Feb. 25, 2024

Living the dream with story teler and lung transplant survivor Alastair Henry

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Join us on a remarkable journey with Alastair Henry, the adventurous boomer and double lung transplant survivor who turned his life around post-retirement. From the corporate boardrooms to the remote Canadian North, to volunteering across the globe, Alastair's story is a testament to living life to the fullest. Discover how he embraced indigenous wisdom, tackled idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, and found joy in simplicity on this inspiring episode of the Living the Dream podcast with Curveball.

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> Speaker A>Welcome, um, to the living the dream podcast with curveball. Um, if you believe you can achieve.

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> Speaker B>Cheat, cheat.

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> Speaker A>Welcome to the living the dream with curveball podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate and inspire. Today I am joined by Alastair Henry.

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> Speaker A>He is an author of memoirs and creative fiction.

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> Speaker A>He is a double lung transplant recipient. He's a storyteller as well as an adventurous boomer. We're going to be talking to him about his story, about his volunteer work and his explorer, how, uh-huh. He's explored different places.

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> Speaker A>So, alastair, thank you so much for joining me today.

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> Speaker B>Thank you for inviting me. It's my pleasure.

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> Speaker A>Oh, it's my pleasure to have you. Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

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> Speaker B>Yeah. Well, for most of my, uh, working life, I was just a regular guy. I was in the corporate world. I was like a yoppy. But I was fortunate to retire at the age of 57. Uh, wasn't that wonderful? That's what everybody wants to do.

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> Speaker B>But two years later, I was saying to myself, is this it?

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> Speaker B>Is this all there is? I'm only 59.

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> Speaker B>I can't play golf and cut grass for the rest of my life. There's got to be more to life than this. But I didn't want to go back in the corporate world. I'd had my fill of that.

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> Speaker B>I didn't want to go back in the city. I wanted something like an adventure.

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> Speaker B>So I looked around and I found this wonderful opportunity in Canada's northwest territories.

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> Speaker B>It was in a little remote fly in community of 300 Chippewan.

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> Speaker B>They were living on the east arm of great slave Lake, and, um, they were looking for a general manager to manage their development corporations. So, good. Long story short, I applied, I got the job. On, um, reflection, I think I was the only guy that applied. But anyway, at the time I felt very fortunate. I thought, wow, I got a job. But later on in life I thought maybe I was the only guy. But anyway, so I went to Lutz, OK? And it was like going to the moon. A totally different world, totally outside of our know, they still hunt, trap and fish. And the thing is, the north is a very, very dangerous place, if you're not mindfully aware. Like in the city, I used to be preoccupied with this, that sometimes I drove somewhere and I thought, wow, how did I get here? I can't remember stopping at any traffic lights. I must have been on, uh, auto control. Well, in the north, you can't live like that because it's so blizzards come up for days on end. There's bears and wolverines.

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> Speaker B>They live in the moment. They really do. They don't worry. They just go with the flow.

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> Speaker B>And I adopted that attitude.

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> Speaker B>Go with the flow and make it up as you go. I love it. And actually I did that for the rest of my life. But there was many things, as I say, I went in there as this businessman with all these strong business practices that I'd learned all about setting expectations and goals and objectives. Well, none of that worked.

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> Speaker B>In the end, I realized people just do their best and you have to just celebrate that and you can't fault it. If they, um, could have done better, they would have. So what's the point in saying we didn't meet expectations?

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> Speaker B>I realized setting expectations just set you up for disappointments.

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> Speaker B>So I stopped having expectations and then I just celebrated whatever was done was done. Anyway, I was there for two years and it was wonderful. I went to spiritual gatherings. I went, uh, out, uh, into the bush, checked in the trap lines. I got myself a snow machine.

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> Speaker B>And every month I would drive across the lake to yellowknife to buy groceries.

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> Speaker B>So I had a, uh, snow machine and a sled and with a buddy with, uh, Dave and Paula, he had a machine, too. The two of us would go. It was 5 hours strayed across the lake and the lake was like a billiard table. You could go 80 9000 because you could see right ahead.

