back. It's in your back this time. And so. 

Rich Bennett 17:41
Man. 

Rick Czaplewski 17:42
Yeah. 

So. 

Rich Bennett 17:45
Now you're in your second year, right? 

Rick Czaplewski 17:48
This was. So I made it my entire second year. And then this was the fall semester of my third year. So as a roughly 18 months. Yeah. So I was like, Wow, I made it and I did it. I'm feeling better. I was starting to work my way back into shape and, you know, just trying to build, build my self back and, you know, put it behind you. And then this happened and then this is a rougher one because they said you need chemotherapy. You need to come back to Milwaukee. So I dropped out of college 

and I moved home and dropping out of college. When you have cancer comes up with some very odd stories. And as somebody who is now 20, when I was doing this, adult people our age who are in charge of the university and decisions don't know how to handle this. And I wrote some of these stories in my book, and one of them was the dean of the business College. So my mom found some correspondence courses that I could take while I was away getting chemo, you know, to keep the mind sharp and to keep you moving towards your degree. And one of those was a science class. So it's a science correspondence class. So I went into this den and I was there to try to get him to sign off that this science class would count for a lab credit. So I explain the whole situation. I have cancer, I'm going back home. I'm going to be treated. And I would like this class to count for a lab. Can you sign this document? And as an adult, looking at it at this now, if I were in his shoes, I think I'd just be like. Yes. So what is this 

Rich Bennett 19:44
Yeah. 

Rick Czaplewski 19:44
guy? There he goes. Okay, let me look at the course description. So he looks at it and he goes, I don't really think this is a lab class. And I said to him, 

I might be dead in six months. Can you make an exception? And then he kind of like, got this like, look on his face, Like the light bulb went on and he goes. 

Rich Bennett 20:07
Right. 

Rick Czaplewski 20:08
Yes, I can. You know, it's just just odd stories, like people really have a rough time handling that. And 

and for me, that's what a reason that I kept a lot of that to myself at this time when I was going through it. 

Rich Bennett 20:22
Yeah, well, it I can understand, especially back then, why he was like that. Because 

cancer's a dirty word. A lot of people don't like to hear it. Yeah, they hear they get scared right away. Even people that that don't have it, they hear it. It's I don't know. It's, it's weird. I remember because my mother had it and, you know, we of course, did everything we could. And but I remember she went into remission. She started smoking again. And of course, I yelled at her. I would never yell at my mom, You know, But I was like, Why are you smoking again? All the kids was gone. No, you're in remission. This mean it's gone? And lo and behold, he came back, you know. But it's just I did research. Of course, we had Internet there, too. You know, You didn't do that. You couldn't even find anything in the damn library. 

Rick Czaplewski 21:27
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 21:28
You you thank God for being at that. You know, that magazine being at the doctor's office for you. Otherwise, 

you may still be trying to figure out what. 

Holy cow. 

Rick Czaplewski 21:42
It's. It's. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 21:45
They're also going. 

Rick Czaplewski 21:46
I mean, it's it's an inexplicable story, really. It's. 

Rich Bennett 21:50
Yeah. 

Rick Czaplewski 21:51
It's what happened. But it's hard to believe that that could happen now. And it's one of the reasons that I'm passionate about talking about this story and getting out the word, especially when it comes to survivorship. I believe that when you look at a cancer diagnosis, treatments next steps, physicians, new types of bedside manner that is improved vastly. But a survivor of someone who's gone through cancer and then they call it after the bell, you know 

Rich Bennett 22:22
Twice. 

Rick Czaplewski 22:22
you. Yeah. You know, you finish cancer and then you're like, Oh, where do I go? Like, what do I do now? Like, 

Rich Bennett 22:30
Right. 

Rick Czaplewski 22:30
you don't have that structure of meeting with physicians. And I when I, when I dropped out of college, I had roughly eight months of chemo, and that really took me to the brink. 

Rich Bennett 22:44
Oof! 

Rick Czaplewski 22:46
The hardest. There were many hard days for for me during that, and my book talks about a couple of them in my book is not about a guy with cancer. My book is about resilience, 

Rich Bennett 22:59
Mm. 

Rick Czaplewski 22:59
time in recovery and coming out of that. But cancer needs to be the the thread of that story because you have to come back from something. And I believe, you know, Rich, I believe we all have a comeback story in us, whether it's from cancer 

Rich Bennett 23:13
Yeah. 

Rick Czaplewski 23:14
or a bad relationship or trauma or or any number of different things. That's where I really started to plant my flag post cancer. 

Rich Bennett 23:24
Yeah. 

Rick Czaplewski 23:24
But as I went through that, the that chemo hurt me so much that I couldn't walk up a flight of stairs and, you know, it depletes your red blood cell count, which carries oxygen from your lungs to your muscles and throughout your body. And what ended up happening was I climbed up my basement stairs. One day I didn't realize that this was happening to me. And I got about halfway on the stairs and I was gasping for air. It felt like if you ran like a 100 yard dash as hard as you could, you're doing that. And I had to get up the rest of the stairs. So I kept going. And as I got up to the top, I collapsed on the on the landing at the top of the steps. And I was alone in the house. And I just laid there, like for about 10 minutes, just breathing, you know? Like, what happened? How can I not? Walk up 12 steps. It didn't make sense. So that that for me was like a extreme low point, to be so healthy, to be an athlete. And now I can't even climb steps. And I'm only at this time I was like 21 years old. 

