02-24-26 - Obama On Podcast Confirmed We've Seen Aliens - Holmberg Explains What Happened To Prompt His Retinal Surgery And Encourages People To Have Their Eyes Checked

Summary

Podcast Summary

Holmberg's Morning Sickness – Arizona’s #1 Morning Radio Show

Episode Date: February 24, 2026
Hosts: John Holmberg, Brady Bogen, Brett Vesely, Larry, and Dick Toledo
Main Topics:

• Obama’s podcast comments about aliens
• John Holmberg’s recent eye health crisis, retinal surgery, and PSA about eye care

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Episode Overview

This episode is equal parts irreverent morning show banter and serious health cautionary tale. Back after missing a week (and episodes) due to emergency eye surgery, host John Holmberg delivers a graphic, honest, and darkly comedic recounting of his retinal detachment, using it as a soapbox to urge listeners to get their eyes checked. The team also riffs on President Obama’s casual mention of aliens on a recent podcast and how our culture’s reaction to such extraordinary revelations has changed.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Holmberg’s Absence & Health Crisis

[01:09-44:00, 53:10-68:10]

• Why John Was Gone: Holmberg recaps the past week, revealing he was dealing with a major retinal detachment in his right eye that required immediate surgery.
• Symptoms & Denial:
  • Describes “floaters”—visual disturbances that looked like gnats—which he ignored for days.
  • “Typical guy move, dude move: it doesn’t hurt, this can’t be bad.” [14:41]
• The Progression:
  • Mistook flashes of light and fogginess for a migraine.
  • Vision worsened dramatically—described as looking through a “lava lamp.”
  • By the time he checked one eye, he realized “90% no vision in that eye… it was an eclipse.” [21:56]
• Hospital & Surgery:
  • ER visit full of wild characters, including a patient with Tourette’s using the N-word loudly [24:00].
  • Immediate surgery needed. Had just eaten Kit Kats in the ER so couldn’t be put under right away.
  • “You need surgery right now… you could very possibly have that retina detach and you’ll never see right again.” [26:19]
• Compounding Losses:
  • Amid all this, Holmberg’s elderly cat had to be put down just hours before surgery. “Crying my eyes out—and I’m not supposed to have any sort of action going on here with my eyes and I’m sobbing.” [28:43]
• The Brutality of Recovery:
  • Forced to lay literally face down, motionless, for 6 days, 24 hours a day, with a gas bubble in his eye to keep the retina in place.
  • “They hand you a paper: 5 to 14 days face down, 24 hours a day. Don’t move.” [31:54]
  • Attempts at humor: “If you’re ever gonna peg me, now’s the time!” (directed at his gay friends, taking advantage of his ‘power bottom’ position—[32:54])
  • “There is no PT, there is no 'this will help.’ Don’t move.” [31:54]

2. Life During Recovery

• Physical & Mental Toll:
  • “Six full days of flat on my face… depression sets in about 10 hours. You can’t. I started thinking about prisoners in isolation. Because I holed up alone. I couldn’t be around the dogs, people, TV, nothing. It is the worst thing I have dealt with in my life as far as any sort of recovery.” [36:06]
  • “You start getting dark thoughts… your brain doesn’t work right.” [38:50]
• Men & Denial:
  • “When there’s no pain, a man doesn’t react. I know that. Women love going to doctors. Men don’t.” [13:35]
• Loss of Simple Joys, Like 'Tugging':
  • “This seven-day stretch...the longest I’ve had without ejaculating in 43 years. Kill me now.” [42:37]
• On Not Moving:
  • “How do you ask somebody like me to just stop moving?” [39:20]
  • “For any reason, I’m not going more than seven days [without masturbating] ever again… Not supposed to do that, but I did.” [52:24]
• Hakuna Matata:
  • Discussion reveals there's no sure cause for retinal tears—could be age, trauma, hypertension, or just bad luck.
  • “Luck of the draw, according to the doctor...You might have gotten hit with a baseball when you were seven.” [39:30]

3. Alien Disclosure Fatigue

[06:17-11:00]

• Obama’s Casual Confession:
  • Obama was asked on a podcast about aliens; he essentially confirmed “Yep, there’s aliens”—and no one cared.
  • Holmberg’s disbelief: “A former President sat in a podcast—‘Oh yeah, there’s aliens, sure'—and nobody said ‘What?’…We’re not amazed at anything anymore.” [06:19]
  • Discusses how the media, public, and politicians have become numb to these extraordinary revelations.
  • Hypothetical: “If Trump said it, we’d have teams of people searching.” [08:38]
  • On slow alien disclosure and prepping the public: “We can’t have Trump doing it… the calm voices have to say, ‘Oh yeah, that’s a thing.’” [10:53]
• Irreverent Jokes:
  • Running gag about “Big Mike” (Michelle Obama conspiracy) and how Obama’s trustworthiness is only diminished by the right’s joke about his wife’s gender.
  • “You don’t have to like his politics, but when Obama talks… that dude’s pretty reliable.” [07:08]

4. Eye Surgery: Facts, Fears, & Freak Facts

[44:00–end]

• What Causes Retinal Tears?
  • No specific culprit—age, trauma, high blood pressure, even too much ‘tugging’ (not really).
• Diabetic and Nearsighted Risk:
  • Listener texts point out that diabetics and nearsighted people are more at risk, but Holmberg’s case was not diabetes-related.
• Listener Interaction:
  • Multiple listeners chime in with their own brutal or ongoing eye surgery stories—some had to do the face down recovery for 14 days or multiple times per year, pushing them to the brink mentally. [46:09+, 53:55+]
  • “Third time I’d kill myself. That ain’t living. You can’t do it.” [55:32]
• Medical Innovations, Dark Humor:
  • Holmberg muses about “Harvest bots” and Elon Musk—wishing he could have his eye placed in a robot for recovery, not himself.[48:53]
  • Explains the “gas bubble” method, in use since the 1920s, and how primitive the early days were.

5. Takeaway: Get Your Eyes Checked

• Holmberg’s Plea:
  • “Go get your eyes checked. Don’t put yourself through…if you can go, go get your eyes looked at.” [14:41, 36:40, 63:03]
  • Encourages even the ‘toughest’ listeners: “Don’t fix your eye, fix your eye. I don’t care. Don’t put yourself in a position to be face down for more than an hour.” [44:46]
  • Listener tip: most eye docs have an Optomap machine—“Checks your retina connections…only cost me $49 with insurance. Worth it.” [62:57]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Medical Denial & Men

• “Typical guy move, dude move: it doesn’t hurt, this can’t be bad.” (John, 14:41)
• "When there's no pain, a man doesn't react. Women love going to doctors. Men don't." (John, 13:35)

On Obama and Aliens

• “We are not amazed at anything anymore…A former president sat on a podcast—'Oh, yeah, there’s aliens’—and nobody said 'What?'” (John, 06:19)
• “A trusted, calm voice like [Obama] saying ‘Oh, yeah, there are aliens’…we’re three or four more years from now, I’d guess we’re about 30 or 40 years from contact.” (John, 10:53)

On the Nightmare Recovery:

• “They hand you a paper: 5 to 14 days face down, 24 hours a day. Don’t move.” (John, 31:54)
• “Six full days of flat on my face…depression sets in about 10 hours.” (John, 36:06)
• “You start getting dark thoughts…your brain doesn’t work right.” (John, 38:50)
• "For any reason, I'm not going more than seven days [without masturbating] ever again.” (John, 52:24)

On the Absurdity of "Rest as Recovery":

• “The only time you ever hear ‘rest comfortably’ and they mean it is hospice. Whenever you have to recover from something, they’re like, ‘We’re gonna put you in the worst position ever and you can’t move for days.’” (John, 44:46)

On Listeners’ Eye Surgery Horror Stories:

• “If I got told to do this again…there’d be some serious consideration I’m not doing it. I’ll get through that, but it is awful.” (John, 55:33)
• “Take the eye out. Just remove them and start smelling stuff.” (John, 66:49)

On the Human Condition:

• "Face down, ass up is only meant to be for pleasure—and for like, ten minutes at a time, maximum." (John, 56:05)

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Important Segment Timestamps

| Time | Topic | |-------------|--------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:09 | John returns, reveals health scare | | 06:17–11:00 | Obama, aliens, and cultural apathy to “otherworldly” news | | 13:35–44:00 | Detailed walkthrough of Holmberg’s retinal tear and surgery | | 31:54 | Face-down, no movement order; mental pain vs. physical pain | | 46:09+ | Listener horror stories, frequency in athletes & diabetics | | 48:53 | Musings on robots & medical innovation | | 53:55 | Worst-case recovery stories, depression, dark humor | | 62:57–63:43 | Eye doctor ‘Optomap’ machine, final PSA for eye care | | 64:20–68:10 | Eye-themed music for the wake-up song |

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Takeaways & Final Thoughts

• Holmberg’s ordeal was a wakeup call: He turns his suffering into a PSA, urging listeners not to ignore "floaters," flashes, or eye changes.
• Cultural numbness to bizarre news: The group lampoons the public’s muteness at Obama’s “aliens confirmation,” highlighting how jaw-dropping info can be swallowed by the news cycle.
• Unfiltered honesty and gallows humor: Despite horror stories and mental strain, Holmberg and crew keep the tone comic, relatable, and uniquely HMS.
• Community in suffering: Listeners flooded in with their stories; some listeners survive repeated face-down recoveries, and a dark camaraderie emerges among “retina survivors.”