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> Speaker B>It was wonderful. So I had lots of those wonderful experiences. But after two years in your time, it was a strange concept. I felt like I've been there forever. But I looked at the calendar and thought, no, I've only been here two years. But it felt like a lifetime. And I thought, ok, I'm not know time to move on.

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> Speaker B>So I left the community. Well, the other thing, Curtis, when I was in the corporate world, I was the vice president of finance. Okay? So my life was all about boardrooms, spreadsheets, meetings. I didn't really have much, uh, involvement with people, but, uh, as I say, after two years being retired, I felt unfulfilled. Um, uh, that was the thing. I didn't have that personal sort of fulfillment. I felt a little bit anxious and empty.

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> Speaker B>Well, in Lutz, okay, because I was an outsider. It was only 300 people and most of them are all related anyway because they've got this thing about keeping the bloodlines pure. I didn't want to tell them that we think differently about it, but anyway, and they all know one another's business and it's just a big community. Everybody does everything. So everybody knows everybody's business. Well, because I was an outsider, they would come and say, uh, can I run something by you?

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> Speaker B>Initially, my reaction was, no way. I'm not a counselor, I'm a businessman. I'm here running your development corporations.

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> Speaker B>But, um, I had payroll too, you see, uh, there was a number of them in the community. I had two fire crews, so there was 16 people, two crews of eight.

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> Speaker B>So I had their payroll.

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> Speaker B>I had guys that went out, flew out to the ice road and maintained, uh, the ice road.

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> Speaker B>And then I had other ones that there were some diamond mines. There was Rio Tinto, BHP Billeton. So they had these big diamond mines and so they needed janitors and, uh, cooks. So a lot of the people in the community had those.

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> Speaker B>I realized, you know, uh, that there was no bank, there was nothing in Luzoke, there was absolutely nothing except a grocery store, the co op store, no coffee shop, nothing.

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> Speaker B>And none of them had, uh, bank accounts or credit cards.

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> Speaker B>They just know paycheck to paycheck.

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> Speaker B>But every once in a while they'd get into a little bit of a trouble and they'd come and see me and something had come up. Anyway, cut long story short, I didn't see any problem buying things on my credit card and getting paid for it out of payroll deduction. I mean, there was no risk. And yet other people said, you crazy? And that's when I realized I can make people happy by sharing what I have. So in this case it was credit cards, but also with my know, I was giving people advice and, uh, teaching them a little bit of financial planning because they just lived in the know. Anyway, cut long story short, Curtis, I came out of there and I decided, ok, I'm not ready to go back to playing golf.

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> Speaker B>I found an organization called VSO volunteer Services overseas. It was a british sending agency, volunteer sending agency.

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> Speaker B>So I applied and they sent me to Dhaka, bangladesh for two years.

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> Speaker B>That was really good because I, uh, was working for a local ngo, a non government organization.

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> Speaker B>VSO was, um, it paid my flight, paid my, uh, uh, know, uh, my injections that I needed before I went, vaccinations. Uh, they found me some accommodation and it gave me a little stipend for food and local travel, which of course is all by rickshaw and, uh, what they call CNG, compressed natural gas, the little, um, three wheeler, um, scooter type things. Anyway, and I had to learn Bangladesh. Could you believe that?

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> Speaker B>A guy at my age learning another language fortunately, I didn't have to learn too much.

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> Speaker B>Unfortunately, Bangla is an easy language to learn. It's simple, like in English, we've got so many words for say good.

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> Speaker B>We've got fantastic, super, wonderful.

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> Speaker B>In, uh, Bangladesh, they just got one word, and that's, um, m I forgot what it is. It was so long ago.

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> Speaker B>Anyway, I was there for two years. And then, um, I came back to Canada because it was a two year contract.

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> Speaker B>And, um, the other thing I should have told you that, uh, when I was in Lutzoke, I sold my house.

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> Speaker B>I sold everything. And never, uh, regretted anything. Never regretted having less and fell. I like that feeling, um, of lightness, that, uh, there was no baggage. I didn't feel heavy. And I guess I did before because, um, before I went to Lutz, ok, uh, I had a lovely place in the country. There was 50, 50 acres. Can you believe that? Five ponds, 18 acres of hardwood bush, and the rocky Sogian river flowed through the property. And yet, with all of that, I still felt empty. But now I was feeling good because in Bangladesh, I was working with the, uh, local NGo helping very abjectly poor people in, uh, rural, coastal, and, um, sort of river, little villages.