That was really rough. 

Rich Bennett 24:40
Man. 

Yeah. And back. Yeah. And back then, you know, at your age, with the lack of all the research you could do, then once you find out, yeah, it's cancer. You had to be scared out of your freakin my. 

Rick Czaplewski 25:01
I was pissed off. I was pissed off. I wasn't scared. I was fuming. Angry. It was. It was. I was so angry. I wasn't worried. 

Rich Bennett 25:12
Yeah. 

Rick Czaplewski 25:14
Per se. And this again is youthful ignorance, or I had a different point of view as a as a teenager, early 20 something. I was fuming, pissed off. And the thing that gets me the most is I was not going to be able to graduate college. And I was smart enough to do that. And people who were smoking and partying and and goofing around were going to all get college degrees. And the guy who's not able to physically make it is not. And that made me so mad. So that when I was diagnosed the second time, I had five weeks to go in the semester. 

Rich Bennett 25:56
Oh. 

Rick Czaplewski 25:56
And I asked the doctor, Can I finish the semester? And he said, Yes, you can. So I went back to school. Now, I had to tell one teacher that I was going to be taking off some time because she had a test. And I told her, I have cancer. I'm going for this. I walked back in the classroom and everybody liked it. I walked in the room like normal and everybody was quiet. And I sat down next to a friend of mine and she said, What are you doing here? Said, What do you mean? She goes, You have cancer. She told us you're going to die. I said, What? 

Rich Bennett 26:34
Jesus. 

Rick Czaplewski 26:35
I go, What are you talking about? I said, I'm going. I'm going to have treatments. I'm going to finish the semester. I mean, nobody knew what to say at this point. 

Rich Bennett 26:43
Yeah. 

Rick Czaplewski 26:43
I became like the cancer guy at my college. But. But what I decided to do. You go ahead. 

Rich Bennett 26:54
I was just going to say, I'm glad you said that, because that's another thing to a lot of people, even today, when they find out that somebody has cancer, they don't know what to. 

And I think that's something, you know, that a lot of people 

need to learn, they need to be aware of. You know, it's 

it's not like it was way back when, you know, before even doctors knew what it was. It's not a automatic death sentence. There are people, you know, beaten this stuff all the time. You're proof right there. You weren't going to let this kid kick your ass. You, on the other hand, said, Hell no, I'm here to kick cancer's ass. And you did? 

Rick Czaplewski 27:40
Well, it's. Yeah, it it was nuts. I mean, what it was, it was a weird time. Like the O.J. trial was going on. I mean, there was a lot of stuff. 

Rich Bennett 27:49
Oh, God. 

Rick Czaplewski 27:52
I remember I remember that being like the big thing at the time and. 

Rich Bennett 27:57
Yeah, a lot of stuff on TV to take your mind off of it, right? 

Rick Czaplewski 28:02
Marcia Clark or Johnnie Cochran. 

Rich Bennett 28:04
Jay? Yeah. Who is the other one? The ice skaters 

Rick Czaplewski 28:09
Oh, yeah. 

Rich Bennett 28:10
character. 

Rick Czaplewski 28:11
That's 

Rich Bennett 28:11
CONAN. 

Rick Czaplewski 28:11
not probably hurting. 

Though, a white bronco and all that. 

So I was sold. At this point, I still had five weeks 

Rich Bennett 28:23
Yeah. 

Rick Czaplewski 28:23
to go. I could be a student for five more weeks. My goal for those five weeks. I was going to study as hard as I could. And I mean, I studied nonstop like I did. I did 

Rich Bennett 28:36
Right. 

Rick Czaplewski 28:37
nothing else from from alarm clock to study to bedtime. What? The study. And my goal was to get as high of a GPA as I could. So if anybody was going to go back and look and see what my grades were that last semester, if I died, they'd say, okay, this guy could have done it. This guy for sure could have been a graduate here. And I got a 4.0 that semester. I just. 

Rich Bennett 29:04
Wow. 

Rick Czaplewski 29:05
When I buried it those last five weeks in. 

Everything I did was in at that point, 

Rich Bennett 29:12
That's. 

Rick Czaplewski 29:12
and it wasn't because people were giving it to me. It was I was really busting it and. 

Rich Bennett 29:18
You're. Yeah. You were working for. 

Rick Czaplewski 29:21
Yeah, I worked hard. And so then I went home. I had chemo, I had what's called a DVD. That's an acronym for four different drugs of chemo. And it took eight months and 

I had all you know, I don't want to get into all the side effects on a on your on your program, Rich, because that's. 

Rich Bennett 29:44
Right. 

Rick Czaplewski 29:45
That's a pain. But, you know, I went through what you name it, I had it. And July 31st, 1996, after 22 additional radiation treatments. I made it. And that's my cancer versus me. And it's been 27 plus years since that time. 

Rich Bennett 30:03
Never came back. You kicked its ass. 

Rick Czaplewski 30:06
Yeah, it won the battle, but I won the war. And. And I want to tell. I want to tell your listeners one story about the middle of chemo, where this is something that's important to me, and I think it needs to be told. So when I first when I had my first treatment of chemo, the side effects were relentless bloating, you know, you just ballooned up. And I put on maybe 25 or £30 of of weight when I started taking it. And as an athlete, looking at my new body. I was really depressed. I took off my shirt. I had what's called a Hickman catheter, which is tubing that sticks out of your chest where they deliver the chemo. 

