Kaitlin Payne (00:00:00) –  Make your own sunshine wherever you go. You have to. Every day that we wake up and put one foot in front of the other and literally just get dressed is a choice some days. Don’t get me wrong, some days, like the day she passed is very hard. Getting out of bed is hard. Do we do it? Yes we do. This is how I’m choosing to live my life. Because she didn’t have a choice. She didn’t have a choice. She doesn’t get to do this. And there are so many people in our lives that we know that they don’t have a choice. So this is my choice to wake up in the morning and make the best out of my day.

Katy Ripp (00:00:38) –  Hey there, fellow rebels, welcome to hashtag. Actually I can the podcast where we say a hearty hell yes to designing life on our own terms. I’m Katy Ripp, a lifestyle coach, business mentor, and serial entrepreneur here to guide you through the wild ride. Defining what society expects of us and embracing our authenticity.

Katy Ripp (00:00:56) –  On this show, we dive deep into taboo topics like death, money, spirituality, entrepreneurship, unapologetic self-care, and personal development, all while swearing and laughing along the way. Expect down and dirty conversations, plenty of humor, and a whole lot of exploration, leaving you feeling empowered to be your truest self. Whether you’re craving a good laugh, seeking unconventional self-care tips, or simply looking for some camaraderie. You’ve come to the right place. We only get this one short life, so buckle up and let’s design yours on our own terms. Ready to dive in? Let’s go.

Katy Ripp (00:01:38) –  Can we talk about the fact that we have the same name?

Kaitlin Payne (00:01:40) –  I know when you sent your email… 

Katy Ripp (00:01:43) –  How old are you?

Kaitlin Payne – 34.

34 okay. So we’re yeah, we’re 12 years apart, which is why we never really, like, crossed, you know, our stuff never crossed. But yes. So for any listeners out there right now, Kate Kessenich. Yes. Is your maiden name. Yes. Katie Kessenich is my maiden name.

Katy Ripp (00:02:01) –  Sort of fascinating. It’s crazy. Yeah. And we’re not related? No, as far as I know. Anyway, welcome to the podcast.

Kaitlin Payne (00:02:07) –  Thank you.

Katy Ripp (00:02:08) –  This is, like, meant to be a conversation, so I’m not going to put you on the spot. You stop me. I’m pretty good at, like, asking pretty forward questions if you’re not into it. And that’s fine. My interest in this like sort of hashtag actually I can podcast is to talk to people that have sort of been to the depths of despair. Done all the things that either they said they couldn’t, or that you never thought would happen to you or the like. The biggest fear that people have, like as a mother, the biggest fear you have is that you will lose your child. I don’t know that there’s a bigger fear now.

Kaitlin Payne (00:02:51) –  I mean, it’s crazy. Your child is supposed to outlive you. Yeah. You know, that’s how it’s supposed to go. That’s how it, you know, is supposed to be.

Kaitlin Payne (00:03:00) –  And then our life kind of got turned upside down.

Katy Ripp (00:03:03) –  Yeah. I’m just going to kind of let you go into it. Tell me your story. It doesn’t really matter where you start. I do definitely have some specific questions about Riley and what you guys are doing to celebrate her going forward and that kind of thing, But I really do love sort of the connection of, like, your whole life, right? Like everybody wants to know if you’re just a normal human being, right? Like correct and normal from like, middle Wisconsin. You’ll tell by our accents in Wisconsin. Every time I hear a podcast or like, see.

Katy Ripp (00:03:37) –  Stuff on Instagram.

Katy Ripp (00:03:37) –  I’m like, but are these people normal?

Kaitlin Payne (00:03:40) –  Right? Yeah.

Katy Ripp (00:03:41) –  Like, are they normal? Do they have golden oak trim in their house?

Kaitlin Payne (00:03:46) –  Don’t look at my turn when you come in my house.

Katy Ripp (00:03:49) –  Well, mine is golden oak as well. So I think like the more relatable we can get. And these are just like we’re just real humans.

Katy Ripp (00:03:58) –  So of course.

Kaitlin Payne (00:04:00) –  So I guess I should start in sixth grade. So that’s where my, like, kind of cancer walks into my life. And before all of this, I was adopted into this family because my mom had cancer. So she got cancer in her I want to say it was late 20s, early 30s.

Katy Ripp (00:04:18) –  Your biological mom got. No, no. My.

Kaitlin Payne (00:04:20) –  Yeah, my mom died.

Katy Ripp (00:04:22) –  Well, I didn’t know she had cancer.

Kaitlin Payne (00:04:24) –  Yes. Yeah. Before the pancreatic.

Katy Ripp (00:04:27) –  Oh, I didn’t know that.

Kaitlin Payne (00:04:28) –  She had breast cancer.

Katy Ripp (00:04:30) –  And the reason I think I know everything is because I grew up with this family. Correct. So I think I know everything. Yeah. We’re all out there. Go ahead.

Kaitlin Payne (00:04:39) –  So I had kind of grown up, you know, doing relay for life and, you know, always doing the Susan G. Komen race for the year. I think it’s called we always had a team. And you know, my mom is one of 12 so extended family is giant.

Kaitlin Payne (00:04:57) –  You will never find a more welcoming family than mine. They’re amazing. So when my sister got diagnosed with cancer at 19, obviously that’s a whole nother story that she can kind of tell. When I was in sixth grade, I obviously heard cancer and I was like, oh, like, is she going to die? You know, I remember asking my mom like, what’s going on? My mom goes, she’s going to be fine. She’s going to fight. She’s going to be fine. So my brain, I’m like, she’s going to be fine. And they did a very good job of sheltering me. Obviously being so much younger than my sisters, both of them, I was kind of the only child at home, like my sister was off. She lived in an apartment downtown. And then I would say she moved home when she got sick. But my schedule did not slow down. Yeah, it didn’t. It just my dad took me to basketball, soccer, softball, volleyball, whatever, you know what I mean? My mom kind of was Kelsey’s main caretaker at the time.

Kaitlin Payne (00:05:57) –  And, you know, on chemo days, I would go have a sleepover at a friend’s. And unbeknownst to me, I was like, oh, perfect, are you going to DH’s house? Like, this is great, you know? And there are times I remember where it was like, can you please be quiet? You guys go downstairs? Or like I also specifically remember when I would come home from practice and, you know, be come on from basketball. Stop. You’re sweaty. You’re smelly. She did not like that. Which made her sick, right? Like now we all know why. Whatever. I look back and I’m like, oh, okay, wow, this is what this. But they did an amazing job of sharing the details that I needed and sharing the details that I didn’t. Yeah, right. So, you know, my first experience was, you know, obviously she did what she had to do. Cancer is gone. You know, we’re celebrating doing more things that involve cancer.

Kaitlin Payne (00:06:52) –  Now everybody’s raising money for breast cancer and going to this and doing this and this and that. Then ten years later, my sister gets cancer again.

Katy Ripp (00:07:03) –  Same sister? Yes.

Kaitlin Payne (00:07:04) –  Same sister. Yep. Same sister or all. What the fuck? What is like. You know what I mean? Like, this is crazy. What is going on? Yeah. Thinking. Okay. Putting this behind us, you know, my mom hadn’t had any health scares since her cancer.

Katy Ripp (00:07:21) –  Did they both have breast cancer? Yes.

Kaitlin Payne (00:07:22) –  So they had the BRCA gene.

Katy Ripp (00:07:24) –  Which.

Kaitlin Payne (00:07:25) –  A lot of people in my family had. And obviously that’s their stories to tell. Yeah. But that they did a whole UW health did a whole study on them and their genes and things like that.

Katy Ripp (00:07:36) –  So I think I know everything I don’t. Right.

Kaitlin Payne (00:07:38) –  We are literally you ask any one of us to sit down and talk about it, and you know that they will. So she gets cancer. The second time I go to college in Minnesota at Winona State.

Kaitlin Payne (00:07:49) –  I’m back for the summer to Nannie, the best three girls ever in the summer of my college years. So she ended up choosing to have treatment in Chicago, where she lived. Okay, so my mom took work off and went down there and was kind of with her. And she also had a boyfriend at the time who helped and everything. She got through it completely fine, you know, completely fine. You know, she’s doing really good. She I can analysis. She had scans last week with no evidence of any disease.

Katy Ripp (00:08:20) –  So saying.

Kaitlin Payne (00:08:21) –  Right. She gets scans every so often. And does your whole family get scans. No.

Katy Ripp (00:08:26) –  Okay.

Kaitlin Payne (00:08:27) –  Oh I also should okay. Okay, so this is how fucked up this is. Before my sister got cancer the second time, the summer of 2008, when I was going into school in Winona, Minnesota, my dad found out he had cancer behind his eye. Wow. So my dad is blind in one eye. Oh, I didn’t know you wouldn’t be able to tell.