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For Listeners

If you take anything from this episode: If you notice floaters or flashes in your vision, see an eye doctor promptly—don't wait for pain to force you. And yes: Obama really did say there may be aliens.

Transcript

[Brett Vesely]

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[John Holmberg]

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[Brady]

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[John Holmberg]

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[Brady]

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[Brett Vesely]

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[John Holmberg]

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[Brett Vesely]

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[Brady]

Hey, it's Brady from HMS and I'm here with Christy Hayden from the AZ Wildlife World Zoo.

[John Holmberg]

This is the best time of year to come out to Wildlife World. The weather's great and you have to come out and see our new baby pygmy hippo. And if you want to book a private encounter while you're out, you can book one with a sea lion, a sloth, or our new black footed penguin encounter. Or you can dine next to our shark tank at Dylan's Barbecue by going to our [e-mail] we're located off the 303 in Northern Avenue in the West Valley.

[Brady]

Check out wildlife world.com. do it today.

[John Holmberg]

You thought that was funny? You were laughing like a hyena when he said it. What the hell is wrong with you? Cruising through. It's good to be home. It's good to be back here. I have never thought I'd say. I couldn't wait to get back. I. I was worried the entire time as Dale Hellestray checked in with me. Brady checked in with me. Paul Sura, our former production guy, checked in with me. And it dawned on me at that very moment that there was a. There was a chance in life that those three gentlemen will be at my funeral. And that scared me to death. That is. That's not the way it's supposed to be. Not that I was close to dying, but, man, it just. I can't imagine that you three would be like, can you believe it? John's got like the. Like Paul. Paul's like, yeah, not so great being active now, is it? Because it is an active. Anyway, we'll get to that.

[Brett Vesely]

I'd have lost that fanduel bet on either two of those being at your wedding.

[John Holmberg]

Before my wedding. You're gonna lose that, too. That's never gonna. That's never gonna come to fruition either. But yeah, it was weird. So we'll get to that. I do like that Scott Haynes is back already. And he. He says, man, after watching the Bafto Awards, I realized Nicole Curtis needs to go get a doctor's note real quick and start that fixer upper show with Tourette's. That's a great idea. Claim Tourette's.

[Brady]

Boy, that story has twists in itself too.

[John Holmberg]

Well, I don't know who the hell is on her side at the network that they couldn't just scrub that. It's not lies. Their own stuff. I know it's not lies.

[Brady]

Someone did that.

[John Holmberg]

Yep.

[Brett Vesely]

We'll turn somebody down.

[John Holmberg]

She. Exactly. She asked, can we get rid of that? I mean, it's what Beavis and Butthead used to say. Fart knocker all the time. And I used to laugh at that. And I think that's. But she didn't. She went Tourette's on it. Lost her DIY show. But if she went Tourette, can you imagine how great it would be for, you know, just like the, like Tourette's version of a fixer upper show. I've never stopped watching that.

[Brady]

It's interesting, though. You find out about the show that she puts it together.

[John Holmberg]

Yeah.

[Brady]

Sells it to them.

[John Holmberg]

Yeah.

[Brady]

So she actually will probably roll out, I guess. If not, she already has anything. Nobody independently.

[John Holmberg]

But again, she's got people. She's not all by herself. There's financiers and there's people putting her away that are no longer going to take that risk. She is not worth the risk right now. And she herself shouldn't be. Like, I'm going to start again. She's not worth her own risk at this point.

[Brett Vesely]

Start the only fans page.

[John Holmberg]

She is what I call myself when I'm friends with Kevin Ray and stuff. I am brand liability. And not because I say stuff like that, but when you're trying to keep it on the straight and narrow and you're with a jackass. I had a girl ask me a couple weeks ago, so how you don't have an Instagram page. And I'm like, I get fired in like a week. Like, why? I say a lot of dumb stuff. And. But if I do it on the radio, it's in context. If I just fired off a thought that I Think is like, again, Michael Jordan's finger in that boy. At least spit in his mouth would be something I would. I would have put out. I'd be like, what do you mean, spit? Well, that's what dirty uncles do to their nieces when they're doing that. You know, you've never read what dirty uncles do. They spit in their mouth, and if it misses, it hits them in the face and just blends with the tears like you've never. And the next thing you know is like, he can't have jobs anymore. As I try to explain my way out of spit in their mouth. All the girls in trailers know what I'm talking about. The uncle spits in your mouth. Like, that's a thing. Geez, why am I the bad guy? Michael says, hey, Chancellor, while it wasn't you, I think Larry and the boys did a good enough job. Larry has quite a personality, and it's sort of funny, but the haters just gonna hate. And it's not about hating. Larry came in here and did a nice thing. He filled in. That's a good thing. We love Larry. And then this one says, I hope your recovery is going well. I miss you. No homo. That's from Ryan. I got a lot of those. Thank you for that. I'll just kind of leave it at that. And then people were very nice, and then a few of them were mean and then said, you know what you should do? And I'm thinking about this. This actually isn't bad, is take the tapes of the Larry shows and just plop them on Trip's desk and go, we're doubling my pay. This is. This is a. This. This could. This. This could turn into a. A complete and utter dick move on my part. Yeah. Week off. And how'd that go? Paul Marshall's available. Yeah. If you're interested in going that well, he's just double my pay or I'm gonna get another eye injury. Christ, he's on to it. All right, fine. No more eye injuries. Also, before we get into the eye story, did anybody else notice that Obama said there's aliens and then didn't?

[Brady]

A little bit.

[Brett Vesely]

Yeah, I saw that.

[John Holmberg]

Did anybody else see that? He just went, yep.

[Brady]

He just had so much alien talk lately.

[John Holmberg]

We are not amazed at anything anymore.

[Brady]

No.

[John Holmberg]

A former president sat in a podcast. Oh, yeah, there's aliens. Sure. And nobody said what. There was a story or two. He had an opportunity to kind of back it down a little. But he nonchalantly, when they asked him, like, what's the first thing you did when you were President. It's the same thing Clinton said. It's the same thing Bush said. Show me the aliens. I want the ships. And they're like, no. And then Obama, even if it's a conspiracy to keep the President out of the loop, they did a good job. But yeah, there's aliens. It's like, we're not gonna follow up on that. You just asked about Big Mike. After that, get back on the alien train. So my hope is tonight at the State of the Union to kind of divert everything from the Epstein files and what's going on in Iran. Trump, the US hockey team. We love them. We love them. And I'd like, I'd like this moment to not only say that the USA hockey team had all the support of the usa, but it also had the support of Gorlok. Let's bring him out. Gorlok's here and he brings out an alien tonight. Here he is, what Obama was talking about.

[Brady]

He's in the upper deck.

[John Holmberg]

He's just waving with his eight fingered hands. That's right, Golock. Usa. Usa. He just said usa, usa. He was watching hockey. We taught Gorlock hockey. He's very good. And Gorlock's here. And that is just going to go right past everybody because you don't care. Aliens are real. According to a former President of the United States who basically wasn't guessing. Oh, yeah, no, they're all over. So Mike has an agenda for working out with kids. You're not going to follow up. You're a terrible journalist. He said they're real. And here's my thought on that. They're coming and they know it. And they're prepping with the calmest, most trusted. You don't have to like his politics, but when Obama talks, people, they go, right? That's probably true, right? For the most part. Even if you hate him, you're kind of like, that dude's pretty reliable.

[Brett Vesely]

I don't know. He still calls Big Mike Michelle.

[John Holmberg]

I don't know. I mean, come on. He can't take everything. Let's not take the outlier and make it the norm. Yes, he's in denial that his wife is a man, but other than that,

[Brady]

your jaw is going to drop the one day he says Big Mike.

[Brett Vesely]

When he whips it. When she whips that crank out.

[John Holmberg]

Oh, man. So we were at a romantic dinner and she hit me in the face with her dick. Oops. We all know that everybody's got a little something. No matter how calm and Collected and cool. Everybody seems on the outside, they got something going on. His happens to be that his wife's a man. That's okay. He can let him live that delusion. But he also was a pretty trusted voice and a nice spokesperson. I didn't like his politics either. But what I did appreciate about him was he was a good spokesperson. He could take in calm situation. Whether he was lying or not, he could calm a situation. He was a good orator. And he had. He had a trust factor that you might not have liked what he said, but it was probably pretty on point. A guy who is president for eight years and doesn't have a single scandal outside of that Big Mike. Well, that's not really a scandal. It's just personal choice, you know, and everybody's gonna start barking. You had this, he had that. Yeah, he had some stuff. But I mean, let's be honest. When he goes on a podcast and says, oh, yeah, there's aliens, and nobody says, tell me more. And then they. And then they pull away and he's so protected, like, he can't step in his own poop, that they protected him from that, and then pulled back and said, give him an opportunity to fix this. Never. If Trump said, oh, we've got aliens, like, it would be constantly on, like, show us. And he'd be digging holes in the backyard of the White House. Not here. Maybe they're over there. He. We would have teams of people searching. What did he just say? Never have a chance to back it up. But I think a trusted, calm voice like that saying, oh, yeah, there's aliens. And everybody kind of being like, all right, it's out. After they had the military guys, if he's cool with it, he's basically prepping for 40, 50 years from now that it's going to be said a little more often here and there, more often. We can't have Trump doing it because it'll just. It's too much. It's the kid at the. At the birthday party that said, too much cake. He's running. He'll wreck the room. The calm voices have to say, oh, yeah, that's a thing. And then when they start, like, saying, oh, we've been telling you this for Obama. Told you a long time ago. Yeah, they're here. We're about three or four more years from now. I would guess we're about 30 or 40 years from contact.