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> Speaker B>And that's where I was pleased I could help. They had a micro credit program. Now, a, uh, micro credit program. See, these very poor people, right?

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> Speaker B>They don't have anything, so nobody's going to loan them any money. They have no, uh, job. Well, none of them are really employed. They're all subsistence. Anyway, with microcredit, it's really good.

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> Speaker B>You go into a little village and you say, okay, we're setting up a micro credit program. How many people want to join? 20 hands go up. You say, great, okay, we're going to meet every week, and you're all going to put in a dollar, okay? So let's have a collection. Somebody is appointed a treasurer, if you like. And the treasurer says, okay, I've got $20. Who wants to borrow $20? And what do you want to borrow it for?

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> Speaker B>Because you have to pitch. And these people here are, uh, going to vote. So somebody's going to get a $20. So somebody might say, well, I want to buy a chicken because I want to get into eggs. Another person might say, I want some gardening tools. I, uh, want to plant vegetables. Another person said, I want to buy coconuts and sell them in town.

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> Speaker B>So they vote and they pick somebody and they get the$20. So the following week, they meet again. Now, the person that borrowed the money has to pay a dollar back, plus his new dollar for the week. But, you know, the repayment rate was amazing because in their culture, reputation, and, um, their word is everything.

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> Speaker B>And even if they didn't have the money, somebody would lend it to them. There was tremendous bonding and community support.

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> Speaker B>And that's why that micro credit works throughout Asia. So anyway, I came back to Canada, uh, just before Christmas.

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> Speaker B>Uh, my daughter had a situation.

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> Speaker B>She had lost her husband. He fell down the stairs and cracked his head on the tiles, went into a coma, and three days later, he didn't wake up. So she had to go back to work. But she needed to get some training. So she decided that she would go to a community college to take, uh, a police dispatching course. But she didn't have anybody to look after her little one year old boy.

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> Speaker B>And all the daycare centers were all full.

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> Speaker B>His name was down. But she had to start a course on January the fourth.

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> Speaker B>Now, uh, at the time, I was supposed to be going to, uh, Rwanda early in January. Anyway, I called him up and I said, no, can't go. I've got something else.

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> Speaker B>So I looked after Beckett and, uh, anyway, Nikki, my daughter's family. So there was three children, two dogs, a cat, and, of course, meals.

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> Speaker B>Because, uh, when she know, the whole thing is to get your foot in the door.

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> Speaker B>But she had to go to Toronto. Ambulance was looking for a dispatcher, so she had to go and live and work in Toronto during the week. I looked after everything. But then eventually a job, uh, with the London police. I'm based in London, Ontario, came up and, uh, she, uh, got the job. So I was then free.

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> Speaker B>In the meantime, I met a lady called Candice. Well, I volunteered at the northwest London Resource center, like a community resource center.

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> Speaker B>And a lady there called Candice Whitlock was the executive director. So I went on the board as treasurer, first of all, then chairman, and then I quit.

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> Speaker B>Uh, but anyway, in the meantime, Candace, she was enthralled with what I told her about my volunteering in Bangladesh. And she said, that's what I want to do. So she applied and she got approved. And believe it or not, both of us got jobs in Kingston, Jamaica. Uh, start the same day, finish the same day. Um, and they were on streets, which were about three minutes apart. So Candice went down to work with the youth.

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> Speaker B>Uh, her program was to try to convince the youth to go back to school.

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> Speaker B>And my program was with the dispute Resolution foundation. This foundation taught people to be mediators and arbitrators because, uh, they were just short of, uh, judges and courts.

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> Speaker B>And if there was a dispute and you like a civil dispute, you were looking at about 14 years. There was that many cases ahead of it.

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> Speaker B>So the government of Jamaica said, you know what? We're going to train mediators. So when people have a dispute, they can take it to a mediator. But the mediator is neutral.