Kaitlin Payne (00:08:50) –  I mean, yeah, he’s everyone’s lifeline. Yeah. pretty much innit? That scared the shit out of me. Like I was like, what are you talking about? Like the like you’re joking. Right. Like. And I and my dad’s quote unquote boy. Yeah, I did all the sports, so we were, you know, I’m going out there and he would take me to side jobs. I learned how to, you know, mix mortar, put brick by brick, building things. Right. So when he got sick, I was like, you’re joking, you’re joking. And he’s like, I’m gonna be fine. They literally makes this joke all the time. So they did radiation straight to his eye, right? Wow. And so he had a radiation patch and no one was allowed to come within a certain amount of time. Oh my gosh, I said, that’s the best time of his life. Everyone left him alone. I’m like, oh, whatever, You know, flipping the bird like, did you see that, pal?

Katy Ripp (00:09:45) –  What are you going to do? Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (00:09:47) –  So he’s in good health, goes and gets his eye, you know, looked at, you know, once a year you know. Yeah. But so that was in between my sisters. I think it was two years before she got diagnosed that second time. So cancer just, you know, fumbling around in our whatever. Yeah.

Katy Ripp (00:10:07) –  Do you find that, like, desensitized to, like, every time you heard it?

Kaitlin Payne (00:10:11) –  That’s the thing. Yeah. It’s almost to a point in being. My oldest sister can talk about this all the time. It’s kind of just like a numbing and, like, nothing surprises me anymore. If you told me something that was kind of sad. And don’t get me wrong, like. And that’s what I pride myself on, is like, you can talk to me about anything and I’m, I’m gonna talk to you about it, and I’m not gonna like I hate when people compare struggles in like, because obviously struggles in your life. They’re important in your life.

Kaitlin Payne (00:10:41) –  Like, this is my life, and I’m not gonna. You know, I don’t like when people do that. And they’re like, well, at least you don’t have this going on. And like, we could play that game all day. Yeah. But I like that’s.

Katy Ripp (00:10:54) –  Yeah. I’m not into it.

Kaitlin Payne (00:10:55) –  No. Yeah. It’s just not it’s like what good does it do. Yeah. Nothing does absolutely nothing. Nothing. So then we’re doing that. Obviously Kelsey gets over her second cancer. Super healthy.

Katy Ripp (00:11:07) –  How old was she at that time. Like 29. Yeah. Is that right? Because they were ten years apart. Yes okay.

Kaitlin Payne (00:11:11) –  29. Yeah.

Katy Ripp (00:11:13) –  Young. Yep.

Kaitlin Payne (00:11:14) –  And so obviously I’m you know, in college. Whatever. Fall in love in college in Minnesota. Meet my best friend in the entire world. And so we kind of. We lived in Middleton, the little Waunakee, then we lived in Windsor. So. And that’s where we finally decided to have a baby.

Kaitlin Payne (00:11:36) –  It took us over a year to get pregnant. Oh, really? Wow. My pregnancy. I threw up every single day. I was like, what is going on? Like, you know what? Everyone’s like that. I was like, oh my God, this means she’s healthiest baby ever.

Katy Ripp (00:11:51) –  Oh, that’s an interesting thing to say right there.

Kaitlin Payne (00:11:53) –  Like, oh, it’s only means that she’s, you know. Yeah, whatever. Yeah. So the shit.

Katy Ripp (00:11:58) –  People say that for sure.

Kaitlin Payne (00:12:01) –  So, you know, beautiful baby girl. It was awesome. Our nurse was great. Riley arrived. She’s my sister. My oldest sister. Four boys first.

Katy Ripp (00:12:12) –  Yeah. Did you know she was a girl? Nope.

Kaitlin Payne (00:12:14) –  Okay. Nope. We left it up to surprise. So everybody is amazing. My four nephews just love her. She loves them. Like. And I’ll get into that later. About the. She was so attached to them. That’s all. You know. She loved them so much.

Katy Ripp (00:12:30) –  When was her birthday?

Kaitlin Payne (00:12:31) –  October 10th.

Katy Ripp (00:12:32) –  Oh, the day before.

Kaitlin Payne (00:12:33) –  My. Yes. She’s my October baby. So she shares a birthday with Brett Farve and my Uncle Ken. So, anyways, it’s Labor Day weekend. It’s my mom’s birthday, and we’re going to the taste of Madison. It’s so exciting. My mom used to call her birthday weekend extravaganza. So, you know, don’t ask us where we got it. And earlier that week, my husband Tyler was changing Riley’s paper, and he’s like, I thought I felt something weird on her stomach. And I was like, okay, you know, she’s acting fine. Yeah, she’s bubbly, like she was having the time of her life at the Taste of Madison. Yeah, we have pictures to prove it. So then I like I’m changing your diaper. And that Saturday, before we literally go to the taste of Madison, I’m like, well, I do kind of feel it a little more. So then I called the nurses line and they were like, she acting fine.

Kaitlin Payne (00:13:21) –  I’m like, yeah, just totally fine. And she’s like, well, maybe just make an appointment with your primary on the Tuesday because obviously Monday, Labor Day. Oh it’s Labor Day.

Katy Ripp (00:13:30) –  Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (00:13:31) –  So I was like, okay, perfect. Yeah. So, you know, I made an appointment and she’s doing fine. And the doctor like, feels.

Katy Ripp (00:13:39) –  Like on Tuesdays.

Kaitlin Payne (00:13:40) –  Yes. Yeah. And I went alone because this is the first day of school. My husband, mind you, is a special ed teacher. All right. So he’s at middle school in some prairie. I’m taking Riley to a routine checkup, I think because I’m like, what.

Katy Ripp (00:13:57) –  Did you think it was?

Kaitlin Payne (00:13:58) –  I thought it was just, like, maybe like a nodule or something. Oh, you mean like a like a.

Katy Ripp (00:14:02) –  Hernia or something? Yeah, because.

Kaitlin Payne (00:14:03) –  It was in her stomach and I was just like, okay, this is weird, you know, not suspecting anything.

Katy Ripp (00:14:10) –  Plus your first time mom.

Katy Ripp (00:14:11) –  Right. So you’re like, that’s the thing, right? I want to take her in, but you don’t really think anything. I’m like.

Kaitlin Payne (00:14:15) –  She’s. And, you know, everyone’s like, she’s acting fine. Yeah, whatever. She’s eating. Sleeping, you know? Yeah. Nothing’s whatever. So the doctor goes, she’s had this since went. And I was like, Thursday. I said, you know, we called the nurses line. She goes, and they didn’t tell you to come in. And I was like, no. She’s like, okay, well, you guys need to go to the children’s hospital right now. And in my brain I’m like, wait, what? Like trying to kind of puzzle piece together? I was like, kind of like, okay, like slap myself, like, okay, get it together. Like, you have to go here. So I called Tyler. I’m like, you need to leave school. Can they.

Katy Ripp (00:14:56) –  Work there? No. Okay.

Katy Ripp (00:14:58) –  No. Did she know to send you to the hospital? Like. Well, I mean, I’m not a doctor, but, like.

Kaitlin Payne (00:15:03) –  I’m guessing she just felt it and was like, this is way not normal.

Katy Ripp (00:15:06) –  Yeah, okay. Like, which.

Kaitlin Payne (00:15:09) –  I guess how does it maybe tell you that they have a tumor? Yeah. They don’t. Right. It’s the it is what it is. So he picks us up. He’s like, what are you talking about? Like, what are you doing in my husband? He’s an emotional guy. He loves so hard.

Katy Ripp (00:15:25) –  Like, he.

Kaitlin Payne (00:15:26) –  Was like, what is happening? What is happening? And nothing has ever happened like this in his family.

Katy Ripp (00:15:32) –  Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (00:15:33) –  So we go there, we get to the hospital, you know, and this is all like, right, your brain kind of lets you have memories that you want and blocks the ones that you don’t. So and I kind of remember, like calling my mom, being like, what I hit.

Kaitlin Payne (00:15:49) –  They’re sending us to the children’s hospital and she’s like, okay, just go there. They’ll be fine. So we did. We park, we go inside, they do an ultrasound, and then they’re like, okay, you guys go on up to the fifth floor and we’re like, what the fuck is the fifth floor? You know what I mean? And this is all kind of intertwined with my family as well, because my cousin was a pedes nurse in oncology. She worked on the fifth floor at American Family Children’s Hospital. So when we got there, I was like, what’s going on? They brought us into a room finally, like both of our families.

Katy Ripp (00:16:27) –  And you up the fifth floor, oncology. And don’t tell you that’s where you’re going.

Kaitlin Payne (00:16:31) –  They were kind of just like, all right, we’re going to go up here and talk, okay? Okay. Well we think this is cancer and we think this is XYZ. We’re going to take blood work. And that’s where we met our.

Kaitlin Payne (00:16:43) –  So when you check into the hospital you get a nurse and they are like your main nurse. So anytime that they’re working, you will have them. It’s kind of a really nice, actually.

Katy Ripp (00:16:57) –  Oh, I didn’t know until you don’t like them, right?

Kaitlin Payne (00:16:59) –  Correct, correct. Which anyone on that floor. They have heart of gold. So. And we I love her. I still talk to her to this day. She comes to our golf outing every year and sits on the whole. And it’s really cool here.

Katy Ripp (00:17:12) –  Do you think, is that something specific to American Children’s? Do you think?

Kaitlin Payne (00:17:16) –  I fully believe that. God, I.

Katy Ripp (00:17:18) –  Love to support that. That’s pretty cool, right? That’s a really. Because you don’t know what the fuck, right?