[Brett Vesely]

No good. I won't be here.

[John Holmberg]

Yeah, same curse. I want to be here, and I want them to be militant. I would like that, you know, big old battle. I've been prepping for that since I was five when Star wars came out. I'm like, this is my future. This, I want this last. Everything we've been shown since we were kids. Bretton, you and I. Brady was a little older, but you were still has been space related craziness. Everything has been like prepping us for when ET Shows up, when the last Starfighter, when a dude shows up in a video game and says, we need you to go fight the battles. And we all kind of. That makes sense now. It all makes sense to us. If it were to happen, Obama saying, storyline came from. Well, yeah, I mean, it's kind of a thing. It's like, let's just get them ready. And now it's, now it's live in rooms with trusted voices saying, sure. It would have been like Walter Cronkite back in the 60s. President Kennedy was dead and there's aliens. We'll be right back. Like, what was the last thing? Like, you would have. It would have been, oh, okay. We can stay calm because the dude we trust the most says it. Tom Brokaw, NBC News. There's aliens. Like, okay, we trust him. That makes sense. Trump can't be the one that. This is a very. There's some thin ice. Trump. If Trump finds out about the aliens and has like info, he's leaking it. That's why I'm pretty sure they keep it from the president just in case they get a wild card like this one and he ain't. He will use that ace in his sleeve. You know what I haven't told you yet. Yeah. Oh, no aliens. I've got one in the house. I think Baron might be one. The kid's 11ft tall. He won't stop growing. All right, we'll get to what it is. Here's what happened. Here's why I wasn't here all week, last week and yesterday. This is the craziest thing in the world. And Troy Hayden of Channel 12 was texting me and he goes, what's going on? And he was asking because, A, concern, B, selfishness. He's got something that he was concerned about enough. I, I say this now out of experience rather than going to a doctor. Well, yeah. Well, no. He's like, what was going on? Like, should I worry about what's. I'm, I'm ignoring something. First off, when there's no pain, a man doesn't react. I know that. Women love going to doctors. Men don't. And when there's no pain. Men don't do anything about anything.

[Brady]

So

[John Holmberg]

I will tell you from experience now. Floaters in your eyes that are visible before your vision are a telltale sign something's going weird, right?

[Brett Vesely]

It's like if your eyes are closed and you're seeing floaters or.

[John Holmberg]

What do you mean, when your eyes are open and you're seeing floaters? So I always say this, like. And now I mean it more than ever. The Jay Schwartz commercials, where I'm like, get your compliments, complimentary consultation. Go and just get your eyes looked at. Because they don't let you know unless they're poked or burned that something's really bad happening. I had two tears in my right eye and my retina two nearly detached. And like, no pain. None. When it finally tore, no pain. And my eye filled with blood. And that's all I saw. So two weeks ago, Wednesday, I was sitting on the couch watching tv, and I audibly. What's with all the goddamn gnats? Where are they coming from?

[Brady]

Waving them away.

[John Holmberg]

Some were real, which screwed me up because I'd get one every once in a while. I got him, like, now a little son of a bitch. Did he get loose? And I'm batting at gnats and driving me nuts. And then I'm in the car and I'm like, these goddamn. I'm stupid. Keep in mind I'm stupid. These goddamn gnats are following me around. I'm at work. Jesus. The gnats are. We've got a problem with gnats. I was basically Nathan Johnson. He hates these cans. I couldn't put it together so early

[Brady]

in the season for them.

[John Holmberg]

It's because the weather's so nice and the gnats are loose and we get nats and I'm swatting little bugs and I can't get them. And they're right there. Like this thing is. It looks like I'm waving through it. And it was big. It wasn't like a normal little dot. IT was a gnat. I'm swatting at it. So that. That was like Wednesday, Thursday, the gnats are still there, but I'm kind of ignoring them now. I'm just assume that's just something we're going to deal with. It's a new thing in Phoenix, and I'm talking to other people and give. Oh, we got NATs over. I'm like, yeah, me too. So the Thursday, I'm starting to get nats again. Friday, I'm at work here, and I start seeing. I get these weird flashes, like these bright flashlight flashes in my right eye. I'm like, wow, that was weird. It didn't hurt, but it was like it looked when somebody's watch catches the sun and it hits you in the eye. It was that. And so I got that, and I was like, well, that's weird. And then I started to feel strange, like this foggy kind of vision in my right eye. That's not good. And I chalked it up to, I think I'm having a migraine. I think I've got the start. I haven't had a migraine in a long time. I think I'm having a migraine headache and it's starting. So I went to my office on Friday. Not last Friday, the Friday before. And I laid on the couch and Tripp walked by. What are you doing? Because he didn't like people laying down at work. That's frowned upon in most office places outside of hospitals, in kindergarten. And I said, I don't. I think I got a migraine started. I didn't know you had those. I'm like, me neither. So it kind of clears up. And I just got a little bit of foggy vision. But I'm like, that's strange. But I probably exerted myself. I've been working out a lot. I probably did something just kind of pulled the bluff. I was. Whatever. Morning sickness medicate K u P D

[Larry]

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[John Holmberg]

It's John Holberg here, shailing away for new AC Unit.com. i've been telling you about the amazing new AC Unit.com for about three years. New AC Unit.com put the power back in your hands. Three EAs online gets you your unit ordered, inspected and installed by the best in the business. And I'm super excited to tell you that new Ace Unit.com now offers many splits. If you work in a garage, a casita, or even have like a man cave somewhere back in that garage, mini splits can be a must. New ac unit.com has it now and you can install it. They'll even include the electrical Save thousands save time. Buy online new AC unit.comberg's Morning Sickness. So Saturday I go about my business. I'm hanging out with some people. We're this, that and the other. My friend Chuck Powell's in town. So I hang out with Chuck and nothing major. Saturday, go about my business again, have some fun. Up late, go back, then lay down. Sunday I get up and I start doing these, this drill thing, this cool thing called blaze pods you can see on Instagram all the time. But I bought them and they're neat. They're little light up pods that you can set up all over in your phone. Will light one individual one up and you tap it and it, it's a, it can be a drill for your brain. It can be a drill physically. So I had them spread out in the backyard about 50 yards. There's six of them. And then you stand in the middle and just kind of do football drills where your feet are moving. It's like cardio thing. And then the phone will lighten one up and you go tap it. Then you run back to home and you tap the next one. You run back. So I'm going and you bend it over, tapping it, bending over, tapping it. And I go for about three rounds. And then the, the, the what ended up being the last one I run down. I hit the thing and when I stood up, my right eye was like a lava lamp. Like I was looking through an absolute lava lamp. And I'm like, that's weird. But what do I do that'll clear itself up. And I just keep going, not knowing that every time I bent over I was tearing it a little more. So I, I, you know, the lava lamp is going and that's all I see now. And I'm like, that's blood. Like my, my body told me that's blood in your eye. And I'd touch my eye and I'd be like, there's nothing on the outside. I went and looked, actually took the camera on the phone and spun it and I'm like, no, it's fine, white, we're good. Something just popped. It'll fix itself. There's no pain. And when there's no pain, you don't worry. I wasn't worried at all. There's no pain. This will go away. So I keep working out a little bit and then I'm like, no, this is bad. Like this is, this is a lot of blood. And I need to just ignore this somewhere else. And that's exactly what I did. I went in the house and I sat down and I'm like, there's a lot of blood. Typical guy move, dude move. Like I broke a blood vessel. It doesn't hurt. This can't be bad. So I go, you know, I had again my friend Chuck Powell in town and the boys had said, we're all going to meet up and go to Trevor's and have a dinner. Like, okay. So I go and meet them and at that point I had probably what appeared to be like a penny sized circle of blood in my sight line. So it's about the size of a penny that was just floating around in my right eye of blood. When I'd move my eye it would burst and turn into lava lamp again and then pull down into that little weird ball. And so I tried not to move my eye a lot. That was my solution to that, go through dinner with Wilson and Colin and Chuck.

[Larry]

And I'm what does it look like to them?

[John Holmberg]

Nothing is.

[Larry]

It wasn't just like yours showed us

[John Holmberg]

your eyes right now? No, no, that was post surgery. The picture of me was after surgery. Okay, so I get, I get done with dinner and it's probably about 9:30, 10:00. And I'm like, all right boys, we'll, we'll see you later. And I get in the car and I'm like, this still isn't good. And I'm at Trevor's on was a 36th street in Indian school. And I said to myself, I'm like, just, you don't want to do this, but you're going to have to close your left eye and see how bad this is. And I'm blind, 90% no vision in that eye. And I'm like, this probably not like

[Larry]

seeing through a lava lamp. Gone.