Rich Bennett 30:58
Right. 

Rick Czaplewski 30:58
And I looked at myself in the mirror, and I looked at how how big I had gotten from the bloating. And I studied my stomach from the front. And I turned to both sides and I just said, You look like garbage. Like, I was just given it to myself. You look terrible. This is your you need to do something about this. And my image of myself as an athlete was long gone. And now I look like this unrecognizable figure with tubes and a big gut and all this stuff. And then out of nowhere, I. This is like a divine intervention. I believe I heard a voice that said, this is not the time to worry about what you look like. Your body is doing everything it can to heal. And my body was both the combatant and the arena at the same time, and it contained the drugs to do the job. And in order to get that done, my body had to look like this as I went through it. 

And that really made me release. All that body image pain that I had looking at like, how bad I looked. And then I then at that point, I didn't care. I was like, I don't care what I look like. I care what I can do. I care what my body is doing right now. It is in a serious fight. And if it has to look, if the trade off of winning this fight is to look like this, then to hell with it. I'm going to I'm not going to worry about this at all. And moving forward from that point, I didn't care what I looked like and as I got out, got out of cancer. Once you recover and you know you're told you no longer have disease in your body, it takes a long time for your body. It takes two years, apparently, for these drugs to flush out of your body. But it takes a long time. 

Rich Bennett 32:53
I'll. 

Rick Czaplewski 32:54
Yeah, well, it takes a long time to to make a comeback. And I never looked at my body negatively. I looked at it as something that saved my life. That's something that allowed me to achieve the dreams that I had, like, graduating. You know, if it didn't fight the disease this hard, I never would have made it there. And at this point, I really started to lean in to endurance sports. I was very like, as soon as I was done with cancer, I went back to college. This is now a third time. And I try to fit in and I'm like, People knew exactly who I was. I was still my hair had like peach fuzz. I was, you know, I stuck out because of that. People were pointing and I'm like, you know what? I don't care. I'm here. I made it. I'm walking among my peers. And it just took so much time to kind of grow back. And that's where I, I didn't know what to do as a survivor. And there were no programs or not for profits or anything available. I was walking alone still, and I decided to lean into these into sports, into running, into bicycling and swimming and things. And that's where I started to put together, you know, these conquests of I couldn't walk up a flight of stairs, so I went to climb a mountain. I think that's going to. 

Rich Bennett 34:17
I love that. 

Rick Czaplewski 34:18
Balance the scale. And yeah, that's where I started this kind of thing. 

Rich Bennett 34:25
What mountain was that? 

Rick Czaplewski 34:27
I've cleaned a few, but. But four years from the four years from the date of my cancer bursary in 96, I climbed Mt. Rainier. I climb Mount Rainier with Rainier mountaineering, which was a guide serving. Yeah. What? I did that 

one year away, one year out of having cancer. I had a job and it was an internship. And they flew us all to Seattle and I saw the mountain. I'm like this. And I was like, called to it. I'm like, This is this is amazing. So it was like the weekend or whatever. And I drove up to the there's like a hotel or whatever on the side of the mountain, the national park. And there's an observation thing with the binoculars. So I look it out, you know, like you put the quarter in and you're looking out. So I'll look it up there and there's these there was a group of guys or people up there on the mountain climbing it, and I just thought, This is it. 

Rich Bennett 35:29
You're going to do that. 

Rick Czaplewski 35:31
Yeah, that was 

great. So. 

Rich Bennett 35:36
Man. 

Rick Czaplewski 35:37
So it took me three years to get to the point where I could attempt it. And I mean, I started I started off with I couldn't run 200 yards. And, you know, you just start working your way into shape and the gym running and pretty soon then there's nothing. There's nothing more motivation to to get in shape, to do something than than when you sign up to do it. And it's and you have to travel to do it right. So if you have to travel, get a hotel and get gear and all this stuff, you better be in shape to 

Rich Bennett 36:14
More 

Rick Czaplewski 36:14
do 

Rich Bennett 36:14
from. 

Rick Czaplewski 36:14
it. Yeah, you're going to be on a lot of money if you don't put. 

Rich Bennett 36:21
I like a Yoda, How you got to travel? You got to do two marathons. Go hit these other mountains. 

Kayaking in the Indian Ocean or whatever. 

Man. 

Rick Czaplewski 36:37
These things all start this. They are all adventures, I think. Start with. A catalyst moment. Something totally unrelated to the adventure starts your path on the adventure, whatever. And. And some of us right now are on adventures. And we don't realize that we're on it, But we're. We're plugging into something. We're working toward something. We're not at the destination. We're showing up. We're being consistent. We're doing work in some fashion. 

I ran the Boston Marathon in 2009, and that whole adventure started with me splitting my pants. 

Rich Bennett 37:18
Huh? 

Rick Czaplewski 37:18
When I. So my I used to. It's how it started with a when I split a pair of khaki docker pants. 

What happened was i, i, i. Today I live in Wisconsin. At the time, I lived in Sacramento. So I used to fly from California to Wisconsin every winter over Christmas to see my family, and I'd be here 1 to 2 weeks. The diet in California and the diet in Wisconsin are quite different. California is a much a much healthier place. And Wisconsin is cheese and beer and not quite as healthy. 

Rich Bennett 38:02
I was just going to say, you know. 

Rick Czaplewski 38:04
I'm sorry, to my to anybody who is upset with this generalization, but as a guy who's lived a long time in. 