Kaitlin Payne (00:17:24) –  You’d have no clue. Yeah, you have no clue what’s going on. Her name is Laurie. She’s the best I’ve ever really loved her. Like, loved her well.

Katy Ripp (00:17:32) –  And something familiar for the kids, too, right?

Kaitlin Payne (00:17:35) –  Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (00:17:35) –  And I mean, they’re they may have all given us, you know, the red carpet treatment because of my cousin. Yeah. Which. Who cares? Yeah. Whatever.

Katy Ripp (00:17:44) –  It doesn’t matter, right? It’s not what you know. It’s who you know. Correct.

Kaitlin Payne (00:17:48) –  And then we also the doctor who was ever on at the time is your primary doctor. So we also struck gold there with Doctor Diamond. Doctor Carol diamond. She has recently retired, but she’s very much still in our lives. Emails. You know, once in a while. She is just a great person to talk to. Anyways. So once we’ve had, you know, time to kind of process this, I in my brain am going, I’ve seen how many people get through this. Like not an ounce of my body believed that she would die. And I’m telling you that, like, wholeheartedly, it never even crossed my brain. I said, it’ll be fine. Like, what are we talking all these people?

Katy Ripp (00:18:30) –  I’m fine.

Kaitlin Payne (00:18:31) –  Like, these people are fine. And that’s kind of like my husband was kind of with the diagnosis having at a harder time, but like, he was just like, what is going on? And in my brain, I’m like, nope. We just do what the doctors say. We do the chemo, you do the surgery, you’ll be fine. We have proof. Take the course. You do fine. Right. And then because she was fine, they were like, okay, you can go home tonight. I think that was. Yeah, Thursday. And then Friday she kind of had like a hard time breathing. And we were like, what is going on? So call the doctor. Like bring her in. So then we ended up starting chemo. Literally. That’s how fast this thing grew. What? Yeah. And then it stuck out of her body.

Katy Ripp (00:19:17) –  So, my God.

Kaitlin Payne (00:19:19) –  We were like.

Katy Ripp (00:19:20) –  Am I? So from the first time Tyler felt it until, like.

Kaitlin Payne (00:19:24) –  Like, literally a.

Katy Ripp (00:19:26) –  Week later. Yeah. Oh my God.

Kaitlin Payne (00:19:28) –  So this was clearly like, you know what I’m saying? Fast growing. But this is the hard thing. And it still irks me to this day that they can’t tell me where she got it from. They can’t tell me if I gave it to her with With children’s cancer, they have no research. No, there’s no research.

Katy Ripp (00:19:48) –  Why is that?

Kaitlin Payne (00:19:49) –  Nobody knows. I don’t know, they claim that they don’t have any money. That’s why all of our proceeds basically go to children’s cancer research. Because there’s nothing there. They get 4% of, like, the United States allotment of cancer, 4% goes to pediatric. Which it’s like what? Like how does that make any sense? Yeah, like no sense at all. Even with, like, Alex’s lemonade stand is a popular for, you know, stuff like that. But it’s just it’s shitty. Yeah, of course shitty. But like, obviously that’s after the fact that she died. Like, I was like, you can kind of look at her body and said a little bit, obviously, like, we want her back.

Kaitlin Payne (00:20:34) –  Like she’s, you know, yeah, ours. But obviously with, you know, when we finally got over the fact that the diagnosis, it was like, okay, game on. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. They sent her biopsy away to see if it was, you know, there’s actually a which is crazy to me, a cancer that will go away, that we’ll just, you know.

Katy Ripp (00:20:56) –  Like you grow out of it.

Kaitlin Payne (00:20:58) –  Somewhat. She kind of explained it to you that it would like kind of, you know, just with age if we, you know, removed it like it would just, you know, it’s not. And I was like, okay, great. Okay. That’s great. It’s gonna be like, we’re not even here. Yeah. It’s gonna be like, we have we didn’t even have this.

Katy Ripp (00:21:13) –  That’s where your head went. Yes. Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (00:21:16) –  Come back. It’s the bad kind. That 1 in 1,000,000 or something. Half or whatever.

Katy Ripp (00:21:23) –  What was it?

Kaitlin Payne (00:21:24) –  Neuroblastoma.

Kaitlin Payne (00:21:25) –  Okay, so when they measured it, it was like, I want to say like 5 or 6in or something in there. So it was, you.

Katy Ripp (00:21:36) –  Know, little body. Correct.

Kaitlin Payne (00:21:37) –  That’s the thing. So they were preparing us for about a 15 hour surgery. Wow. Yeah.

Katy Ripp (00:21:45) –  That’s a long time for anesthesia.

Kaitlin Payne (00:21:47) –  Right, right. That’s the thing. That was probably one of the hardest things was her getting her down for procedures and getting in. My. So, mind you, my husband had to keep working. Yeah, a lot of the days, because we needed the insurance. Yes, that’s the main. My husband’s job and my husband are the main reason that we are not in medical debt right now. Yeah, because it’s crazy. It’s astronomical. It’s whatever. So he could come to as many procedures as he got. Like obviously he was there for the big surgery and he’s there for them most of the chemo and things like that. But these little procedures, my dad would come with me and my mom and or whoever could make it down.

Kaitlin Payne (00:22:33) –  Yeah.

Katy Ripp (00:22:34) –  Were you working at the time? Yes.

Kaitlin Payne (00:22:36) –  I worked at College Town in Sun Prairie. They were like, go do what you need to do, you know? Yes. I had an amazing boss. Still love him to this day. Him and his wife and their family. And I work for the owners of College Town. Right now. That’s where I work for. Okay, so but yes, like, they were like an a bunch of people donated their vacation hours and for me and they never once were like, nope, you’re gonna lose your job over this or anything like that. So it was that was the most kind of comforting thing at the time. And they also put on a benefit for us. Yeah. At a little, you know, golf outing and some of the greatest people I’ve ever met. The generosity in their hearts is crazy. But all these procedures, obviously this surgery was a really big one, right? Yeah. So we all waited in the hospital room together, like waiting in the waiting room.

Kaitlin Payne (00:23:27) –  They had like a designated area, which was nice. And every like 2 or 3 hours you kind of got an update from the nurse still working in here. So we just color. We got like those swear word notebooks. Yeah. So like we’re just coloring there. You know me. Both sets of parents, my siblings. In and out, you know, just waiting for time to pass. We got so a couple. So this tattoo, we got little tattoos made of it.

Katy Ripp (00:23:58) –  On.

Kaitlin Payne (00:23:59) –  Etsy. Oh, fun. So we put one on her. Oh, and then all the kids wore them. And you know, my dad put one on and I put one on. You know, it was funny. We tried to, like, make light of the situation because. What are you supposed to do? What are you supposed to do when your child is in some other room being operated on? I mean, obviously these surgeons are 1 in 1,000,000.

Katy Ripp (00:24:21) –  They are great. Yes. Thank God for them.

Kaitlin Payne (00:24:24) –  Seriously? Yeah.

Katy Ripp (00:24:25) –  Like. And the nurses. Correct. Like, I always think anytime you get into these big things, like the nurses are just like in the shadows, right? But they are the people that do the things. Correct. So everything. Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (00:24:38) –  So you know, they get they’re like, oh I think we got, you know, most of it. But there is some stuff that is, you know, right there on the liver and, you know, was.

Katy Ripp (00:24:49) –  It attached to the liver. Yes.

Kaitlin Payne (00:24:51) –  It was like right in but he’s like there’s some veins and stuff that I can’t clip around which whatever if you got, you know, some of it. And then. So she ended up post-op with it’s called a Kyle leak, which is where some of the stuff leaking out of your vial in there, I don’t know. Anyways, so that was kind of a setback because it prevented a lot of stuff from happening, which it pushed back everything. So she had to get a stem cell transplant as well.

Kaitlin Payne (00:25:21) –  Oh, so which like, I wish you could have seen her during all these things because she had a phone in her hand, sunglasses on, like just sitting there chilling, like she was like, quote unquote, the perfect child in the hospital. Like, I mean, yes, she was fussy about something like. That’s normal, right? Like sleeping basically in a cage. So she literally we had like a bedside cot that we bought at Cabela’s, and she slept with me in there because they won’t give you a bed.

Katy Ripp (00:25:57) –  Oh, okay. Because that’s my next question is like, did you stay there with her 24 hours a day?

Kaitlin Payne (00:26:03) –  Yes. And mind you, there’s other people in the hospital who are going through those who have four other kids, three other kids that I cannot imagine. Splitting your time. Yeah. I can’t yeah. Like, even when Tyler had to go to work and then he would be right back. And that’s what it was like. What do you do? What do you like?

Katy Ripp (00:26:20) –  How do you go and teach? Correct.

Katy Ripp (00:26:22) –  And how do you. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I mean, you do what you have to do.

Kaitlin Payne (00:26:25) –  It’s wild. You put one foot in front of the other. Yeah. And and.

Katy Ripp (00:26:28) –  They do.

Kaitlin Payne (00:26:28) –  To move on.

Katy Ripp (00:26:29) –  Right. Like that’s not your I mean, it’s awful no matter what. And like you were saying before, like comparing your tragedy to somebody else’s, like, yes, everybody’s just doing the best they can. Yes. So it doesn’t really matter 1,000%.