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> Speaker B>He just gets the two sides together, and they have to, um, speak by one at a time, no interruption. And you try to get each side to see the point of view of the other side, and then you say, you've both got a compromise. And if you don't come to some agreement, this is going to have to go well. You're going to have to wait 14 years.

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> Speaker B>You're going to be 78 by the time this comes up. So typically, you usually work it. But the mediator is, he's not a judge, and he doesn't give an opinion and say, I think you should do this.

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> Speaker B>No, he just suggests one goes back and a, uh, because I took the course. I loved it. I loved being a mediator, but it's like a little bit of a game. So you can say, now, if Billy gave you this, you can frame it that way. You just can't say, I think so. Anyway, that was that. We had a wonderful time in Kingston, Jamaica. We came home, and, um, of course, we're homeless. Right.

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> Speaker B>Candace sold up everything, too. So we moved in with the kids, uh, for a little while, but, um, they got their own families. We don't want to go imposing on them. I had a bedroom in the basement of my daughter's house. It was nice. It was comfortable.

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> Speaker B>I just felt like I was imposing, and Candace felt the same thing with her daughter. So the two of us decided, you know, um, what? Until the next assignment comes up, let's go backpacking.

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> Speaker B>So we decided to go to Central America with just a, uh, 20 pound backpack, the way we did when we were in our 20s. No reservations, nothing. We just went, because by this time, we were both just going with the flow, making it up as we go. So we flew to San Jose, Costa Rica, and went, uh, all the way down into Panama, backpacked through Panama, back through Costa Rica, and up into Nicaragua. And, uh, we were destined to go to Guatemala. We had a friend there, but what happened? His brother in Montreal died, so he flew back to Montreal. So we changed our mind, and we just, you know, we'll go back to San Jose, Costa Rica, and, uh, stay there, because we really love Costa Rica. And then we flew home. Oh, while we were there, uh, an assignment came up in Georgetown, Guiana and a position for Candice and a position for me. So that's when we went next to Georgetown, Guiana, which is, uh, in South America. It's the top right hand corner, right up there in the top right. The only english speaking country, um, in South America.

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> Speaker B>Candice was working, uh, with the disabled, helping them.

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> Speaker B>Um, well, what happened was the government passed a law that said disabled people have the same rights now as everybody.

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> Speaker B>You know, Guiana was very backward. If you had a disabled child, you basically kept him at home. There was all this shame and stuff like that going around within it. Weird, uh, so bad.

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> Speaker B>And there was no amenities, there was no ramps or anything. But, um, there was a lot of discrimination.

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> Speaker B>Schools and things like this. Some teachers would say, I don't want him in my class, he's disruptive. Well, after the law was passed, he couldn't say that. So one of Candice's jobs was, um, with three or four other. Well, Candace isn't disabled, but with three disabled people. She formed a little committee that went round to the hospitals, the schools, to tell people, you cannot discriminate against disabled people anymore.

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> Speaker B>So that's what she did. And I worked with, um, just outside Georgetown was a little community called Agricola. It had been a plantation, John's plantation at one point, you know, with the, um, british colonialists. Anyway, after emancipation, whatever it. Know where they got rid of slavery.

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> Speaker B>Jones, the plantation owner, gave a portion of the land to the slaves, and they named it a gricola. But they were never, uh, they were discriminated against.

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> Speaker B>Dangerous community with a very bad reputation.

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> Speaker B>So any kid from, uh, agriculture applying for a job wouldn't get the job, because the thought was, nothing good comes out of a gricola.

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> Speaker B>They'll rob you. You can't trust them.

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> Speaker B>All nonsense with uneducated people.

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> Speaker A>All, uh. Right, well, let's talk about your lung transplant journey.

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> Speaker A>We probably got about 25 more minutes or so. I want to get into your lung transplant journey and also talk about your books.

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> Speaker B>I came back to Canada and, uh, we did the same thing. We know. We had such a good time backpacking. Let's go again. We went to southeast Asia for four months.

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> Speaker B>We spent the first month in Bali, then Vietnam, up in Laos, Cambodia, Thailand. Had an amazing time. Now, at the same time, we were writing about it. So this is it. We ended up. I've written, uh, four memoirs and, uh, just released a, uh, historical fiction novel.