Rich Bennett 38:10
It's the truth. 

Rick Czaplewski 38:12
Just how we roll in both places. So my my wife and I, we bring our son back to Wisconsin, and for two weeks we would eat with no filter. We would eat like complete pigs. And it was over Christmas time. So there's cookies and just junk everywhere, beer, all that stuff. So we had got we had just wrapped up a trip to Wisconsin and we went back home and she gives me a call and says, Pick something up at the grocery store. Okay. So I, I go to the store on the way home from work, and as I'm getting out of the car, I swing my leg out the door and there goes the pants. 

Rich Bennett 38:51
Oh, God. 

Rick Czaplewski 38:53
So now I'm like, Oh, crap. 

Rich Bennett 38:55
You've got to walk it to the store. 

Rick Czaplewski 38:57
I got to go in the store. I didn't want to go home and get a new pair of pants. And you know how that is. I'm just like, Oh. 

Rich Bennett 39:03
Yeah. 

Rick Czaplewski 39:03
So I tie my coat around my waist, get whatever I need, and I leave. I come back home and a shower. I'm like, Alright, here's what I did. She's cracking up. You could see your underwear. You know, that's. 

Rich Bennett 39:18
Good 

Rick Czaplewski 39:18
So 

Rich Bennett 39:18
thing 

Rick Czaplewski 39:18
that 

Rich Bennett 39:18
you 

Rick Czaplewski 39:18
night, 

Rich Bennett 39:18
had the 

Rick Czaplewski 39:19
I'm like. 

Rich Bennett 39:19
morning. 

Rick Czaplewski 39:21
Like this. This could take. 

So that night I'm like, You know what? I got to get myself back at it. This is just not like I fall off the wagon here. 

Rich Bennett 39:34
Right. 

Rick Czaplewski 39:36
So I started running and I ran like a mile. It was at night. My son went to bed and I'd go out, run a mile, and I really enjoyed that time. The it wasn't so much like I was training for something enjoyed, like the the solitude, the cool air, listening to my own music, all that stuff. And a mile turns into two, turns into four, having to run seven miles. I'm going to try running this big lap around this huge area that we know. Okay seven turns into ten, and now people at work who run a lot, you start talking to them and you sign up for events like I'm going to try a half marathon, I'm going to try a marathon. And then all of this then is like, I'm running the Boston Marathon. You know, it just it's just this it's an adventure, like and you just get into how these things unfold and listen to the signals and not worry about the end point, but just trust where you're going. And when it comes to your body, you know, and enjoy it. And it's not I think like some athletes lean into sports to like get a good time or, you know, like just this constant measuring. But I did it to have a good time. And when I ran the Boston in 2009, I finished ahead of 200 people and over 26,000 people finished ahead of me and I finished way at the back end. But it was it was bonkers because everybody 

Rich Bennett 41:07
But you finished? 

Rick Czaplewski 41:08
on the. I finished in. So many people were drunk and going completely nuts. And you know how it is coming from from Baltimore when you're cooped up all winter or in an opening day in Milwaukee is our coming out party every year. 

Rich Bennett 41:23
Yeah. 

Rick Czaplewski 41:24
We are cooped up all winter and there's like an outdoor event and you get to go outside and fire up a barbecue and drink and everybody's got Patriot's Day off. It was nuts. And when you're towards the back and a lot of people that were well oiled at this time and there's not a lot of other runners on the road, people are just going completely nuts. And it's so much fun. Just slap in people's hands or people inches from my face yelling. And 

yeah, it was just a wonderful experience. And it's it all started because I ate too much over Christmas and blew out my pants. 

Rich Bennett 42:04
Ripped your pay. 

Rick Czaplewski 42:07
So whatever you're so dear listener, whatever your pants blowout moment is, lean into that. Listen to that signal. Take the adventure and go with it. 

Rich Bennett 42:22
Rick. I hope they just jinxed me. And when I go to my next event and if I bend over my pants. 

Rick Czaplewski 42:31
If you're plant if you. If you. 

Rich Bennett 42:32
Lee. 

Rick Czaplewski 42:35
If your pants blow out rich at your nets, wherever you're going next, you can consider that a call to adventure that big things are in. 

Rich Bennett 42:42
Yeah. 

Rick Czaplewski 42:44
Maybe a bigger pair. 

Rich Bennett 42:45
Yeah. Richard. Stop buying all those chocolate covered Oreos during Christmas. 

God. 

Rick Czaplewski 42:54
You know, that third, that third crab cake, which was Baby, baby, put it over the top. 

Rich Bennett 43:02
I think I fell. I think I fell in love with something better than crap. Well, I. My personal. I like it better than crab cake. We went to New Orleans. Did I just say New Orleans? We just went to New Orleans. And I was dying to get crawfish pie. 

Rick Czaplewski 43:21
Oh. 

Rich Bennett 43:22
Oh, God. Oh, my God. I fell in love with it. So now I'm going to have to take. I got to get some crawfish pie from New Orleans and sit it next to a maryland crab cake and eat them both at the same time and figure out which one I like best. 

Rick Czaplewski 43:36
Oh, yeah. Wow. 

Rich Bennett 43:37
Because it only the crawfish pie, only steaks tasted like crab dip. But why are we going to talk about food when you get near lunchtime? 

Sure. Go ahead. 

Rick Czaplewski 43:50
A good friend of mine lives in Baltimore, and his name is Tim. And Tim grew up a couple of blocks away from. It's that municipal stadium, the old stadium. 