Kaitlin Payne (00:26:44) –  Yeah. And so the stem cell transplant, she, you know, harvested the stem cells, you know, did the transplant. She got pretty sick with it.

Katy Ripp (00:26:58) –  The stem cell. Yes. Yeah. How far along into this process are you now? Because she was 11 months at the time of diagnosis.

Kaitlin Payne (00:27:06) –  This is about halfway through. This is like January or February.

Katy Ripp (00:27:10) –  Okay, okay. And she’s living in the hospital.

Kaitlin Payne (00:27:13) –  Oh, pretty much where we’ve been. There.

Katy Ripp (00:27:15) –  You’ve not been home? She’s not been home.

Katy Ripp (00:27:17) –  Well, so.

Kaitlin Payne (00:27:18) –  Every time we had chemo would be in the hospital for like two weeks. Oh my God. Then we come. Yes. Because your counts, you know, go really low these infections. And you know, what do you do. So I mean, we were in and out. And then if she gets fever, that’s different protocol. Yeah. So many visits to the E.R.. What do we do? How she has infection. So. Or placing the port in her chest. She always had a she wore like a band thing. You’ll see in a bunch of my pictures. That was she had a port place because of chemo and things like that and obviously like bathing, you know, we had a home health nurse came kind of every day. But then I learned how to do it. So I would give her shots at home. I would give her fluids when she was, you know, sleeping in her car at a pump and everything, which is it’s cracks me up because it was like I’m a regular person.

Katy Ripp (00:28:12) –  Like. Like I’m not a fucking nurse. I have a.

Kaitlin Payne (00:28:16) –  Degree in business.

Katy Ripp (00:28:17) –  Yeah, right. Just a little bit different mind. And I’m like, just.

Kaitlin Payne (00:28:22) –  Poke her in. Like they’re like, yeah, this is like, wait, what? Awesome. Okay. Like, well, what do you do?

Katy Ripp (00:28:29) –  You just do what you do. What you have to do. Do what you have to do. Are you still this time, like feeling? Yeah. We got this licked. We’re still good.

Kaitlin Payne (00:28:38) –  That when she went in the ICU, I.

Katy Ripp (00:28:41) –  Was like, with the stem cell?

Kaitlin Payne (00:28:43) –  Yes. Yeah. I’m like, what is happening? Like. And I was like, don’t go there. Yeah, don’t go there. Just don’t go there. Because then you don’t have to go there. Yeah. Right. If you don’t go there, you’re not there. So I’m like, here you go. Obviously she gets out of the ICU. We kind of get her back up and they’re like, okay, you know, we can go home.

Kaitlin Payne (00:29:06) –  Okay, so we’re home. Kind of. She starts acting funny in this as. So she passed on May 7th a couple weeks. She kind of started throwing up and I was like, what is going on? Because they were like, we’re not going to do anything for a while. Like, you guys give her a break. Yes. Yeah, we need a break. Have some time at home.

Katy Ripp (00:29:25) –  After the sun. So was it fairly like she was still sick, but March. Yes, but it was hopeful.

Kaitlin Payne (00:29:32) –  Yes. Because they were like, okay, we’ll come back at it with this.

Katy Ripp (00:29:35) –  Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (00:29:36) –  So we get home and she’s and obviously like I said dates and things are a little fuzzy because who the fuck wants to remember that shit?

Katy Ripp (00:29:45) –  Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (00:29:46) –  Right around April I want to say it was mid April or late April. She started like throwing up. It must have been late April, throwing up. And I think it’s just a two weeks before she died, mind you.

Kaitlin Payne (00:30:02) –  Two weeks. Okay. Yeah. I’m like, something just isn’t right. And then my husband and I were like, what is this? So we felt something on her neck and I immediately obviously called there, like, okay, scan tomorrow, whatever. So and that obviously took another week, you know what I’m saying? Like it’s like I think she started throwing up. And then was the week after we noticed that she was.

Katy Ripp (00:30:28) –  Oh, okay.

Kaitlin Payne (00:30:29) –  Having like a, you know, and it was that her test was on a Tuesday I remember. Or it was on a Wednesday. Either way they put you in a room and they say, well, you know, we’ll be right there. So then Tyler and I are sitting together. Is she with you know. She was with our parents okay. In the room and doctor captain love him. He was like, this is not what we wanted. The tumor has grown. Its all over her spine into, you know, up here it’s growing fast and it’s everywhere.

Katy Ripp (00:31:08) –  Oh my God.

Kaitlin Payne (00:31:10) –  And at that time, you know, you’re my brain just went blank. Because what? Like, I was just like, we did all the things, you know what I mean? And I think I remember just not saying anything. Like I was like, we can try radiation. And at this point I’m going, what? I don’t want her to deal with this bullshit anymore, this prodding and, you know, all that stuff. So when we at this point, we’re both, like, sobbing. You know he’s like, just take some time to think about it.

Katy Ripp (00:31:46) –  And think about what.

Kaitlin Payne (00:31:47) –  Right. That’s the thing. Like if you want to do radiation or what. Or basically let her go.

Katy Ripp (00:31:53) –  Yeah. Oh did they say it like that? No, not.

Kaitlin Payne (00:31:57) –  He’s just like.

Katy Ripp (00:31:58) –  Take some time.

Kaitlin Payne (00:31:59) –  To correct like with the news that you had.

Katy Ripp (00:32:02) –  Right. It’s like yeah, just let it sink in then like. Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (00:32:07) –  You know, like. And at that point it’s like, what do you like? And we looked at doctors in New York.

Kaitlin Payne (00:32:16) –  Oh, she looked at the Saint Jude place. We looked at, and I talked to so many people about this because I was like, they were like, you have a state of the art children’s hospital in your backyard.

Katy Ripp (00:32:30) –  Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (00:32:30) –  So it was there like, this is the protocol for people, kids.

Katy Ripp (00:32:35) –  Looking for this, right?

Kaitlin Payne (00:32:37) –  This is the protocol for kids with cancer. So your plan probably isn’t going to change. In Michigan, they also had a specialist. And you know what I mean. Like yeah. So we were like okay. Like what? You know what I mean. And so we walk, which felt like a mile. back to our room. We go inside and then obviously our family sees us just bawling. And then I just go and lay in this metal cage crib thing. And at this point, like, Riley is 18 months, she’s she looks at me and she’s crying and she goes, sign’s all done.

Katy Ripp (00:33:16) –  Oh my God.

Kaitlin Payne (00:33:17) –  And so I was like, that’s when it like really hit me.

Kaitlin Payne (00:33:21) –  Like she like us doing all of this stuff for her, you know. What is this? What are you know, yes, we’ve done this for the last eight months or whatever.

Katy Ripp (00:33:32) –  Yeah. Half of her life. Right. So kind of. And right.

Kaitlin Payne (00:33:36) –  Poke at her and prodded her suck things in her nose, you know? Yeah. All these things, and it’s still not working. So obviously we everyone is just, you know, screaming, crying at this point. My parents and Tyler’s parents are like, well, what do what do you guys want to do? Because we’ll drive her to anywhere. And then that’s when we had the conversation of, there’s probably not going to be enough time for you guys to get anywhere.

Katy Ripp (00:34:08) –  Did they give you any hope?

Kaitlin Payne (00:34:09) –  I mean, not enough, but not in a bad way. Yeah. Do you know what I’m saying? And I straight up asked. They all have children. A bunch of them do. What would you do for your child? And obviously he’s like, I would make them feel as comfortable as possible.

Kaitlin Payne (00:34:26) –  So that’s.

Katy Ripp (00:34:27) –  When they know the most.

Kaitlin Payne (00:34:29) –  Correct. Yeah. Like I’m not an expert in this. I don’t know what her body is doing. And clearly she’s signing all done at that point. What do you.

Katy Ripp (00:34:41) –  Guess the only way they can communicate?

Kaitlin Payne (00:34:43) –  That was kind of my sign. And she could still talk to. But like at this point she is tired. That girl is tired, right? So they were like, grace can’t get you home until Monday.

Katy Ripp (00:34:59) –  I grace the hospice. Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (00:35:01) –  So they’re like, okay, we can move you to a bigger room. We’ll get you a bed. So literally, I laid in the bed with her for probably three days straight, took one, you know, took a break, but everyone was like, you need to go, you know, take a walk a little bit. So the most I was probably away from her was like maybe ten minutes. But I also wanted, like, you know, our parents to kind of have their whatever, you know, moment with her and whatnot.

Kaitlin Payne (00:35:36) –  And I’m so thankful that she did this. And I know she did this on purpose on Monday when we were supposed to go home. The doctor said, I think it’s going to happen very soon.

Katy Ripp (00:35:48) –  Wow.

Kaitlin Payne (00:35:49) –  So that conversation we had with the doctors was on a Friday. She passed on Monday around 5:00.

Katy Ripp (00:35:56) –  Wow.

Kaitlin Payne (00:35:56) –  So the fact that they said it could be, you know, three weeks, it could be, you know.