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> Speaker B>So the very first novel I wrote was about awakening in the northwest Territories.

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> Speaker B>Because it was so profound, I wanted to share my experience with other people.

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> Speaker B>And so that's what that book was about.

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> Speaker B>Then we wrote a book called go for it.

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> Speaker B>Volunteering adventures on roads less traveled, which basically documents, uh, our volunteering in Bangladesh, Jamaica, and Guyana. And another one, budget backpacking for boomers. Because we did all this backpacking, believe it or not, on just$30 a day per person.

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> Speaker B>And that covered accommodation, food, and, uh, local travel.

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> Speaker B>Now, we had to, uh, mean, sometimes local travel, it meant we took the overnight train. So we slept on the train, uh, and, uh, didn't have to pay for a hotel room. And the first thing we did, really, when we got to Costa Rica, we ordered a meal. Uh, but we're all the people.

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> Speaker B>We couldn't eat that much. So we decided that from now on, we're going to buy at, like,$14 and two plates. So our meal was only$7. So this and enough. We don't want to get up feeling, um, from.

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> Speaker B>We were backpacking. We wanted to be as fit as possible.

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> Speaker B>Anyway, let me cut to the chase. January 2019. Uh, I'd been a heavy smoker. I'd been a pack a day smoker, Curtis. Can you believe that? For 50 years.

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> Speaker B>And I always thought, one day is going to catch up with me, as it did my relatives, who were heavy smokers and died of lung cancer. So when I was having trouble breathing, I thought, this is it.

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> Speaker B>It's been a good run. I've had a great life. Um, but this is lung cancer. But it wasn't.

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> Speaker B>The respirologist said it was idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

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> Speaker B>It put me on oxygen 24/7 um, but even the fibrosis is a really chronic three to six years life expectancy from diagnosis. So I asked about my situation.

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> Speaker B>I said, well, what have I got? Three, five, six years?

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> Speaker B>And he said, unfortunately, alastair, your prognosis is quite advanced.

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> Speaker B>We're going to give you 18 months at the most.

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> Speaker B>So. Wow. But, um, I wasn't too upset.

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> Speaker B>I expected it. It was my fault.

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> Speaker B>Um, but that gave me a best before date of June 2020.

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> Speaker B>So when that happens, I mean, we're all going to die, and we all have a best before date, but people don't know what it is.

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> Speaker B>But when you do it, man, it changes everything, because I've got 18 months now, and the only thing I wanted to do was to go back to England, uh, have a quality. Spend some quality time with my three children, three grandchildren, Candice, uh, to say goodbye to my sister and my, uh, nieces and nephews because I'm from England. And when I came out, I came out by myself when I was 19 and nobody else came out, so don't have any real direct family in Canada. So that's what I did. So now I went back. That was wonderful. I went back. So about September, October, um, I was on, originally three liters a minute of oxygen, but somebody came to the house once a month and, uh, periodically took it up to five. So by Christmas I was like on ten liters. And I was aware I was going downhill and I was aware of all the last, the last birthday, last Christmas, last new year.

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> Speaker B>And I accepted that, but my children didn't. And they said, dad, we want you to have a lung transplant.

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> Speaker B>I said, I don't think they do it for people my age. I said, anyway, I'll probably die right there on the operating table. And they said, well, you're going to die anyway, dad, so we want you to look into it.

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> Speaker B>So they pressured me to look into it, which I did, and, uh, had to lose a little bit of body weight to get my body mass index down to the, uh, but by June, because I went out, I started working out. By June, I was eligible.

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> Speaker B>I went on the waitlist, I got the call twice to come to the hospital, twice I went up there and they said, sorry, the lungs just are, uh, not good enough.

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> Speaker B>Go home. The third time I went up, they prepped me. Surgery was going to happen at 430 in the morning, 630 in

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00, a doctor came in and shook me and woke me up and he said, just to let you know, we've canceled the surgery.

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The lungs just not good enough.

00:29:09.569 --> 00:29:26.736
So you'll be going home, okay. Go back to sleep. So I woke up in the morning, Candice came over from the hotel and we're getting ready to leave. And the doctor came back and he said, another, uh, set of lungs have just become available and they look really good, so don't go home.