Rich Bennett 44:01
Memorial Stadium. 

Rick Czaplewski 44:03
Memorial Stadium. 

Rich Bennett 44:04
Yeah, 

Rick Czaplewski 44:04
Okay. His mom was a massive Orioles fan and they and she would pop a bet like shoot. She would pop popcorn in like a paper grocery bag and they would 

Rich Bennett 44:16
right. 

Rick Czaplewski 44:17
go attend games. And he talks about there was a guy named Wild Bill Hagi. 

Rich Bennett 44:23
Wild Bill. Yes. 

Rick Czaplewski 44:25
Him. Wild bill. 

Rich Bennett 44:28
He was. 

Rick Czaplewski 44:29
I think the legacy of the legacy of a guy like Wild Bill needs to live on. So while Bill was. 

There's actually a YouTube video about him. We can learn a little. It's almost like a bio, like a ten minute biopic of this guy. Blue collar guy, huge beard, cowboy hat and wrangler kind of guy. And he would be like a loud cheering guy in like one of the upper deck outreaches reaches but always like in a positive manner. And he became like a cult figure. 

Rich Bennett 45:04
Yeah. 

Rick Czaplewski 45:04
Yeah, and that inspired a ton of people, my friend included, to become a huge fan of baseball. And I think when you are in life, a guy like Wild Bill more than likely was not taken seriously in like a corporate environment, right? 

Rich Bennett 45:20
Right. 

Rick Czaplewski 45:21
But in a baseball stadium, one man made a huge difference. And that's how you build a movement is somebody like him was so passionate about sports and so passionate about the Orioles and sat in a section that probably cost a dollar to get into. He attracted a lot of other. Did people. Yeah. It to the point where people like like Orioles were interviewed and knew who he was and like, pointed out like section 490 or whatever. It was like, we know that. And I think that is a good recipe for a movement, which is you don't have to be anybody significant or of stature. You may not even be taken seriously in parts of your life, but if you lean into your passion, you'll attract other people who are doing the same thing, and you can create a much bigger movement or, you know, other people who will carry on your your message. And Wild Bill simply was a big baseball fan. And at the time, I mean, I'm sure while Bill through the seventies he sat through a lot of really, really good Orioles teams. 

Rich Bennett 46:28
Oh, yeah. 

Rick Czaplewski 46:28
That's pretty cool. I like that. 

Rich Bennett 46:31
Oh, yeah, he was. He was awesome. I loved watching him. And it's funny because a lot of people would end up watching him in the game. 

Well, while. 

Rick Czaplewski 46:42
My. 

Rich Bennett 46:43
He was great. 

Rick Czaplewski 46:45
My friend told me. His his funny story was they used to always sit in in wild Bill section and wild Bill knew. My friend now Wild Bill was maybe in his forties and my friend was in elementary school, so a child and he would always wear a jacket that said St Rita's from his school. So wild Bill nicknamed him the Saint Rita Mesquita. And so he would come the game. Mbaye Mesquita. What do you think it is now? I mean, think about that as an adult. What are you doing to that? To that kid? You're. You're welcoming them. You're showing them that this is fun. And, you know, my friend is a diehard, lifelong Orioles and baseball fan. That's probably because of that wild bill. I mean, we have so much influence, I think, with the things that we're passionate about. And it it's a great example from from your neck of the woods as somebody who's really created a movement that still exists. 

Rich Bennett 47:47
Guarantee your friends probably a bigger fan now, especially with the new ownership of the team. 

Rick Czaplewski 47:53
Yes. Yes. Yes. 

Rich Bennett 47:55
Yeah. 

Rick Czaplewski 47:55
And. 

Rich Bennett 47:55
And Cal being a part of that. 

Rick Czaplewski 47:59
He liked that. And he also liked that the Orioles traded for Corbin Burns from my Milwaukee Brewers, which were like, Oh man. 

Rich Bennett 48:08
I need. 

Rick Czaplewski 48:09
Be. 

Rich Bennett 48:09
Start watching baseball more because I stopped watching it a while ago. Then was last last year. Two years ago. I started. Well, I can't watch the Orioles because they're not carried on regular TV as much. So I go to the minor league games, but I got lost when I went to the ballgame because the first game we went well. First, I didn't understand why the pitchers got to pitch. You know, he only has a 

Rick Czaplewski 48:37
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 48:37
certain amount of time to pictures. Like, what the hell was that? And then when he went into extra innings, they started with a guy on second, like, Yeah, what the hell? 

Rick Czaplewski 48:44
Oh, yeah. 

Rich Bennett 48:45
If that guy had come to bat, it threw me off. It looked me up. It really. 

Rick Czaplewski 48:51
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 48:52
It's still fun. So your book's title. Better Dirty Than Done. How did you come up with that title? Because I love it. 

Rick Czaplewski 49:02
So there's there's a story behind this one, too Rich. 

So I tell this story in the book. 