Katy Ripp (00:36:04) –  Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (00:36:05) –  And walking into somewhere with your child and then leaving without them is probably one of the worst feelings in the entire world, if not the worst. Yeah, it was hard, but then it was kind of like you pretended that you didn’t go through it. So like, we all came to our condo in Windsor and I kind of just I went, took a shower, and I was also the next weekend was Mother’s Day. Like, I don’t think it really kicked in yet, you know what I’m saying? Like, everyone was just, do you wanna play a game? Like we sat there like.

Katy Ripp (00:36:50) –  Well, what.

Kaitlin Payne (00:36:51) –  Do you do? Right? That’s the thing.

Katy Ripp (00:36:52) –  Physically. What do.

Kaitlin Payne (00:36:53) –  You do? Think anyone knew.

Katy Ripp (00:36:56) –  What.

Kaitlin Payne (00:36:57) –  To say or to do? And I kind of was just like, what the fuck is going on? Like, it’s like somebody wake me up from this nightmare because, like, what is going on? You know, it was just like this out of body kind of experience because I remember taking a shower and I literally like. Obviously we were at the hospital, so we got some packages and I had ordered like a I think it was like a little necklace that said, like Riley or whatever. And I was like, okay, so like, what the fuck do I do with this necklace? Like, what do I do? You know, I mean, like, you’re all kind of just like, okay, let’s order pizza. Like. So we had someone brought pizza and I think we were just like, okay, like, go to bed now, like.

Kaitlin Payne (00:37:44) –  And then to be honest with you, the next probably a couple of months is a huge blur. Like, I don’t really remember her funeral like, at all. Like at all.

Katy Ripp (00:38:00) –  What kind of funeral did you have.

Kaitlin Payne (00:38:02) –  At the Waunakee?

Katy Ripp (00:38:03) –  Did you have, like, a traditional Catholic funeral? Yeah, which I.

Kaitlin Payne (00:38:08) –  Remember some of the wake because of shit that people.

Katy Ripp (00:38:13) –  Said. Oh, well, there could be a coffee table books for that.

Kaitlin Payne (00:38:16) –  That’s the thing. Like, good luck tomorrow. So good luck tomorrow. I was like, wait, what? And like. And at that point, like, and we know a lot of people, let’s just be honest. Like our family, we know a lot of people. So the line was like, yeah, out the door and you know what I mean? And like, it’s a fucking kid’s wake.

Katy Ripp (00:38:36) –  Like it’s also a child, right? So anybody that was even, like, contemplating not coming is coming. Correct. Right.

Katy Ripp (00:38:43) –  Like that’s just it’s not like, oh, they lived a really good long life, right? Like they don’t need me. There was a different story for that.

Kaitlin Payne (00:38:52) –  And you know, you sit in this line, right? You sit in this line and who.

Katy Ripp (00:38:59) –  Is all in the line with you?

Kaitlin Payne (00:39:01) –  There was it was a lot of us. Yeah, obviously me, Tyler, I parents, his parents and then our siblings, they could be in a line if they wanted to. And I think they were, because, like, we had so much support from literally anyone and everyone. Like, I think I remember my sisters like the PTO at Sunset Ridge, like gave so much stuff to Riley and you know, like that’s what you do when you go through things like this. Like your village shows up for you. And ours was obviously the best. But, you know, at some point you’re bawling because other people are bawling in your some people are fine and like, you’re laughing and like saying thanks for coming.

Kaitlin Payne (00:39:44) –  Like I love you so much. And then other people are saying, good luck tomorrow at the funeral. Like what? Like what is going on?

Katy Ripp (00:39:51) –  Please don’t.

Kaitlin Payne (00:39:52) –  Or like, everything happens for a reason. And you know that stuff which, like, this is what I’ve learned. You take nothing personal. No, I take nothing personal anymore. And I don’t expect anything literally from anyone. Yeah, like you just can’t. Yeah. Like this journey that I’m on and this one life that I have. People can worry about themselves and can say things that’s on them, not on me. But it just. It’s funny to me when I’m like.

Katy Ripp (00:40:25) –  Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (00:40:25) –  What is going on? You know what I mean? And, and I specifically remember at the funeral being really pissed off, like I was mad. I’m still in this.

Katy Ripp (00:40:36) –  Anger stage, right?

Kaitlin Payne (00:40:37) –  I am beyond pissed. Like, what the fuck are we doing here? Like, I am so mad. And someone was like, you don’t have to be so stoic all the time.

Kaitlin Payne (00:40:47) –  You can eat, right? Fuck me. You figure I was just like, I kind of, like, stared and then just walked away because I was like, what is?

Katy Ripp (00:40:56) –  Yeah, like, why would you say.

Kaitlin Payne (00:40:57) –  That to someone? But again.

Katy Ripp (00:40:59) –  Yeah, not.

Kaitlin Payne (00:41:00) –  My stuff has taught me my life before is out the window. And that’s what kind of some people have to understand. Like I am not that the same person. When you go through things like that, you are not the same person. You think you can hurt me. It’s honestly laughable.

Katy Ripp (00:41:17) –  Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (00:41:17) –  And trust me. Therapy. Go to.

Katy Ripp (00:41:20) –  Therapy. Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (00:41:21) –  Best therapist ever. She was like, you have nothing to do with other people’s thoughts or opinions or anything. And I was like, ding ding. Yeah, okay, great. Great. Thank you for freeing me.

Katy Ripp (00:41:35) –  Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (00:41:35) –  From doing, you know, all this stuff. And it’s even like a big thing was like, you know, it’s a casual conversation.

Kaitlin Payne (00:41:42) –  How many kids do you have?

Katy Ripp (00:41:43) –  Oh.

Kaitlin Payne (00:41:44) –  When you go somewhere and some people would say, I’m a homebody. I love my home time with my kids, but I also like go to these events. I go a lot of places for work. Yeah. And I’m like, do you say you have three kids? And then do you say like, oh yeah, one of them died, like, you know, like so casual, but that’s my life. Yeah, so I don’t like that.

Katy Ripp (00:42:09) –  Are you going to ask me how I am? And would you like the long story or just. I’m fine. Right? Right, right. That’s what you’re going to get is.

Kaitlin Payne (00:42:18) –  And I have, you know, and I’m like, oh, well. Oh, I thought you only said you only had two kids. I said, well, you know, when you think you’re not going to like get into it or whatever and then but like I’ll always like I’m not going to not say her name.

Kaitlin Payne (00:42:33) –  I just say like, oh yeah, our daughter passed away six years ago from cancer and they were like, oh my God. You know, they and I’m like, yeah, well, you know, we’ve raised a ton of money for pediatric cancer research. So she’s still here with us and you know. Yeah, helping us pave the way for more research and to get more kids surviving.

Katy Ripp (00:42:58) –  Yeah. So they don’t have to do that so they don’t have to answer your question. Correct. And want to cry for me. Right? Right.

Kaitlin Payne (00:43:05) –  Which is like she’s like their uncomfortableness has nothing to do with you. So you say whatever you want to say.

Katy Ripp (00:43:14) –  Yep. And like it is not your responsibility to make sure that person feels okay. Correct? Period. Correct. With anything? Yes. Anything anymore? Literally. I mean, it’s just not our responsibility as humans to make ourselves uncomfortable, to make somebody else feel comfortable. Yes. I mean, I might get that tattooed.

Kaitlin Payne (00:43:36) –  Literally real right on my forehead.

Kaitlin Payne (00:43:39) –  Excuse me.

Katy Ripp (00:43:40) –  Hello? I can.

Kaitlin Payne (00:43:41) –  See it in the.

Katy Ripp (00:43:41) –  Mirror. Dad. I’d love for you to tell me about Riley. Tell me. Like I know she would. Like every picture I’ve ever seen. She’s got this, like, amazing smile. Twinkle in her eye. Like, tell me about her. Like, tell me about any moments that, like, her humor came through or anything. I’d love to hear all of them. But, you know, we only have so much time, right?

Kaitlin Payne (00:44:06) –  She was just spoiled, like girly girl of all things. Like, obviously, like I said, with my sister’s boys, like, they. Oh my gosh, there’s the pictures of she’s kissing them and, you know, hugging them. And she would just say their names all day. And she has this like at the end of her tone of voice, it would always be higher. Heidi, Maddie and then Kai. Because Cain’s youngest. And he’s just. Kai. Yeah, but they all called her baby babe when I was pregnant with her, so.

Kaitlin Payne (00:44:42) –  And they would all, you know, the littlest Kai. He which he was five at the time when she was born. He would, you know, feel my belly when she kicked. And, you know, Riley was always like a bright light. You know what I’m saying? And they she loved them so much. She loved literally anyone that she met. They were like, oh, my gosh. Like, blowing kisses to the doctors on their rounds, going in the hospital. She would love riding the the little buggy things, and she would wave to everyone and just say hi like, you know, hi. And she would. Doc McStuffins was bigger, so she had the doctor outfit, so she would dress up for specifically this one doctor Nick, he was a resident at the time, and he would come in and she’d put her doctor coat on. And, you know, it’s just she kind of made everything better. You know what I mean? She wasn’t like if you saw her.

Kaitlin Payne (00:45:46) –  And obviously, besides the bald head, you wouldn’t be able to tell that she was sick. Yeah, she. And almost everyone was like, oh, my God, she’s afraid of hospital. No. He literally got treated like a queen at the hospital.