[John Holmberg]

No, it was an eclipse.

[Larry]

Wow.

[John Holmberg]

I could see light around the edges, but the black dot had now taken over my entire eye.

[Larry]

Sean Rockefeller, welcome.

[John Holmberg]

Oh, yeah, no, I. I actually almost.

[Larry]

He said he texted.

[John Holmberg]

Yeah, I was gonna bug Sean for a minute. Like, hey, not for nothing, but do you remember the last time you saw. So I get in the car like an idiot, close my right eye like a drunk. I'm like, I'm not going downtown hospital. This dirty. Going to Scottsdale.

[Larry]

Oh, yeah.

[John Holmberg]

So I made the longer trip, which you do when you're blind. That's smart. In an open air vehicle. Dirt and whatever hit me in the eye at wind. Just tooling around, listening to, you know, Royal Blood, which was ironic.

[Larry]

Kim Petras.

[John Holmberg]

It didn't have the Petras on. So I go. They go to the hospital. I grab a Kit Kat first thing. Because I'm like, I'm going to be here for a minute. And the lobby's full of sick people. They make you wear the mask still. I don't get that. You walk in, I put a mask on. Like, all right, what year is this? Yeah, lady, didn't we already have this fight? So I put it on and I sit there and I'm scrolling through the Internet and I realized that anybody with a covet argument about the shot messing people up need to use Britney Spears as the example. Because prior to 2020, she was normal. And now I don't know what's going on. Like, I watched her Instagram videos, tons of them. She's officially, like, way off the rails. She put a rose in her ass crack and does this dance and like. But the. Her hair, that's impressive. Oh, it was. But it's like, what happened to you? And it's getting more unhinged. And it started when Moderna met her. Like, the second she took the jab. I'm pretty sure she's gelling. She's the argument. Like, you can keep saying, yes, you can. You can keep saying that young athletes are dying. No, no, no. Look no further than Britney Spears. Look at her Instagram in 2019. Because I did, and it was normal. She was still weird, but like, celebrity weird 2020 during the pandemic. Scroll back. You can watch when it happens, like, it occurs in two clicks. You're like, oh, Brittany got the shot. The people who are against the vaccines need to have her as their poster child, because it's clear it was Moderna or Johnson, whatever. She her off the rails. And she is the example Anyway, so I'm looking at Britney Spears videos scrolling up and down, and I'm like, I got a Kit Kat. So I eat the KitKat, and they finally call me. And now it's probably midnight, maybe a little after. Been in the lobby for a couple hours and had two Kit Kats, I'm not gonna lie. And then I went into the thing, and the doctor's like, all right, what's going on? I kind of told him. Like, he's got this weird vision. I don't know. And he's looking in my eye, and he's like, I'm not an optometrist. We're going to do an ultrasound on your eyeball. Like, okay. So they put this goo over my eye, start rubbing the eye. And he's like, I think I see some stuff. But again, I want to get this to the proper people. I called a guy. He's. He's taking a look at everything I'm taking pictures of just in case I miss anything. Because I'm not like, I'm a doctor. I got to give him credit. ER doctors here. Oh, and the dude across from me said he had the Tourette's. He said the N word like, a hundred times. So much so that I got up out of the bed to peek out to see what he looked like. Is he allowed to do. He's not allowed to do it. And he didn't want to be there. He wanted to go to county, and then he was mad at county, and then he wanted to go to the hospital on Shea 92nd Street. And he's, like, asking for ambulance rides. And the nurse went over, and he just got up and started walking around. And the doctor that was with me had to leave and go put this dude back in his spot. And then he's on the phone with his girlfriend, and I just hear on one end, he goes, yeah, when this is all over, I'm gonna come home. And so hard. I'm like, oh, my God. Everyone can hear you. You're gonna take it. You're gonna. You're gonna take it. That's right. N word. And I'm like, what? She's called his girlfriend the N word.

[Brett Vesely]

Man, I would have taken you to

[Brady]

the hospital if you'd asked.

[John Holmberg]

Oh, man. Sounds entertaining. Well, I tried to get. Your head would explode.

[Brady]

Brett would still be in the er.

[John Holmberg]

Brett would still give me some more, poke my eye out. I tried to tape him because he was going on these rants, and the second I would hit the red button, it was like he Knew. And he'd just be quiet, and then I'd turn it off and he'd start again. I'm like, oh, off rhythm with him.

[Brett Vesely]

What are you doing, player?

[John Holmberg]

He didn't say player. He hit the hard R on the ER part of the word he was using. Anyway, so I'm in there, and he comes back and he's like, yeah, the. The. Then they took me in, like, for a brain scan, and like, my blood pressure would, by the way, perfect. And worry about you with this kind of thing. Blood pressure.

[Brady]

I'm good, bro.

[John Holmberg]

He'll blow your eye up. Okay, but medicated is not good. I know you're good. You're not good. You're not good. It's not good. It's like people with high blood pressure issues and things like that. Your eyes. It's bad. Like, if you've got something that goes wrong, that's. It's not good. So my blood pressure was like 114 over 72. Actually high fived me. They're so pro. They never see that. So he's like, it's not that you're not having a stroke. You're not that. Maybe a tumor, but we're gonna look and. All right, Whatever you need to do. Nothing's bad here. So they. And I'm remarkably calm. Like, I don't. Whatever. And then he says the thing that freaks me out. He goes, you need surgery right now. According to Thomas, you're going to go blind tonight. I'm like, what? He goes, you. You could very possibly have that retina detached and you'll never see right again. He goes, you have two tears, big ones. And I'm like, really? And he said, yeah. He said, that's everything in your eyes just filled with blood. He goes, and. And we caught it just in time. I'm like, oh, what do we do? He said, we got to get you in surgery. When's the last time you ate? And I had a couple kit Kats about 35 minutes ago. And he goes, ah, I can't put you under for a little bit. I'll talk to the anesthesiologist. So they're. And that's when I text you guys. It's probably two in the morning, right? And I'm like, I don't know what's going on, but I don't know. I'm not coming in tomorrow. I know that. And they're wheeling me around this place, like. So I go through the whole deal, no big deal. And then they say, all right. The doctor says, you're going to be all right. You got to get to an optometrist first thing in the morning. And they send me on my way driving. So I drive over to the optometrist. It's like nine in the morning now. And I drive over to the optometrist. He looks and he goes, oh, yeah, yeah, no, now that was the text

[Larry]

you sent us before the show was even over. Here, the best of you. Like, surgery at noon.

[John Holmberg]

Surgery. Now, like, we're going in. And he's like, we got to get you to the surgery center. And he gives me directions and see ya. And now my eyes are dilated. Blinded my right eye. Okay. So I drive up and I was fine. And then I get there and they're like, we can't do surgery till like 4 o' clock just to be super safe on the food. And the aspiration scares anesthesiologists. I'm like, okay, so here's the part, the fun part. I go home and my cat Elgato is like, done.

[Larry]

Oh, no.

[John Holmberg]

Like, he's not gonna. He's not. He's 17, he's. And he's like, not eating and he just looks terrible. So the decision.

[Larry]

John can't see me if the decision

[John Holmberg]

is made at noon on President's Day, before my scheduled eye surgery, that I have to put my cat down now because it's not going to go well. So again, I'm going to get a punch card at two in a week at Frankie, go the week before, and then Elgato on Monday, and I'm crying my eyes out, and I'm not supposed to have any sort of action going on here with my eyes and I'm sobbing. Dr. Fixler shows up. He's amazing. Happy endings. Come on.

[Brett Vesely]

Does he just walk in now? Doesn't he?

[John Holmberg]

I gave him a key. Like, I don't like. And again, I don't like introducing my other dogs. Like, you'll meet him eventually. But he was just so. Again, it was just so incredibly nice. And I haven't really even processed that whole thing. So kill my cat at 12:30, 1 o'. Clock, mourn that for a couple hours, hop back in the car, put me under, right? Go to the surgery center, get knocked out. And then they do the surgery on my eye and they put a gas bubble in my eye. This gas bubble. And for people who've been. I've gotten a lot of emails from people who've been through this. It is wild that they figured this out. So they drain all the blood out of your eye when you're under. And then they put a gas bubble in there. I still have the gas bubble right now. And it's starting to slowly shrink, but it's like, it's a spirit level, like the level that you use to see if your shelves are balanced. That little bubble in the middle is floating around in my eye. And wherever my eye goes, it goes. It's. But it wobbles like water. So my right eye has no vision aside from this giant water ball that jiggles and moves when I move. And when my heart beats, it goes. It like, it. It jiggles and moves. So at the end of the surgery, they wake you up and you get your post surgical advice, your. Your treatment. Now, I've had four major body surge, five major body surgeries. You've had your kidney. My friends that have had heart issues and things like that, the doctors always tell you, rest, but let's get going. Right? Like, let's not be sedentary. Let's go. My shoulders, my hips, and all the things that I've had surgeries on my back. The first thing they say is give it a couple of days, but let's get you up with hips. You're up the day they wake you and make you stand up. Like, we're moving this. Yeah, that this is going and you have muscles and you can go to physical therapy and you can push it. You know, like I did with my shoulders. I. I went above and beyond immediately. Once I could kind of do it, I'm like, I'm moving this arm. There's exercises the first few days, you know, with your eyes. Don't move. There is no pt. There is no, like, this will help it. Don't move. And you're reading the paper they give you, and it says 5 to 14 days face down, 24 hours a day. Don't move.