The book itself is written to be between myself and my son. I never intended to publish it. So I tell a series of stories in this book in a very intimate manner for him. I have a 20 year old son who is a college student right now himself, and somebody of a different friend of mine encouraged me to get it published and when I shopped at one publisher, jumped on it and thought, This is wonderful. And that's that's how the book came about. When. When I really worked myself into shape, I was doing a lot of Asian travel for business and I went to Taiwan a lot. Taiwan has a series of mountains in it. Maybe if you think about it, maybe like 10,000 foot type peaks there to give you an idea. So I was talking about climbing Mt. Rainier and Mt. Shasta in the States with somebody. And they're like, Well, we have mountains here. Why don't you come climb with us once? So, okay, so I took a weekend and I went with a group of Taiwanese that were five of us into the mountains. And I wrote about this. And my friend Jasper, and we we climbed in it. I picture it more or less. This is not like climbing a snowcapped peak. This is more like climbing like a half dome type of climb in Yosemite, where you're on different types of terrain and there is jungle and there's big waterfall walls and then moonscape and dust. It was really it was very vast and very, very different. So we climb to the midway point, which was a hostile. And we were going to attack two summits the next morning. And cool. So we 

Rich Bennett 51:02
Wow. 

Rick Czaplewski 51:02
we went to bed and there were maybe 40 or 50 other people besides our party there, and they all occupied a large room. And then because I was a foreigner, they wanted me to have a VIP experience. So we actually booked like a a private room for our party. So now we're we're sleeping. We wake up early, like maybe two, three in the morning, which is typical. And we set out for two different 10,000 foot peaks. Everybody else at the time was still 

Rich Bennett 51:36
Wow. 

Rick Czaplewski 51:36
bedded down. And so now we're we're out there. We're working it. We hit the first one, and then all of a sudden some high winds pick up. We're kind of looking at each other like, wow, should we do the second one? And I said, It's okay with me. And so they said, All right. So then we nailed the second one. And as we're coming down, I said, Where is everybody? There were 50 people in that place, and we've seen zero people. And they're like, I don't know. So we're packing it up to get back to the hostel and retrieve all of our equipment. And you know, we're about maybe seven or 8 hours of of walking time beneath a behind us now that day. 

Rich Bennett 52:14
Right. 

Rick Czaplewski 52:15
About 100 yards from the hostel. Whoosh! It starts pouring like a massive chain. 

Rich Bennett 52:23
Cyclone. 

Rick Czaplewski 52:24
Typhoon. 

Rich Bennett 52:25
Yeah. Or time. 

Rick Czaplewski 52:25
Yeah, it's it's crushing us. So we're like, we've run into the hostel, and so they're asking, like, the innkeeper, for lack of a better title, Where is everybody? And he said they knew it was going to rain and they, they just left. They, they, they didn't even attempt the summit. They just went back down. 

We're like, we're about six miles of hiking away from the car. So. Okay. So I'm like and I'm saying to the I mean, I'm thinking this is like a midwest thing and like, should we just wait it out? And they're like, laughing like, wait, like, how long are we going to wait? Like, a week like this? There's no waiting anything. Like, Oh, shit. 

Rich Bennett 53:09
Right. 

Rick Czaplewski 53:10
So now we leave the place. I'm getting to the title part. This is all wrapped. 

So we leave and we're coming down and the rain is just is pouring and it's getting to be so thick that there's like water coming down in the path, like an inch or two of water that we're we're walking through. And it's just like, all right, 

Rich Bennett 53:34
Right. 

Rick Czaplewski 53:34
this is what we're doing. So we get roughly a mile away from the car and we're we're on the path. And all sudden we hear this this like like a like an engine. It's a motorcycle, not a dirt bike like picture, like a a Kawasaki or something like coming up this thing. 

Rich Bennett 53:57
Right. 

Rick Czaplewski 53:59
And a guy in a uniform gets like stops the bike right in front of us and he gets off and this is all in Chinese and he's not Natalie's point pointing. He's just screaming in Chinese. And my friend who is like, there, they're yelling and I'm like, What in the heck? So the guy abruptly gets on his motorcycle and leaves, and I'm like, What the hell was that? And my friend Will calmly says, No problem, just keep walking it like that tone of voice. 

Rich Bennett 54:34
Her. 

Rick Czaplewski 54:35
Just keep walking. So we reached this point where there's a sharp like a ravine. Like we are we are on a path that's on like the outer, like the edge of the ravine. And we had to climb over about a six foot pile of rock that fell in the path at some point. I'm like, What is this? My friend says, Just go over it. So we go over it and we kind of round a corner and there's there was a waterfall there the next day. Well, now there's maybe a 20 yard pile of debris. There's water coming off of it. 

Rich Bennett 55:15
Wow. 

Rick Czaplewski 55:16
We're on. We're on one side of it. It's shaped like a U. Where we're at. We're on one side of the U. The debris would be like in the bottom part. And then on the opposite side, like the right side of you. There were four of these officials who are like a combination of park ranger and police. So they're there. 

Rich Bennett 55:36
Right. 

Rick Czaplewski 55:36
They they are there to, quote, rescue us. And between 

Rich Bennett 55:41
Wow. 

Rick Czaplewski 55:42
us and those people is a it's like a thousand foot drop off straight down. So these guys had strung like a rope over the ravine. And I'm like, There is zero way I am getting on a rope over that. There is no freaking way I'm doing that. 

Rich Bennett 56:00
Right. 

Rick Czaplewski 56:00
But they met. What they wanted to do was get all of our equipment and take our equipment across so we were lighter. So now one of the officials stood on our side. So all that's between us and them is like 20 yards of this, like this rock. So my buddy or the guy I'm with says this is what we're going to do. I'm going to go first. Let me go and then you follow me. I'll tell you when you should go. You do what I do. Then you will go. I said, okay, no problem. So he he he goes and he walks over this fallen rock. And as soon as he gets to the other side and I mean, as soon as he puts his foot down on the path of the whole thing falls. It's like. 