Katy Ripp (00:45:59) –  And she also grew up there and, like, it was like a major part of her. Correct. You know, development. Right?

Kaitlin Payne (00:46:06) –  Especially at that time when she started talking and when she started, you know what I mean? Like she played with the toys in her hospital room. We literally got like this, like, big tent. And she would sit in and think, she’s cool, but all always hooked up. Yeah, she had a wig, a princess wig that she wore, which is made out of yarn. It’s actually a company and it’s really cool. But she would That’s and really she.

Katy Ripp (00:46:31) –  Also knew no different. Right.

Kaitlin Payne (00:46:32) –  That’s the thing. Yeah. And we would still get to go to some things like her cousins games and things like that.

Kaitlin Payne (00:46:39) –  But obviously she you know the hospital was not a place of danger for her. Yeah it was a place okay I’m getting here we go. Everybody’s coming into my room. And you know everybody’s.

Katy Ripp (00:46:53) –  Doting on me and loving on.

Kaitlin Payne (00:46:55) –  Me. Yeah, yeah. And you know, obviously too was balloons. And, you know, every time she went, you know, so it was not a place of fear for her. Yeah. Let’s just say that. Well now I can walk in there. Fine. But like before, it definitely was a place of I don’t want to be here. What am I doing here? You know, things like that. But yeah, she would. Oh, she dance all the time. And she was literally so happy. Yeah, she. That’s just what you do. Aren’t you great sleeper. Loved sleeping. She loved cuddling. Would give anyone a hug or a kiss or, you know, she’s. It was literally one of the happiest babies.

Katy Ripp (00:47:35) –  Oh that’s amazing.

Katy Ripp (00:47:36) –  I mean, after all she went through. Right. But, like, right. We know she didn’t. Right. Like, we know what that looks like and what it feels like. I mean, maybe not what it feels like, but like, from a, you know, once removed, we know what that looks like and how sad it can be and whatever. But she really had no idea, right?

Kaitlin Payne (00:47:54) –  No. And she, like, could have been the crappiest baby and everyone would have been fine with it.

Katy Ripp (00:47:59) –  Right? Except she wasn’t correct. Yeah. You touched on this a little bit before about like how much it’s changed you.

Katy Ripp (00:48:06) –  As a person.

Katy Ripp (00:48:07) –  Yeah. Tell me about that. I’m just so fascinated by. Well, again, this is I’m sure that nobody likes to talk to you about it. Right? Like, I mean, I’m sure that people that are really close to you like. Right? Your family and friends that are really close and, you know, been on this journey with you, that’s a different story, right? But of course, like when you say we lost our daughter to cancer and people are like, oh, I think I need another drink.

Katy Ripp (00:48:37) –  I hear somebody’s calling or yeah, what? Tell me about that. Because again, it’s that comfort discomfort.

Kaitlin Payne (00:48:44) –  So right now like and this might sound bad, but like things that used to bug me don’t I don’t get bugged by anything anymore. I don’t. I take nothing personal. Nothing like when you if you be like, oh, like I think like you probably need to like, do a little work, like, you know what I mean? Or like, maybe like what? Like. No. Okay. Yeah. Thank you for your opinion. Right. Yeah I don’t whatever you say to me is not obvious if it’s like work or something like that. Yes I’m going to care and like put that in my thing and like try to be better with XYZ, I don’t know. And it kind of was how I raised my kids. Now I’m okay. Have your feelings go through them where we’ll be gone. Yeah. Like you go sit in those feelings. I would be like. So if someone was, you know, like, let’s stop crying.

Kaitlin Payne (00:49:39) –  Like you’re ruining it. Like, no, like we’re just. You’re gonna have the day that you’re gonna have. I’m in charge of my own happiness. And so are you. Right. And this is something I wholeheartedly believe is make your own sunshine wherever you go. You have to every day that we wake up and put one foot in front of the other and literally just get dressed is a choice some days, don’t get me wrong. Some days, like the day she passed is very hard. Like getting out of bed as hard. Just having to function to be a mom to Lincoln cam. Hard is very hard that day. Do we do it? Yes we do. Yeah. You have to show up for your kids because obviously they deserve that. And they’re young enough right now. They have no clue. They have no clue. They love talking about their sister. Yeah. They love seeing pictures of her. That’s Riley mom, I said. Yep. Yes it is. You know, things like that.

Kaitlin Payne (00:50:39) –  But people would understand if I didn’t make the choice to get out of bed. Yeah, but that’s my choice. This is how I’m choosing to live my life. Because she didn’t have a choice, right? She didn’t have a choice. She doesn’t get to do this. And, you know, there are so many people in our lives that we know that they don’t have a choice. Like my mom. Yeah. She thought so many times. And, you know. So this is my choice to wake up in the morning and make the best out of my day. Because what else are you going to do?

Katy Ripp (00:51:14) –  Yeah. What else? Choice. Right. Great. I mean, follow her, right? I suppose that’s a choice, right? Like, I suppose that crosses people’s mind, right? Did it cross.

Kaitlin Payne (00:51:25) –  Yours? Yes. Multiple times. And thank God for my husband because we kind of obviously were our own. And everybody goes through things differently, right? Yeah. You go through different things and it seemed like everything reminded.

Kaitlin Payne (00:51:43) –  me of her. So in our house, like I literally put a bed where her crib was and like, slept there. And then we kind of decided, we can’t live here anymore, like we can. I just there’s too much I can’t live here anymore. So my dad, being the super human that he is, like redid three of the bathrooms, like, you know, kind of whipped it into shape. And we sold it really fast for a good price. Then we moved in with my parents and figured out, okay, yeah, what are we going to do? Yeah. Like, what are we going to do? And obviously, like I said, at that point you don’t really want to live. What’s the point. Like your kid just died.

Katy Ripp (00:52:28) –  And you’re only.

Kaitlin Payne (00:52:29) –  Cracked. So I’m like on top of it. The whole Mother’s Day thing, it was like a seemed like oh to me like personal like double whammy like.

Katy Ripp (00:52:38) –  Five days later or something. Yeah. Oh.

Kaitlin Payne (00:52:42) –  Yeah. And I was like what is going on. You know what I mean. Like why. And then we knew obviously me and my husband were like we wanted to have more kids. And I talked to kind of because I was kind of a freak about this. I was like talking to the doctors. I’m like, what are the chances of my next kid having this? Yeah. Because otherwise, like, no. Yeah. And. Right. So then I talked to Doctor Diamond and she was like, telling me about other people’s stories about how they’ve gone on to have more kids and their kids are healthy and beautiful and fine. And she said, and you are going to have more kids who are healthy and beautiful and grow up to be old and, you know, things like that. So which that gave me a lot of hope. And, you know, and with everything that they don’t know about it, like I still I mean, that is my biggest fear obviously to this day of like and there is which again therapy This amount of guilt that I carried around with did I give this to her do like and it still is a nightmare.

Kaitlin Payne (00:53:53) –  I mean wise, but you have to walk yourself out of that because it’s a very, very dark corner. Like I grew her inside of me. What did I do if she had that? Was she born with it? Did she have it in utero? Did she just get it when she would? They can’t tell me. Yeah. You can’t.

Katy Ripp (00:54:16) –  And when you have no answers, you have no answers.

Kaitlin Payne (00:54:19) –  The mind.

Katy Ripp (00:54:19) –  Fuck, yeah. It’s just like a constant, perpetual question, right? Correct. So tell me about your mom. Because when was that?

Kaitlin Payne (00:54:28) –  So Riley passed away.

Katy Ripp (00:54:31) –  It’s not enough to, like, lose your child, right?

Kaitlin Payne (00:54:35) –  I lost my child, my grandma and my mom three years in a row.

Katy Ripp (00:54:40) –  Oh my God. All the same, like, around the same time. Spring.

Kaitlin Payne (00:54:44) –  My mom was in December.

Katy Ripp (00:54:45) –  Oh, yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (00:54:47) –  I mean, I.

Katy Ripp (00:54:47) –  Remember specifically when I heard that your mom had cancer and I was like, used to like, which was, are you fucking serious?

Kaitlin Payne (00:54:56) –  June of 2018.

Kaitlin Payne (00:54:59) –  So Riley passed in May, that June. And then she got diagnosed in June.

Katy Ripp (00:55:04) –  Well, she’s sick, so I mean, she was probably breathing so hard that she didn’t fucking know, right?

Kaitlin Payne (00:55:10) –  That’s what they were thinking. So we literally were going up to the Dells. They do like the BCA for basketball. I don’t know The Wisconsin Basketball Coaches Association or something does like a game because.

Katy Ripp (00:55:23) –  The coach.

Kaitlin Payne (00:55:23) –  Right. Not a basketball coach is a baseball coach.

Katy Ripp (00:55:26) –  But yeah that’s right.

Kaitlin Payne (00:55:27) –  But they were really strong on the back of their jerseys for the game for the like the all star game. And then one of the coaches wanted his money to go. He’s a local Waunakee coach now. He put Riley strong on the back of the shirts for us and, you know, donated the money. All goes to pediatric cancer awareness and stuff like that. We were literally on our way up to the Dells for this game, and my mom calls and says, and mind you, they’re coming to the game, too, because everybody’s, you know, going to be there for Ali.