[Brady]

That can't be right.

[John Holmberg]

And I'm like, what do you mean? That's why I said, what are you, like, asleep? And then. Yeah, oh, just keep your head down. Don't move. Like, why was. The gas bubble puts pressure on the retina and moves. It'll fall, it'll break, it won't heal. And then we gotta do this again. And I'm like, oh, we're not doing this again. He's like, no, don't move. Have you tried to sleep on your stomach as an adult? I was just gonna say, yeah, I

[Brett Vesely]

was gonna ask the same thing.

[John Holmberg]

Have you tried it? Lay down for all you stomach sleepers. This is great. This would be a cakewalk. I'm not. You can't lay on your side. You can't lay on your back. I still can't lay on my back. You can't do it. And, like, everybody's like, go get a massage table. Lay on a massage table with your face in that. That frame. And. And then your. Then your face just says, what are you doing? And your sinuses fight back and your eyes actually hurt.

[Larry]

You have one of those little. I don't know, round pillows for your waist to, like, kind of prop you

[John Holmberg]

up, because, trust me, your back is the first thing that hurts. Then your legs, then.

[Brett Vesely]

You're not a liberator.

[John Holmberg]

Yeah. Oh, oh, oh, yeah. If I could have done a sex bed, that would have helped. I slept with my ass in the air. Every Ian Schwartz, my gay neighbors, any gay at Ian Campfield. All the Ians I know are homosexual. I text them, and I said something. I'm like, you guys would love me right now. You know, one eye texting, face down. And I'm like, I'm face down for the next five days. If you're ever gonna peg me, now's the time. All of them sent back detailed information on how that goes. And everyone. I don't know, they didn't care about me personally anymore. They're like, oh, you just have to take deep breaths. Relax. No, no, I'm not really gonna get pegged. And then Michael called me a power bottom, so that's a power bottom. I'm like, what? And he goes, a guy that just lays and takes it, and then he's got you. You're not interested in turning over. I'm like, well, look, this wasn't an invitation. I was kidding. But all the gay guys were like, oh, you're power bottom now? I'm like, no, no, no, I'm not. I'm face down. So evidently, that's a thing that they. If you ever. If you have a gay friend, don't have him over when you have eye surgery, because it's. It's a beacon of hope for them when they see you. Incapacitated morning sickness. Medicate. K U pd.

[Brett Vesely]

It's Brett Vesley from Holmberg's Morning Sickness. I don't know about you, but I got tons of stuff going on in my life. And of course, the yard seems to get neglected, so I figured I need to get some help, so I hit up Divine Design Landscaping. They come out every other week and take care of everything I don't have time to do. And quite frankly, the Stuff I don't want to do. As a matter of fact, they're coming out next week to plant a lime tree at the house. Lawn care, irrigation, tree work, low voltage lighting, 3D designs, patios, driveways, you name it. For the most part, Divine Design landscaping can do it. Get a free [e-mail] It's John Holmberg

[John Holmberg]

here from the morning sickness to tell you about the Core Institute. People who met me found out that I've had four major operations in the last four years. They're blown away. I've had both shoulders replaced and both hips replaced because I was an absolute disaster before my surgeries. I was in pain. Now no one knows I've had any issues. People who hear multiple surgeries assume they'll never be the same again. It's just not true. I'm better than I've been in 20 years. Stop quitting the things you love and get back to being the pain free you you love. The Core Institute.com Holmberg's morning sickness so day one is incredibly difficult because your body hates laying flat on and you have to prop your head up off the ground. So now I'm on a ramp. So from my shoulders to the top of my head, I'm on an angle up because you can't just put your face in a cushion. So I had to buy one of those pillows with a hole in it. And I'm just staring at the couch cushion. I tried laying with my head off the edge of the bed and just prop up with my arms. That lasts about 40 minutes. Then I got a mirror and a TV on the ground. I tried to. I did end up doing that pretty good. And then kind of angled my head. But then you just really resign yourself to saying, this is just what I do now for however many depression sets in in about 10 hours, you can't.

[Larry]

Six days of this.

[John Holmberg]

Six full days of flat on my face. Now I'd get up. You're allowed to get up for a little bit. You gotta pee and eat and I get up and do some stuff.

[Larry]

But you said you, you just keep

[John Holmberg]

your head pointed at the ground. Yeah, because you just do like, it's too scary, Quasimodo. Yeah. And then your back hurts. And so I'm gonna back surgery because of this. Eventually it's gonna be like, oh, remember when you have that eye? Things like, hey, you screwed your back up terribly. So then. And then you just lay there for days. And I started thinking about prisoners who get put in isolation and like, you because I hold up alone. I couldn't be around the dogs. I couldn't be around, like, people. I couldn't have TV on. I couldn't have visitors. Angry? No, because it's distracting. Oh, and that you'll get up. I needed dead calm. And so I went to the rental house and just laid on the couch for six days. You don't need people, you don't need anything. Like, nobody needs to care for you or move you or change your sheets or what. You can get up and do stuff, but it's like intervals of little bits. It is the worst thing I have dealt with in my life as far as any sort of recovery from anything. I would much rather have an organ removed, bones fixed, anything than what this was. So, again, if you're seeing floaters, if you're doing anything, Jay Schwartz gives a complimentary consultation. I'll turn this into a commercial because it's worth it. I'm telling you, it's not life altering or ending, but don't put yourself through. If you can go, go get your eyes checked to avoid ever having to lay flat on your face for days on end. It's you. Like, you just like. I'm just gonna. If day three, you're like, that's enough. I'm gonna end it. I don't want to be here anymore. This isn't. I got three more days of this minimum. And that's if it's going well. And there's a chance that I go to my next appointment and they tell me, no, we gotta get you back down on your face, redo. We gotta start over. I'm not doing that. It's brutal. It's. And to this, I still have my eye all patched up just in case, like, there's dirt in the air or whatever. And I. I haven't been doing that, but I did it because I drove here. I know. Brady's like, does not tell you you can't drive. Didn't ask.

[Brett Vesely]

It was safer than Megan driving you.

[John Holmberg]

Oh, both eyes covered. I would rather. Yeah, I'd rather walk with a cane and find my way here than riding a car with her.

[Brett Vesely]

Donovan said you're actually underselling it because he had this problem because it's worse than he's describing it.

[John Holmberg]

Recovery. There's nothing you can say to somebody that makes them understand other than, hey, if you got an hour to kill today, lay flat on your stomach and don't move. It's not like you can adjust. Don't move. Put your face in a hole and Stay there for six days.

[Brett Vesely]

It's.

[John Holmberg]

It. It's so weird how it.

[Brett Vesely]

With your brain.

[John Holmberg]

Your brain doesn't work right. You start getting, like, dark thoughts. It's so weird when you're left alone and you're. And there's nothing you can do. If you break your hand, you get a cast and you move on. If you have, like, shoulder surgery, they're like, give it a couple of days and then start moving your arm around a little bit in these first few motions and get up and walk around and do stuff. This is the opposite of that. It's like, do not move. And like, how do you do that? How do you ask somebody like me, right, to just stop moving?

[Larry]

So a lot of people are wondering, like, okay, I get it. You've scared me enough. But what caused it? Okay, what do I do to make sure this doesn't happen?

[John Holmberg]

Luck of the draw, according to the doctor. I'm like, what did I do? And they're like, well, you're just lucky.

[Larry]

Is it age? Is it anything? Is it. Is it?

[John Holmberg]

Yep and yep. Wow. All of it. Like, you might have gotten hit with a baseball when you were seven.

[Larry]

Hit with side of a baseball bat, Matt.

[John Holmberg]

Well, so your dad was in your life.

[Larry]

Oh, yeah.

[Brady]

Could have started a tear.

[John Holmberg]

Yeah, you don't know it not even started a tear. Just weakened it enough to be like, someday you super active people, like, do a lot of the bending thing. High blood pressure. It's just. It's a crapshoot. You can have it happen at anything. Can. Can do it. Pressure on an airplane like that that your. Your head disagrees with. You know, it's the strangest. Like when I even asked both the doctors, I'm like, what causes this? We don't know. And again, I did have that category.

[Brady]

What was the percentage like, for box?

[John Holmberg]

Because I looked. Boxers have like a, like 24% of professional boxers, not guys who just dick around. 24% who made a living at it have had a retinal tear or detachment. 24 what?

[Larry]

Oh, wow.

[John Holmberg]

24%. That's high, considering it's a thing. But you think about 75% took the exact same beating or worse and didn't. So it's just Sugar Ray Leonard had it in the Thomas Hearns fight and then went back and fought again. And they're like, you'll go blind. Rocky had it.

[Larry]

I'm being serious. When I asked this, I know it seems like a joke, but what about your tug sessions? Is too much tugging, pulling on that?

[John Holmberg]

First off, let's never blame tugging for why we got here. I also realized that in that seven day stretch, you're not allowed to do it to jerk it. You're not allowed to have.

[Larry]

Well, you can't get your heart rate.