Rich Bennett 56:49
While. 

Rick Czaplewski 56:50
There's rocks coming down, there's water, there's big tree limbs. I mean, it's just like it's a surge. It's like an avalanche is happening. It's a massive rock slide. And I'm like, he was honestly one or 2 seconds away from being caught off on that swept up in this and that the the official who's on my side of the ravine puts his hands on my chest and pushes me like up against like the rocks to get me like undercover, because we're just standing there like. 

Rich Bennett 57:22
In shock. Yeah. 

Rick Czaplewski 57:22
And yeah, I'm like, What the heck am I going to do? So I'm thinking like CNN Ticker American dies in Taiwanese rock fall. You know, I'm like, this 

Rich Bennett 57:32
Yeah. 

Rick Czaplewski 57:32
this is. I'm not gonna make it home. This is fucked. So 

as a as he's as he's got us there, the rocks slowly start to slow down and, you know, the fall goes from it's all 20 yards to now it's just the middle ten down to five. And then it's just water flowing over the rocks which have now stopped. 

Rich Bennett 57:58
Right. 

Rick Czaplewski 58:00
And the guy, the official on the other side looks at me and points. He's pointing right to me. I think to myself, my master plan here is I'm going to sprint as hard as I can. I'm going to get on the rocks. I'm going to dive like Superman as far as I can. I'm going to push myself up and keep going to the other side. That is what is in my head as I take off and I think had better dirty than done on this. Better dirty than done. And I just better dirty than done. I'm repeating this. So what happens is I run up to the racks. I get right in the middle. I've got both my hands in the middle of the waterfall and I freeze and I'm stuck. I'm like, Oh. And I feel somebody grab my jacket and yank me out of there. And he pulls. It was one of the officials. He pulled me to safety. And I look behind me and the other guy was right behind me and our whole our whole party. Then made it safely. So then what I did was I grabbed there was. Picture. These guys are like cops kind of. I think they had they had weapons on them of something. I can't remember what. So and they're and they're smaller than me. So I go up to one of the guys and I like, bear hug him and lift him like almost like a Heimlich maneuver. I was screaming in Chinese Shisha. Shisha, which means thank you and screaming as loud as I can, like shaking about the top. And in my whole party's like, no, 

Rich Bennett 59:35
Oh. 

Rick Czaplewski 59:36
you're not supposed to do that. Like, with with public. And I'm like, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And everybody's cracking up. 

So we still had about a half mile to go. And so now we are like, we are we're on fire. Like we have been ignited, like, wow, 

Rich Bennett 59:52
Right. 

Rick Czaplewski 59:53
I can't believe this. And we walk to our car in the car where he parked was on a on like kind of a little parking lot area. We could see the area where the rock fall was. And we stood there and you could see farther up the mountain. We watched that entire thing come down. All those rocks fell and that like the cliff that was above it, like cleaved off and fell. I mean, it was we were close to some real bad stuff and. They were debriefing with those Rangers for a good hour and I didn't understand anything. But kind of the gist of it was that was a very in that kind of weather. That was a super dangerous part. We didn't know about it. Those people who left ahead of us were trying to beat that problem. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:45
Right. 

Rick Czaplewski 1:00:45
And apparently, like four people there last year or something. And 

on the way. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:52
Sure. 

Rick Czaplewski 1:00:53
The funny, funny denouement of this story. Rich was the only English CD we had in the car. We had about a three hour drive left. The only English CD we had in the car was the Eagles greatest Hits. So we were singing Hotel California. That was at. 

So that's where that title came from, was from. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:13
3 hours of the Eagles. 

Rick Czaplewski 1:01:15
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:17
I love it. I love it. And especially the story behind it makes it even better now. So the very important because you also do speaking engagements. Tell everybody on your website how they can get in touch with you and of course, get your book. 

Rick Czaplewski 1:01:36
Yeah. If you look for Rick to plus WSJ.com, you'll find me if you don't know how to spell that. Rich, hopefully you put my name in the. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:47
I'll put the legs in the shoulders. 

Rick Czaplewski 1:01:51
If you go there, you can get in touch with me. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:53
Definitely. Without a doubt. 

Rick Czaplewski 1:01:55
Yeah. You can buy a book. If you buy a book from my website, I sign it for you. I'll put something in there. Or if you want me to make it out to someone, I can do that. You can also send me an email or sign up for my letter. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:06
She has her book sales going. 

Rick Czaplewski 1:02:08
Pretty good. I'm. I'm up for a couple Indy awards, and I've got really great reviews on both Amazon and Google. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:16
Nice. 

Rick Czaplewski 1:02:17
Yeah, I'm a I'm a decent writer. So people. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:21
And when did he come out? 

Rick Czaplewski 1:02:23
It came out last fall in November. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:26
Okay. 

Rick Czaplewski 1:02:26
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:27
Okay, so those of you listening, when not if when you purchase Rick's book, make sure you leave a full review, whether it be on good reads, Amazon or whatever because Ash just going to does something with Amazon drives of the algorithms and more people will see it when they search for it because as we know, you search for a title of the book. You don't just see that book. You see several different books. So definitely. And if you need him to come speak, you'll have to travel the country to speak. Right. 

Rick Czaplewski 1:03:01
Everywhere. Yeah. International. All of the. 