00:29:26.837 --> 00:29:32.496
Can you hang on for an hour? He came back at eleven. He said, everything looks wonderful.

00:29:32.688 --> 00:29:38.420
We're going to take you into the operating theater at 430 this afternoon.

00:29:38.839 --> 00:29:44.152
And I came out at 230 in the morning with new lungs. How about that?

00:29:44.205 --> 00:29:49.415
Curtis M. And I've had no problems. That's two and a half years now.

00:29:49.597 --> 00:29:51.210
> Speaker A>It's absolutely amazing.

00:29:51.740 --> 00:29:57.630
> Speaker B>Oh, it is. So with these new lungs, I mean, obviously I call it the gift of life.

00:29:58.160 --> 00:30:21.910
> Speaker B>I could now continue to be part of my children and Candice's life and so many other things. I could finish the book. Well, I started a book, but I stopped because I thought, what's the know? I'm not going to be here to finish the book and publish it. Anyway, I picked the book up and I continued to write it, and I published it, and I've narrated it.

00:30:25.240 --> 00:30:42.089
> Speaker B>January 2019. I gladly speak because, uh, well, I also had some emphysema from the smoking, you know. Anyway, I narrated that book, and I've narrated awakening in the northwest Territories. So there you go.

00:30:42.460 --> 00:30:45.130
> Speaker B>And now I'm, um, a guest on your show.

00:30:45.740 --> 00:30:56.609
> Speaker A>Absolutely. And I know that the Internet is kind of a little spotty, so let's get out your contact information so the listeners can get your books and keep up with everything that you're up to.

00:30:58.500 --> 00:31:04.192
> Speaker B>Yeah, if they go to my website, they can read a lot about everything. Uh, my website is very simple.

00:31:04.246 --> 00:31:18.710
> Speaker B>It's just www.alastairhenry.com on there. I show the books with excerpts, the reviews. Uh, I write something about home children.

00:31:19.400 --> 00:31:30.009
> Speaker B>You probably don't know about home children, Curtis, but, uh, my book is called the Soldier and the Orphan. And the orphan turned out to be a home child.

00:31:31.019 --> 00:31:43.180
> Speaker B>England sent 120,000 children under the age of 13 to Canada to work as domestics and farm workers because they were short of labor. And these were orphans.

00:31:44.819 --> 00:31:47.644
> Speaker B>They didn't have any parents or siblings.

00:31:47.692 --> 00:32:11.430
> Speaker B>So the government felt, yeah, we can ship these kids. So they were called home children. And, uh, so one of my tommy in my book is a home child. But I think your listeners would love to read the book because it's a whole different world, um, than the know.

00:32:11.880 --> 00:32:14.680
> Speaker B>I mean, in many respects, Canada, us were very similar.

00:32:14.750 --> 00:32:22.970
> Speaker B>But like, in Canada, as I say, where I was with the indigenous people up in the northwest territories, it was like being on the.

00:32:23.500 --> 00:32:28.503
> Speaker B>No, I couldn't believe it. I said, I'm still in Canada. This is still North America.

00:32:28.632 --> 00:32:31.160
> Speaker B>I felt like I was in Mongolia or somewhere.

00:32:31.319 --> 00:32:34.670
> Speaker B>Anyway, what else might you want to know?

00:32:37.140 --> 00:32:54.230
> Speaker A>Well, that's about it. I, uh, would say, uh, that the listeners can go check out alastairhenry.com. Keep up with everything that you're up to. I would like the listeners to follow rate review share this episode to as many people as possible.

00:32:54.680 --> 00:33:12.519
> Speaker A>If you have any suggestions for guests or topics, Cjackson 102 is@cox.net is the place to send it. Thank you for listening. Be sure to tell a friend. And alastair, I want to thank you for your time and your great stories. You're definitely a great storyteller.

00:33:12.940 --> 00:33:16.200
> Speaker B>Oh, thank you and all the best to you, Curtis.

00:33:16.700 --> 00:33:24.720
> Speaker A>For more information on the living the Dream podcast, visit www.djcurveball.com.

00:33:24.910 --> 00:33:29.740
> Speaker A>Until next time, stay focused on living the dream dream.