[John Holmberg]

Well, you can't. Well, yeah, I know. You can't get your heart rate up at all. You can't like, because pressure in your eyes is everything. You can't bend your. You can't have your head lower than your hips. Like you can't do. I still am not supposed to bend over and pick stuff up. You're not supposed to pick up anything. They tell you this with surgeries, but this one, they're like dead serious. Don't pick anything up. You have any weight in your hand and just do any sort of strain. It's too much pressure. That gas bubble is like I can't travel on a plane. I can't go to. I can't even go to like Sedona for a month because the elevation change. So you just don't want to mess around with that. So here's a fun fact. Day four. I start doing like calculations in my head. There's been like 15,463 days since. Yes. I remember March of 1983, when I first self tugged since that day of discovery, one of the most glorious days of my life. In the bathtub on George Circle in Tempe, Arizona, when I'm like, hey, I can do this and make white worms every, every day. And I. I'm not gonna die. See monkeys. I would take four or five baths a day. This seven day stretch, Brady, you're gonna like. This is the longest stretch I've had without ejaculating. Kill me now in 43 years. It was kill me now. 43 years.

[Brady]

That's an impressive streak.

[John Holmberg]

Oh, it's a daily activity at least once. So then I did the math of 15,460 some days. And I gotta figure I've hit at least that. Plus because there's been days when it's like 6, 5, 6. Especially when I was a teenage boy that was going on five, six times a day, I'd find time to do it. You know, I was a master of it. And then, you know, there's been days off days on couple a day. None for a couple days. But seven days has never happened. And 43 years, my streak broke, Brett. 43 years. It was the longest.

[Brady]

Which caused more crying.

[John Holmberg]

Well, I didn't cry. Okay, I didn't cry. But you know, you had to change some the Odometer had to go back to zero. I don't know if I'm going to have another 43 years of this, but highway miles. Well, then. Then your brain starts doing that, you know, you're not getting another 43 years. That's the streak.

[Larry]

Oh, yeah, you're done.

[John Holmberg]

That's the record. You're. That's your. That's your Wayne Gretzky. That's. Nobody's catching that tip of the caps.

[Larry]

I'm like you. A few other texters are asking, how's your blood sugar? Because this is pretty common in diabetics.

[John Holmberg]

Really good. Yeah. Every. All my numbers are great. All my organs are perfect. Everything's good. It's just whatever. Yeah. Just, you know. And I will say that the cataract surgery that I had to have years ago was either trauma based from some sort of thing that had happened or sun. And it does make you more likely to have a retinal issue. Brutal. Don't. Again. I'm not one that goes to the doctor for anything. Don't fix your eye. Fix your eye. I don't care. Don't put yourself in a position to be face down for more than an hour. If it's. It's. It is the worst thing I've ever dealt with. And it sounds simple. You're being. You're literally being asked to do nothing, which sounds great on the surface until they put you in a position. Where's Brady's God? Your God sucks so bad. Where's Brady's God? That a doctor. The only time you ever hear rest comfortably. And they mean it. Is hospice. Whenever you have to recover from something, they're like, we're gonna put you in the worst position ever and you can't move for days. Why can't they say, grab some coco and find the best position ever and just wait it out.

[Brady]

They give you like 5 days supply of morphine.

[John Holmberg]

Nope, can't do it. Can't do that.

[Brett Vesely]

That was my first question. What kind of drugs they got?

[John Holmberg]

You know, drugs. There's nothing. There's no pain. There's no reason for it.

[Brett Vesely]

The pain is not being able to tug for the sad days.

[John Holmberg]

That is pretty rough now.

[Larry]

So I texted you this last week because a bunch of listeners were asking. And they're all on text right now, too.

[John Holmberg]

All right.

[Larry]

How does the fear Pooper. Poop when he's laying on his. When he's laying on his face?

[John Holmberg]

Well, you can still get up and poop, but you're hunched. Yeah. When you poop, you look like the last days of John Paul ii. You're just. Remember when he would show up and he's always looking for change. He's just staring at the ground all. He's just an inverted C. Like he just stares at the ground. That's what you do. So you just kind of plop down and just hang your head down to the ground and you drop deuces.

[Brett Vesely]

A lot of people are saying this happens to nearsighted people.

[Larry]

Is that.

[Brett Vesely]

Are you near sighted or anything prior to.

[John Holmberg]

Or. Yeah. Nothing. No. I don't know. Maybe.

[Larry]

Which one's that? Is that you can't see near or you can't.

[Brett Vesely]

You can't see far right?

[John Holmberg]

Is it near sighted? You see close? Yeah, nothing spectacular in that either. It's just again, they're like. It happens to people. They're trying to. I even asked the dog. I'm like, are you guys figuring this out? And he goes, we're trying. He said, but it happens to anybody. And he's like, you can say nearsighted, you can say sugar issues. You can say that. It just sometimes like, oh, this guy has none of that. And he got it. So it's just weird. It's so uncomfortable.

[Larry]

Welcome to the party. I had a tear in Afghanistan and was medevac to a hospital in Bagram. I'm six four two forty. All the nurses would talk about while carrying me on the stretcher was how I needed to eat more salads. I'm glad you're better, Juboy. P.S. i still have floaters to this day.

[John Holmberg]

Yeah. And then there's another thing, victrectomy that you probably have to do later for if the floaters are bad. But I think that's. They. They double in and clean those up. They doubled me down with that because that's the gas bubble. So should fix that. We'll see. And the gas bubble right now is still in there and it's shrinking. And then the gas bubble evidently breaks up and turns into a bunch of gas bubbles on its way out of your eye. So I'll be seeing like a spider starting tomorrow, I think, because it's. It's shrunk down to about. It's two thirds of my vision in my right eye is the bubble and then above it is just a gray line.

[Larry]

And you said it was magnifying glass.

[John Holmberg]

Oh, up close. I have a patch on up close. It's. It's microscopic vision, really. It's so weird. Like I can. I can see supervision. Like human skin. You wouldn't recognize it. As human skin. If you just closed your eyes and then put it right next to my eye and I open my eye, be like, I don't know, what is that? Like old chicken. It's so gross. But, yeah. So I'm not saying it to, like, don't feel sorry for me. Just go get that look if you've. And again, Troy Hayden's like, because I'm seeing gnats and floaters, I'm like, it's worth just going to look at it. And not because of paranoia or anything else or trying to be captain Save a ho. I'm trying to save anybody from having to lay flat on their stomach for seven days. If you catch it a little early, they can do something about. Is nearly impossible to keep your sanity and lay flat. I was going. Not metaphorically, I was going crazy. Like, there were days where your brain just starts going off on its own. And my brain doesn't, like, end where, like, it likes to be independent and it talks to me in ways that are very weird. I invented something I wanted. And here's where the crazy start. I'm like, I'm gonna call Elon Musk when I get better. Hear me out, though. Harvest bots. So I'm thinking about harvest bots and I'm like. Because I can't stand that they put you in terrible positions. So I'm like, wouldn't it be great if Elon, if you went into this thing and invented things to be like, we'll take your eye out and we'll put it in a harvest bot, and it will lay down for seven days, put it back in, and then we'll pop it back in. So I started to research that they're real. They're not for eyes yet. The biggest problem is we don't have microscopic tools to reattach a full eyeball properly and take it apart. But we're working on it.

[Larry]

Nanobots.

[John Holmberg]

But they have harvest bots built. They're going to start asking volunteers in the next five years for their DNA. Grow organs?

[Brady]

Yeah.

[John Holmberg]

And then just have, like, in a closet, like an old cedar closet in your house, there'll be this one that's got all your organs in it in case you need one. And that way you don't need donors and you got your backups, and they've got them already. So we eventually will never have to do this. This is archaic. But again, and I looked at that, too. Doctors figured this out in the 20s, the gas bubble thing. They figured out. Some dude went in and said, all I See is lava lamp goo. And I don't even know if they had lava lamps in the 20s. But that's how he'd go. 23s could do like, he'd say, everything's melting. I hate the blacks. Like, I don't know what to do. Like that's what he would do. And then they would say, oh, you want to try something? Like sure, fire a little hydrogen in your eye and see if we can prop that bad boy up. They couldn't look in your eye. They couldn't see through the materials that they just took a guess.

[Larry]

So they had to. So they had to take some liquid out, right?

[John Holmberg]

Or they took all the blood out. No, they take all the blood out.

[Larry]

All the blood out of the bubble

[John Holmberg]

in there to prop up the ratio.

[Larry]

And I'm sure it's small, but still.

[John Holmberg]

But think of the dude in the 20s. And then I read about that and it just blinded people non stop until like the 60s, the occasional successes. They didn't ever quit trying. Shoving this stuff in people's eyes. His eyes going, let's try a water bubbles. No, that blinded him. How about. How about like oxygen? No, that blinded him. And people are like, I tried, but the, the weirdness of the site was like, well, whatever you try. My eyes are already broken.

[Larry]

John, did they give you a green wristband? I've had this in each eye. They stuck a green wristband on me both times as temporary medical alert bracelets. Has information about the gas bubble in case you ended up in an emergency situation.

[John Holmberg]

No, we're not supposed to move for seven days. What kind of emergency? Yeah, what are you around for? Lay down. So I did it. You do it.

[Brett Vesely]

Is it like a bubble in a level then?