Rich Bennett 1:03:04
Say whether you're going to Thailand and everything else. So of course you're going to travel. 

Rick Czaplewski 1:03:07
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:03:09
Have him come speak and then run a marathon with him. Plain and simple. So right before I get to my last question, is there anything you like that? 

Rick Czaplewski 1:03:19
It's been a pleasure, Rich. And if you're someone who's struggling, if you find yourself stuck, if you're dealing with cancer or a disease, there is no better time to make a comeback then than now. You're not going to be in those places forever. Look at look at your current situation as a as a pass through. Think. Visualize yourself, complete with your adversity and go out and live life. Break something off fun. Try to try to get after something interesting if you need a rest. Rest. But while we're here, go after it. Find you know your adventure awaits and whatever that might be, whether it's doing something, taking a vacation, having a conversation with somebody that that you've needed to do for some time. If it's saying you're sorry or fixing something, or if you're thinking about your legacy and you want to leave something behind and you need to take steps to do that, whatever those things are, we're only here a limited amount of time. Now's the time to get after. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:26
I love that. So you've I think before we told you, you said you had was it like six interviews? 

Rick Czaplewski 1:04:32
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:33
A little bit more than that. 

Rick Czaplewski 1:04:34
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:35
Okay, so this is perfect then, this work. 

Rick Czaplewski 1:04:38
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:39
Is there anything that a host has never asked you that you wish they would have asked you? And if so, what would be their question? What would be your answer? 

Rick Czaplewski 1:04:54
I mean, 

that is a hard question because I mean that this topic talked about we talked about beating cancer. We talked about life after I think fatherhood, questions about fatherhood are excellent, 

completely a different topic than fatherhood. I'm also a baseball junkie. And for a career I, I do negotiation training. So anything in those three areas. Rich, if you've got a question and in one of those three areas that would be that would be a. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:31
Actually, I'm glad you said that, because 

with fatherhood. 

How old was your son when you told him about, you know, everything you went through with Hodgkin's lymphoma? 

Rick Czaplewski 1:05:45
Very young. He's known. He's known forever. It wasn't that that to me is important to be authentic with him. And it's also something he needs to know. From just practically speaking from you. You've got these genes in you, like it or not. So we need to do things to take care of your body to to, you know. No, smoking is a big one. If you're doing drugs, stop doing that stuff. Like we've had those discussions, drugs and alcohol, limiting that. But my big piece of advice for him as a college student, he now he goes to college in a northern Wisconsin town like I did, but a different one called Wisconsin Lacrosse. I his first year I went up and visited him and I said, Show me your jacket and here's my jacket. Okay. We went in the store. We went in the car. I took him to a sporting goods store nearby. He said, pick out another jacket. Why do I need two jackets? You've got one jacket that you're going to take to parties and you can trash it. I don't care if it's this one or the other one. You're going to beat the shit out of this jacket. The other one is your good jacket. This is the one you're going to wear to class. You know, you're going to you're going to wear it on a day to day basis. I don't care which one it is. You need two jackets in college. I can pick anyone I want. Anyone you want. And he did. And I. I always tell him there was no greater piece of advice that I needed than to wear my jacket. So no one's ever asked me that. I've never told that story. But that's I When I write him letters, I always put where your jacket and. 

Rich Bennett 1:07:35
You're going to have to put that in your next book. 

Rick Czaplewski 1:07:37
I think. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:07:40
Yeah, without a doubt. 

You know, that could actually be an interesting book to. Because you being a cancer survivor, but telling this story 

as family strictly how you told your family and how people have to be aware because of, you know, a lot of these things are hereditary. And tell your kids as you're younger because as they get older, you want them. To get ahead. And we mentioned earlier about, you know, colonoscopies. The if it if it runs in your family, then you definitely get checked. Otherwise. Now I think the age is 45 when they suggest you start getting checked. 

Rick Czaplewski 1:08:25
Yes, that I believe that's right. 

Rich Bennett 1:08:27
And and and another little bit of advice for those of you. If the doctor says you have some type of disease and you can't find any information on it, ask somebody, maybe even one of your parents say what is. 

So when you find out what it actually is, you're not pissed off. Like, really? 

Rick Czaplewski 1:08:57
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:08:57
Rick, I want to thank you so much. BAIRD It's been a true pleasure. It's been an honor. And, you know, more success to you. I count it. I know this book is going well. It's already kicking tail. 

And you know, you're going to have to write a second book. Which means you're gonna have to come on again. And afterwards, if, if you have any podcast or that you be interested or if you would like to get on more, but you don't know which ones to get on, email me and I'll shoot you some links to some, because there's I know a lot of great podcasts that you should definitely be on 

Rick Czaplewski 1:09:36
Oh. 

Rich Bennett 1:09:36
and check out new books Network dot com. 

Rick Czaplewski 1:09:39
Okay. 

Rich Bennett 1:09:40
Because that's got a ton of different podcasts for authors and you find your niche. Your genre and just pitch it to them. But it's new books. Networked Tor.com. 

Rick Czaplewski 1:09:49
Okay. 

Rich Bennett 1:09:51
I'm going to if I don't get paid for that, I want to know how to get a hold of the guy. I got to get a hold of Marshall back and say, Hey, look, may I keep promote your thing? I want to kick you. Rick, thanks a lot that. 

Rick Czaplewski 1:10:03
Rich, it's been a pleasure. Thank you. And thanks to you, to your listeners for listening. Appreciate it.