Kaitlin Payne (00:56:05) –  She goes, So I have pancreatic cancer. And I was like, excuse me. In the car. I’m like, tush, stop the car, turn around. We’re going home. She’s like, no, you’re not. We’re going to the game. I’ll be up to my own. We’re going to the game. And I’m just sitting there like in my head again, what the fuck? Like what is going on? Like, this is a joke. You know, this is a joke, right? Like this is like what?

Katy Ripp (00:56:31) –  Yeah. Like what? The actual fuck.

Kaitlin Payne (00:56:34) –  And then they literally gave her 9 to 11 months. They were like, this is pancreatic cancer. It’s, you know, you don’t do surgery for that because it’s so the tumor or whatever where it goes.

Katy Ripp (00:56:47) –  It’s not it’s Super Bowl. Right? Yeah. Or if it is, it’s correct. Bad. Right.

Kaitlin Payne (00:56:52) –  You run the risk of, you know, whatever. Yeah. So thank God for the Carbon Cancer Center doctor Sam.

Kaitlin Payne (00:57:00) –  He got our mom prolonged until what cam was born in. Yeah. 21. So she died in December of 2020.

Katy Ripp (00:57:11) –  Oh, you were pregnant with cam.

Kaitlin Payne (00:57:13) –  Right after two night on, December 27th, and I found out probably the next week and that. So I found out that I had Covid and was pregnant on the same day, and we pushed back her funeral. Me and Tyler. So yeah, what a spin with that. But she got, you know, extra time because chemo went so good. And don’t get me wrong, there was times where she was like £80 and we were all like, okay, this is, this is it. And which, mind you, her struggles are obviously she’s an adult. We’re all like like, what is going on? What? You know what I mean? And she could, you know, tell us if she wasn’t feeling good and, you know, things like. And she did and all this, you know, time and that was like Covid.

Kaitlin Payne (00:58:02) –  So you couldn’t go to the hospital with her.

Katy Ripp (00:58:05) –  Yeah. Could you. Dad? No. Oh my God. Like, what? A different experience, right? Like, you could have had 30 people in in Riley’s room, right? And then she was alone. Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (00:58:17) –  And she literally. And it doesn’t even make to me. I’m like, what? Just like a different type of heartbreak. Because obviously she’s been through so much. She could have just said no. Like, I’m just going to use this time that I have, like, we got to go to the beach, we got to go to Florida. We took a big family vacation in the fall of 2018, and that’s what she wanted. She wanted to go to the beach. That’s her favorite place. So we went to get a house on the beach, went to the beach, spent time together. Obviously that was Link’s first plane ride and, you know, things like that. But the whole Covid thing, I will say, like there was no like if she was sleeping, we didn’t know, like we told her to rest and like, hey, call me when you can.

Kaitlin Payne (00:59:06) –  And we had a couple of times that we were scared and it was like, I remember being Thanksgiving weekend and I was home with Linc. My husband went hunting and we were talking to the doctors and they’re like, I literally had to ask, how bad is this? Like, is she going to die in there alone? Or what are you saying? And they were like, well, it’s really it’s a close call. Like it’s she’s not doing well. And I remember being like, what the fuck? If she dies in there with no one, I will lose my shit, right? And thank God for my brother in law, Tim. So, you know, obviously she got through that, right. Thanksgiving. Now it’s Christmas. She’s in again. She’s got her just things with cancer like they put a stint in and it was like draining some fluid. But that was getting backed up. And you know, it was just getting really bad where she couldn’t keep anything down, you know, things like that.

Kaitlin Payne (01:00:02) –  He does what he does. Pulled some strings and talk about Tim. He gets a grace to come on Christmas Day. We picked her up from the hospital at 8 a.m. on Christmas morning. Brought her home. They were there later in the afternoon. She passed away December 27th at home. Yes. Surrounded by all of us. Which is what she wanted. And what’s the alternative. Alone.

Katy Ripp (01:00:34) –  Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (01:00:35) –  Alone.

Katy Ripp (01:00:36) –  Like what. Right. Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (01:00:39) –  Like which was completely different than obviously rally which I was like so so so freaking thankful that she passed away in the hospital. And I know she did that for me. I just know it. Yeah. My mom, I want we all wanted her home, and that’s where she wanted to. Which, you know, that doesn’t it doesn’t have those same kind of a.

Katy Ripp (01:00:59) –  Year and a half. Yes. Okay. Oh, that’s a lot. I mean, that was a long time because 9.

Kaitlin Payne (01:01:04) –  To 11 months and then.

Katy Ripp (01:01:05) –  Right. Because it sort of sounded like a death sentence.

Katy Ripp (01:01:07) –  Correct. Beginning. Right. Yeah. Right.

Kaitlin Payne (01:01:10) –  Well, let’s get this at bay.

Katy Ripp (01:01:11) –  Yeah. Let’s. Right. Let’s just make her comfortable. Let’s. Yeah. So that was a long time.

Kaitlin Payne (01:01:16) –  And she obviously did I’m pretty sure she did things that she didn’t want to do. If it was just her and my dad. I think she would have been like, Dennis. Like I’m good. I’ve fought so many other things. Yeah, like I’m good, but we like, I just had Lincoln in June of 2019 and, you know, she kept going. She kept my dad would like, carry her like she used a walker, you know what I mean? She did things that she necessarily don’t think. In her heart of hearts was like, oh, my God. Like, she was so tired. But she knew that she wanted to be around for us. I mean, selfishly, I wanted her around.

Katy Ripp (01:01:57) –  To, you know.

Kaitlin Payne (01:01:58) –  Meet my kid, like, you know what I mean? And it kind of popped into my head the other day and it made me really sad, is my mom does not have a picture with my kids all in the same picture with Riley.

Katy Ripp (01:02:10) –  Oh, like they’re all not all three together. Yeah. Or even cute.

Kaitlin Payne (01:02:14) –  Yeah, like she especially she has a picture with Lincoln. Nothing with cam, but it’s not even like where the boys can hold Riley in a picture frame or hold it on in a picture frame, but like, yeah, that will never happen. And I was like, oh, that’s really messed up. Yeah. Like, so how old.

Katy Ripp (01:02:35) –  Is your mom?

Kaitlin Payne (01:02:36) –  She was 64.

Katy Ripp (01:02:39) –  Early 60s.

Kaitlin Payne (01:02:40) –  Yes. Well, my dad just turned 70 and choose porn and 666 maybe. Yes.

Katy Ripp (01:02:48) –  5056.

Kaitlin Payne (01:02:49) –  Yeah. Yes. 56. Yeah, yeah. You’re right. So. Yeah. And apparently like breast cancer and pancreatic are linked.

Katy Ripp (01:02:56) –  Oh I didn’t know what.

Kaitlin Payne (01:02:57) –  Yeah I didn’t either until, you know, this whole shitstorm.

Katy Ripp (01:03:01) –  I’m not sure if you know that Dahl’s dad passed away when he was just 59. And, like, I know how bad.

Katy Ripp (01:03:08) –  That fucked up.

Katy Ripp (01:03:09) –  Our family, right? Like, not in a, like, grief is just so not linear.

Katy Ripp (01:03:16) –  No, not at all. And time is not linear. And grief makes people do fucked up things. Grief is like probably the most under researched. I don’t like until you go through grief. I don’t know that there’s really any way to explain it or explain the behaviors around it and not to compare. But this just wasn’t your mom, right? This is also a child. So like mom child and then grandma.

Kaitlin Payne (01:03:50) –  Yeah, well, Graham was in between.

Katy Ripp (01:03:53) –  Oh, grandma was in between. Yes. Okay. And that was your mom’s mom 19.

Kaitlin Payne (01:03:57) –  Yeah. Yeah. Which is the matriarch of. Yes, the Simon family. Yeah. What, like we go.

Katy Ripp (01:04:05) –  That’s a little bit more acceptable. Correct? All right. Like it seems more acceptable. Should there be varying degrees of death and acceptance? Maybe not. Who knows, but it’s your.

Kaitlin Payne (01:04:15) –  Grandma, so it makes sense.

Katy Ripp (01:04:16) –  Well, it makes sense. Like. Like when you came on here. It’s just like you should not outlive your children, right? Like, that’s just.

Katy Ripp (01:04:23) –  It’s not the order of things. Correct. So even your mom. Right. Like, certainly you don’t outlive your grandchildren. Yeah. right. So like that kind of right. It’s just, I mean, death is very.

Katy Ripp (01:04:35) –  Fickle anyway.

Katy Ripp (01:04:36) –  And we all know we’re going to die. Or we should. Yeah, because we do. Right. But that kind of like that kind of grief. Does it compound?

Kaitlin Payne (01:04:46) –  I mean, I feel like it did because there’s definitely.

Katy Ripp (01:04:50) –  I mean, like you have like a front row seat to this. So I’m very curious if you think it was.

Kaitlin Payne (01:04:56) –  I mean, my grandmas, I think it was obviously like things made sense. She was very old. She lived a great life. We all got to go in and say goodbye to her.

Katy Ripp (01:05:08) –  My grandchildren got.

Katy Ripp (01:05:10) –  To say goodbye. Correct. Yeah. And great grandchildren.