[John Holmberg]

Yeah, kind of like just exactly that. Exactly like that. Except for I can move it when I shake my head. It. It's like a glass of water. Oh, man.

[Brady]

Now it's like a coffee percolator. That little glass thing. No, holds up when the heartbeat.

[John Holmberg]

You're saying it when your heart beats. It's like when the water in Jurassic park moved. When the dinosaur.

[Brett Vesely]

Oh, yeah.

[John Holmberg]

It just goes a little vibration and then it just kind of jiggles. You get used to that. I'm used to that. It's John Holberg here from the morning sickness for lifechangerloan.com. so, as you know by now, if I'm telling you about a product, I am using it. And that's because I don't want to be accused of steering you the wrong direction. I've told you that most clients of Life Changer Loan pay off their mortgage in about five years. That means you're not paying 30 years of interest. So on top of paying off your mortgage in five years because all your money goes to the principal first, you're going to save hundreds of thousands of dollars on interest. It isn't tricky. Nothing about this should have you roll in your eyes. It's not magic. It's just math. Lifechangerloan.com It's John Holmberg here from the morning Cygnus and I'm absolutely thrilled to tell you about my [e-mail] youm've heard me mention Kevin Costner, Trey McBride, other countless celebrities and pro athletes and how they chose lifted trucks. But that doesn't mean it's only for actors and pro athletes. It's for all of you. Everybody who loves a cool adventure. So if you're a huge celebrity like me or just an average Joe who wants the best truck available, head on over to Lifted Trucks. They live up to being the number one custom truck truck dealer for over 30 years. 10,000-star reviews can't be wrong. Liftedtrucks.com work hard, play hard, drive harder. Holmberg's morning sickness.

[Larry]

I call BS on your 43 years. You had your vascectomy and you couldn't crank after that.

[John Holmberg]

I did it in six days. I know I broke that. That was my previous. Oh, but seven days again. It was the longest streak and I don't think I'm ever for any reason, but now it's over. Like going to go more than seven days. And by the way, I shouldn't have been doing that when I, when I finally ripped one off in the shower on day seven. Not supposed to be doing that. And you feel it like you try. And the worst part is when you're jerking off going, calm down. Trying to ease your heart rate. Calm down, just finish. Everything's good here. Yeah, I'm breathing my heart rate down while I'm tugging it and it worked.

[Larry]

So this is what happened with that concrete dust from you.

[John Holmberg]

I was, I wondered on that too. It was the different eye though, because that went in my left eye. It was all bananas and it's all just like a crapshoot. It's not like, oh, you did this, you did that, or you're older. It can happen to anybody. And if you're starting to see floaters, take them seriously. Not because it's, you know, gotta get to the doctor every time you see something, don't put yourself in the spot to have to lay down face first for seven days. It isn't. I. I feel bad for women even being in that position sexually, for. It's got to be horrible what we've done to them. Lay down and we push their heads down and stuff. It's got to be terrible. Never again.

[Larry]

Here's a fun fact for you, John, and I don't want to put any more fear into you, but the only fluid your body can't replicate is what's in your eye. Yeah, I know this because my framing partner put a nail in his.

[John Holmberg]

Yeah, it's weird. It is so weird. Listen to this one. This guy says, I'm glad to hear that you're back and doing better. When I heard about your detached retina, it brought back memories of dealing with my dad, who suffered from inflammatory autoimmune disease. Affected his eyes due to exposure to chemicals. As a firefighter, he had to have the prednisone or that. It's not. I don't think it's pred. The same as normal, but it's a prednisone in his eyes every six months to keep his swelling down. When the shots were no longer effective, he had to get his retinas reattached two or three times a year. Oh, it got so bad that the last time he had the procedure, he had to have his head down for 14 days each time. The last time they did the procedure, his house was condemned, he was blind. He never made it out of assisted living. Doctors couldn't operate any further because of all the damage and his degrading mental state of living. Face down, two to three times a year, he went straight into frontal temporal dementia. I get it. I think I did too. Could no longer hear or see. He passed away at the age of 61. I live in the fear of this. The same fate for me every day. The only solace is I find that his doctors say retina detachment can be avoided by keeping your stress levels down. That's another thing. High stress people go through this as well. And thank God we live in a stress free society. Please don't leave again, Larry. Fills your spot. Sent me into depression as well. That's rude. Welcome back, Jewburg. Not at that. Thank you, Phil. Two or three times a year. I wouldn't. I'm not kidding when I say it. I wouldn't. I would. I. Third time I'd kill myself. Man, that ain't living. You can't do it.

[Brett Vesely]

Kurt Cobain had the right idea.

[John Holmberg]

Oh, Exactly. Kurt Cobain wasn't wrong when it came to, this isn't a life I want to live. If you had. If I got told to do this again because I got another appointment Wednesday, I'm like, no, I got to plop your face down again. There'd be some serious consideration that I'm not doing it. I'll get through that. But it is awful. So. But thanks to everybody who checked in and said nice things to me. He's very kind. Especially when you kill your cat along away one week after killing one of your dogs. And then, you know, you're just like, well, this is.

[Brady]

Just deal with that for a while.

[John Holmberg]

Oh, yeah, you got. And then. And then. Then the depression really gets going because you start. Your mind starts wandering like, oh, yeah, my cat. They start thinking about your cat. You start doing all that stuff. It is crazy. It's crazy. But face down, ass up is only meant to be for pleasure. And for like 10, 10 minutes at a time, maximum, go ahead and give it a run. It is just brutal. So Jay Schwartz, tmidoc.com go. I mean, we're gonna blow him up with complimentary consultations and hopefully a couple of you'll be like, oh, cool, we caught it. Because if you catch it a little before the real tear, it's. It's probably pretty easy. You get this gas bubble in your eye and holy Christ, it is awful. And then you go through those moments where you're thinking, oh, Brady, Dale, Paul, sir, gonna be at my funeral. And that is something I can't. I would get out of the box, kill myself in front of you again. Like, I look around, I see Brady and Dale and Paul laughing at my funeral. I'm like, no, this is not supposed to go. I would come back to life for sure. And I. I also would have to say that the gofundme would be more than what what Eric Dane got. That's for sure. I promise you. What a pathetic show. And I would let Jordan finger my butt like he did that little boy. And everything can happen, but anything to avoid it. So that's the story, and that's where we'll leave it. But it is just go get looked at if you've got the floaters. Those gnats aren't gnats all the time.

[Brady]

Time.

[John Holmberg]

And floaters are weird when they're weird because it's. Your brain doesn't get it. Like, you start looking. You know, everybody's had floaters. Oh, look at that. And floaters. And then a few of them Start becoming life forms. And right before your. Your very broken eyes, you're like, ah, that was weird. That one had a tail. That gnat has a tail, and you're too stupid to get it. Like, you know that time in Vegas when those. That hooker was talking to me, and I'm like, oh, she kept calling me poppy. And I remember asking her and her friends, so, what do you girls do? And the other one goes, whatever it takes. And I'm like, oh, I've been talking to hookers for an hour. I figured it out all by myself. I turned to my friend, like, they're hookers. And he's like, yeah, duh. He's already had sex with two of them. Like, why'd you like to. Anyway, so that's my story, and it was no fun. So get on it. Fix yourself. Do stuff to get that done. And I'd rather have cancer than this, I think. And I don't say that lightly, because at least you can move around with cancer. I'd rather have something. Tell me. Hey, this is gonna be. This is gonna kill you. Like, can I move? Yeah. Do I have to lay flat on my face for days on end? Nope. All right, I'll take that over this horrible. Because at least they can treat.

[Brady]

I was up just a couple hours after this.

[John Holmberg]

Cancer. Yeah, you bounced right out of your cancer. That seemed easy. Nice job, Brady. But even then, you got your kidney removed, and it's like. It's pretty serious stuff. But the doctors are like, don't. Don't go laying around. You just stand, and you start getting up and doing stuff and get that body moving again with your eyes. It's the exact opposite. Shut her down. Don't move. Like your blood's your enemy right now. Like, really? Yeah. We got to keep that flowing real. Like, keep you around 50, 55 beats per minute here. Like, no kidding. It's like a real bad rap song.

[Brady]

It is amazing. It's the opposite, because even when you're done the surgery, they want you up and moving. And.

[Larry]

What?

[Brady]

You don't want to move?

[John Holmberg]

No.

[Brady]

Like, it's just really hard.

[John Holmberg]

Yeah. Nothing about this hurts.

[Brady]

But then this is, like, you're ready to go. Nope. You can't.

[John Holmberg]

Yeah.

[Brady]

Yeah.

[John Holmberg]

Nope. You can't do a thing. Oh, and you feel fine. That's the worst of it. It's like, there's nothing about you that feels bad at all. Even the surgery didn't hurt. It looked awful. There was no pain that I. I don't know if you posted that picture of My eye? No, you can. It is disgusting. And there's zero pain. Like, there's nothing attached to it that hurts at all.

[Larry]

And so what if. If you didn't see the blood when it first popped, what is the blood we're seeing in that picture you sent?

[John Holmberg]

That's after the surgery, but. So that's them. That's me having had my eye, you know, basically.

[Larry]

And the white just goes red.

[John Holmberg]

Well, yeah. I mean, you stick needles in people's eyes.

[Larry]

Yeah.

[John Holmberg]

Inflammation. That's kind of. And then they put the bubble in there. So that post surgery, you do have a nasty looking eye, but. Yeah, doesn't hurt. It's just brutal. So I did. I went crazy for a little bit. I thought about contacting Elon Musk about some ideas I had about, I don't know anything about robots, but this is a pretty good idea. And then I found out that they're already doing that crazy. So if you're. If the people who know know. And it's almost like being Vietnam vets, because I've talked to a couple people are like, I had the same thing happen to me, man. You're gonna be all right. You're gonna make it. Miho. We all call each other Miho now. Yeah. That's the thing when. Miho. I understand you had the surgery, Miho. Okay. You're one of us, so. And I even called Tripp because he's had eye surgeries in the past. I'm like, do you have any advice? I just got told I gotta lay down for seven straight days. He's like, no, my Giffen had that. Nope. And then his calming words were, jeez, I gotta go. All right, that was nice. Thank you. Now we got Larry filming. And now I think that's what he was thinking. Great.

[Brett Vesely]

It wasn't your eye.

[John Holmberg]

Now the real Jew's gonna screw stuff up. He didn't care about my eye at all. Oh, I gotta hear Larry more. Can you come back already? Because you know Larry. Although he made bagels.

[Larry]

Dexter says. Been waiting to bring this up, but this is what happens when you make fun of Brady's God.

[John Holmberg]

All right, fine. Yeah, well, your God sucks. Your God's a jerk. Yeah, I make fun of your stupid God. I'm not that bad a person, really. I just have a hard time believing that he cared about whether or not a boxer won a fight more than he does about, like, people like, babies dying of cancer. I just. Ben Roethlisberger always said, oh, his God's with me. And he pointed to the Sky. And I'm like, really? There's like dying babies all over the world. He wants you to score touchdowns. So if he punished my eye because he's that petty. He's a bigger prick than I thought.

[Larry]

John, to piggyback on your checkup suggestions, most eye doctors have a machine called an Optomap.

[John Holmberg]

Cool.

[Larry]

It checks your retina connections. I just had mine done on Thursday and it only cost me $49 for my insurance.

[John Holmberg]

Yeah. Hop on.

[Larry]

Worth it.

[John Holmberg]

Totally. Don't screw it. Because when they tell you you're going to go blind and if you screw around, that's. That messes with you fast. And then you just listen. And I'm not much for listening, that is. I was on point. I was pretty proud of myself too, because as stir crazy as I was

[Larry]

going, oh, it didn't sound positive.

[John Holmberg]

I stayed down.

[Larry]

Check in with you.

[John Holmberg]

Not a lot of fun. And then I'd get up every once in a while, like, I'm all right. And I'd walk around and then I'd be like, you're gonna go blind. It just kept. Kept. And the odds of it are really

[Brett Vesely]

low, but it's a mind f. It's

[John Holmberg]

a mind F. It's a huge.

[Larry]

Would you have gotten divorced had you been forced to stay at home?

[John Holmberg]

I'd have killed her. I'd have gone full on left side OJ because I can't see the other. She'd been cut in half right down the left side.

[Larry]

She just had to stay on your.

[John Holmberg]

Probably. And as much as, you know, the dogs would have probably been eaten. I would have done Lord of the Flies. It's three days before you can. You can't help but go crazy. You go crazy. Anyway, so there it is. That's the story. Now get your eyes fixed immediately. I can't wait to hear all the I songs that people have suggested. But they're all there. Eye the tiger.

[Brett Vesely]

Oh, yeah, that's.

[John Holmberg]

That's been in your eyes. Yeah. Go ahead, Brad.

[Brett Vesely]

All right. Well, we do have a new Wake up sponsor. So the book's over.

[John Holmberg]

Well, they didn't hear. They might quit. Do I have to read it?

[Brett Vesely]

I don't have it. So we just found. I found out about it yesterday, so.

[Brady]

Hey.

[John Holmberg]

Well, let me just thumb through here. Wake Up Song is brought to you by our friends at Modern Resolution Windows and Doors. They were supposed to come to my house last week.

[Brett Vesely]

Whoops.

[John Holmberg]

Mention John Holmberg and get an extra $500 off your contract price. What? That's awesome. They're good. Dudes to have been chat with them a lot. Family run, locally owned financing, payment plans. They got everything available. And all you have to do is go to modernresolution.com, grab the info. And thank you guys for being part of the wake up song to modern Resolution. Windows and doors, simple and easy. I got to get a new door in my front door. It's busted.

[Brady]

Bryce, just had a question. What if you have to sneeze?

[John Holmberg]

That was scary. I had a few sneezes. The first time you sneeze, you're worried, and then you realize you're gonna be all right. I did have to sneeze a few times. And coughing. So then I thought I had pneumonia. Friday.

[Larry]

Do you let it go or did you stifle it?

[John Holmberg]

Oh, no, you let it loose. Stifling it would have blown my head off, I think.

[Larry]

Yeah, yeah.

[John Holmberg]

So then laying down that much, your lungs fill with fluid and you start crackling and breathing. I'm like, I got pneumonia now because I'm not breathing properly. Oh, it's awful. Just awful. Depressing and miserable and awful. But now I'm back with you idiots. Who would ever thought that would have been a good thing?

[Brett Vesely]

And on the list, Queens Reich. I have a stranger under and over from five finger dust punch. And we were talking about the Mexico stuff earlier, so Ministries, New world order, Judas Priest, Electric eye. I have the tornado for Megadeth, Corn blind, Billy Idol, eyes without a face, Peter Gabriel, in your eyes, Ozzy close my eyes forever, Survivor, Eye the tiger, two live crew, Face down, ass up, Metallica, the Beholder, Frank Stallone, far from over for your welcome back song and Soundgarden, Searching with my good eye closed.

[John Holmberg]

Hey, I know Betty Davis eyes. No, that was on there.

[Brett Vesely]

I deleted that one. No. Kim Karns.

[John Holmberg]

This morning, Daniel says, welcome to the eye surgery club. I've had eight surgeries in my left eye and six in my right. Daniel, end it. There's no reason to go on. I can't imagine what you're going through. You are a trooper, brother. I don't think I could ever get used to this. Like, if I had to do this again, I'd be like, no, it's. I'm not gonna be like, oh, I've done that before. It's take.

[Brady]

Take the eye out.

[John Holmberg]

Yeah, just remove them and start smelling stuff. I like face down, ass up. But I don't think I have the skills to clean version of that.

[Larry]

There's no way. Why would you?

[Brady]

Yeah.

[John Holmberg]

First off, we don't have a clean one. Second, you're relying on a dude who can barely see.

[Larry]

Right.

[John Holmberg]

To read the lyrics as it's going. So you pick it. Brett. I like the, you know, searching with

[Brett Vesely]

my good eye closed. We've never played that.

[John Holmberg]

I don't think that's a good one. Go. A little soundgarden there.

[Larry]

I know that's not in the system.

[John Holmberg]

No.

[Larry]

There's no way that's an album track.

[John Holmberg]

Yeah. That's nuts. This one says John. Next time you need some assistance with this. I'm a professional. I'll come right to the house. Sign Nathan Sutherland. And that makes you worried too. Get the fight back. I don't let him do it just to kill some time. And they're like, you want to rape me? Yeah.

[Brady]

Right.

[John Holmberg]

That ought to eat up about eight or nine more minutes.

[Brady]

Long as you don't move me.

[John Holmberg]

Don't jar me too hard. This bill is pretty good. But. Yeah. And then I started to play games with my. My magnifying glass eye. As I stared through the pillow hole onto the couch cushion where I would count that you could. I could see where the threads overlapped on the couch cushion.

[Brady]

Try to count them.

[John Holmberg]

836 before. Nice.

[Larry]

Wow.

[John Holmberg]

Before I had to quit the magnifying eye. Going nuts.

[Brady]

It.

[John Holmberg]

It's. Man.

[Brett Vesely]

Imagine if you could tug. You'd be like Lex Steele down there.

[John Holmberg]

But I'd have to get magnifying.

[Brett Vesely]

Oh.

[John Holmberg]

Close to it. Otherwise it's just a blurry mess. You get close to. I don't. I want to see my dick skin that close. Dick skin's a great band name by the way. Arizona's most powerful, powerful rock radio station.

[Brady]

It's Brady for Game Day Men's Health. The valley's largest men's health clinic with 12 locations. You should schedule a complimentary appointment today. Go to gamedaymenshealth.com Every location has a cool man cave environment. You'll sit down with a board certified medical director and figure out what treatments that can help you. They have an on site lab and you will know what your testosterone level is during your first meeting. Do what thousands of Phoenix area men are doing by going to gamedaymen's health.com and schedule your complimentary appointment. You got to get back in the game with gameday Men's health.

[Larry]

The Winter Olympics have begun and you want to know why? Betting the Winter Games on FanDuel just makes sense. It's Dick Toledo. From Holmberg's morning sickness. And from game lines to medal counts to finding your angle on the events you care about most. FanDuel gives you more ways to stay connected to the action. That's right, the winner games are on, and there's no better way to follow them than with a little wager on FanDuel. The winner games and FanDuel play your game 21 in President Arizona gambling problem call 1-800-next-step or text next step to 53342.