Kaitlin Payne (01:05:12) –  Yes. Yeah. Everybody. And what she told me and I literally like, have a video of this because one of my cousins took a video.

Kaitlin Payne (01:05:19) –  She’s like, I’m sorry that you had to be so strong right now. And she always called me Caitlin. She never call me Kate. I’m so sorry what you had to go through and how strong you had to be when you’re doing it. I was like, grandma, don’t say that right now. I said, I just I love you and, you know, whatever. I said something about eating Bologna sandwiches with her at her pool, whatever. Whatever. But that just shows you what kind of grandma she was and what kind of person she was always thinking about everyone else. But like that stretch. If I didn’t get pregnant so fast with Lincoln, I think it was like the second try.

Katy Ripp (01:05:58) –  Which is interesting because it took you a year. So yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (01:06:01) –  That’s why I was like, this is nuts. Like how? And honestly, everybody talks about oh yeah, that being your rainbow baby. And obviously you never replace, you know, people who ever even think about saying that about, oh, you shouldn’t have a baby to replace.

Kaitlin Payne (01:06:15) –  I mean, like, no, you don’t even know what you’re talking about. He probably saved my life in more ways than one. And now he’s a five year old and it’s, you know, crazy. Yeah. To think like. And he’s just my kid that basically saved my life. Which and my other reason was like, my family has gone through so much shit. Yeah. And so much stuff. I would never do that to them.

Katy Ripp (01:06:39) –  Oh yeah. Like in.

Kaitlin Payne (01:06:40) –  My brain, I.

Katy Ripp (01:06:41) –  Was nice. That’s nice of you.

Kaitlin Payne (01:06:43) –  Like like, no, I could never you know what I mean?

Katy Ripp (01:06:46) –  But I.

Kaitlin Payne (01:06:47) –  I remember like that summer one memory specific. We were all out at Sport Bowl for some stupid reason, right? Yeah, yeah. And I just I think it was weird because you just get treated differently after your kid dies, whether you like it or not. Right. Yeah. And I came home and I was crying, and she’s like, what’s wrong? And I was like, I want to be normal.

Kaitlin Payne (01:07:13) –  I just want to be normal. And she was like, I know what, that’s not the plate you were given. Your grandma said that? No. My mom. Oh, your.

Katy Ripp (01:07:21) –  Mom? Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (01:07:22) –  She knows that’s not your reality. Yeah. So it’s okay to cry about it.

Katy Ripp (01:07:29) –  But say goodbye, sister. Right. Like those days are over. Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (01:07:34) –  And I think she that did, you know, do the same. Like she got cancer. Then her kid got cancer. Then her grandkid got. You know what I’m saying? And we know what tragedy is in our big family, right? We do. We just. But when you really say you never think it will happen to you, you don’t. I can never in a million years did I picture my life like this when I met Tyler in Minnesota. Like, oh, yeah, you know me together, and we’re gonna go through all this fucked up shit.

Katy Ripp (01:08:06) –  Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (01:08:07) –  No, not at all.

Katy Ripp (01:08:08) –  Well, no.

Katy Ripp (01:08:09) –  You think it’s going to be like sunshine and rainbows for your entire life, right? Yeah. And, I mean, I’m older than you, and you will get this, or you’re already at this point, like, you don’t get to 45 or apparently.

Katy Ripp (01:08:19) –  35.

Katy Ripp (01:08:20) –  Unscathed, right? Right. Like, if you do, something is coming. You’re like, either in it, right? You’re about to be in it or you just got through it. There is just nothing. Life just doesn’t go that way. And until you have the tools to deal with it, it’s a real bitch. Correct. I want to ask you about Tyler. Yeah, like, how do you do that together? How do you I this is going to sound really like. And maybe it’s TMI and you want to cut it. That’s totally fine. But, like, how do you have sex again to make another baby? Great, right? Like, how do you get to a point where you’re not, like, angry and or I’m assuming at some point, like, maybe you blamed each other or maybe you never got there.

Katy Ripp (01:09:04) –  You know, but I think that is one thing that people really struggle with in marriage, for sure. I can’t even imagine. I don’t know the statistic, but I would imagine it’s really high for breakups.

Kaitlin Payne (01:09:14) –  And yes, it is divorce rates for if you have a child who is fast are faster, very high.

Katy Ripp (01:09:19) –  Yeah. So I mean they’re high enough already but like.

Kaitlin Payne (01:09:23) –  Serious.

Katy Ripp (01:09:23) –  Probably astronomical.

Kaitlin Payne (01:09:25) –  No. So at first it was definitely like weird. But we really like were a forefront together. Yeah. We said like we also did therapy together okay. With it being separate too. Yeah. So and we kind of let each other be each other. Because if you don’t, if you’re trying like he’s really into outdoors, loves to hunt, you know, all that stuff, that’s your passion. You go do you. And that has I think helped us because then we’re more coherent when we’re both are humans first. You know what I’m saying? Like, you know, and obviously, yes, things change when you get married and what you give up, things you just do, that’s marriage.

Kaitlin Payne (01:10:10) –  But like we are. So now like you learn a really big lesson, like life is really short, obviously. And like you said, time is all you have. So what do you do with that? Time is literally the most valuable thing in the world. So if you want to go hunting and do that, perfect, Great. And that, I think, is kind of how we meshed together so well. And we the fact we let each other be each other unapologetically. Yeah. That’s the way love works. Yeah. It’s not. No, you can’t go there. Okay, let’s try to figure it out. No, you can’t go to a baseball game like. And he writes a long Facebook post about me, you know, thanking me every year for letting him coach.

Katy Ripp (01:10:59) –  Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (01:11:00) –  We just figure it out because I know it makes him happy and it makes me happy seeing him happy and doing what he loves.

Katy Ripp (01:11:08) –  Which is.

Kaitlin Payne (01:11:08) –  Coaching. And I know he loves being a teacher.

Kaitlin Payne (01:11:12) –  Otherwise he wouldn’t like, let’s be honest. So and he knows that I would love to stay at home and just put on a movie and, you know, cuddle my kids and then go to bed.

Katy Ripp (01:11:24) –  It’s amazing.

Kaitlin Payne (01:11:25) –  It’s amazing. Like, do you know? I think.

Katy Ripp (01:11:28) –  One of the most important things you said earlier that I think ties into this is.

Katy Ripp (01:11:33) –  You just don’t take anything personally.

Katy Ripp (01:11:35) –  Yeah. From your husband. Right? Exactly. He’s not out to get you by going and coaching or going out and doing the things he loves. It’s not like he’s leaving you. I mean, when you don’t take things personally, it has to be blanket. Yeah. Personal. Correct. And what a saving grace. Yeah. I mean, it’s probably saved your marriage. Probably say I mean, possibly saved your life, right? Save relationships and friends and. Yeah. Yeah. And people are different after. Of course. Tell me about that.

Kaitlin Payne (01:12:08) –  So obviously I said I like he kind of is like more into things now.

Kaitlin Payne (01:12:12) –  Like is a little more perturbed about some things than I am. And who knows, maybe he would be. We’ve never had a five year old before, so maybe it’s, you know, that.

Katy Ripp (01:12:23) –  Way would have been that way anyway, right? Like it’s hard to know, right? Like you don’t know.

Kaitlin Payne (01:12:27) –  I mean, he’s always been this caring, loving, emotional guy that I fell in love with when I was in college. So, I mean, I don’t think our relationship has actually I mean, like, if there’s something we’re very passionate about, the other is going to back us 1,050%. Like, that’s just what our understanding is like, we’re in this together. This is the forever thing. Like we’re each other’s best friends. Like that’s what. You know what I mean? Like, that’s how it goes.

Katy Ripp (01:12:58) –  And that doesn’t come without a lot of work, though.

Kaitlin Payne (01:13:02) –  Oh, correct. You have to be really honest. Yeah, with yourself and your partner.

Katy Ripp (01:13:08) –  And I’m sure people will look at you and be like, well, you’re very lucky you found that person.

Katy Ripp (01:13:11) –  I mean, look, might have something to do with it, but you’ve also worked really hard. I mean, the fact that you went to therapy, the fact that he went to therapy, the fact that you both like, allow the other one to do what they are meant to do in his life is a huge testament.

Kaitlin Payne (01:13:27) –  Honestly, like, if I got mad every time he went hunting or.

Katy Ripp (01:13:33) –  Well, and it’s not personal. Correct. That’s the.

Kaitlin Payne (01:13:35) –  Thing. It’s like you only have so much.

Katy Ripp (01:13:38) –  Time in.

Kaitlin Payne (01:13:40) –  This world. You do what makes you happy. You don’t get that time back, and you don’t get those opportunities back. You don’t? Yeah, we don’t get that. Oh, wait, I’d like that 30 minutes that I, you know. No, do what you want right now. Do it. That’s my advice. Do it. Yeah. Like, what are you waiting for? Yeah. Because there’s never a good time for things, you know, to happen or whatever.

Kaitlin Payne (01:14:09) –  You know, there’s never going to be a, you know, the ultimate time to like, we have a young kids and life is, like, really hard sometimes. Okay. Yeah.

Katy Ripp (01:14:19) –  You’re in a season. You’re in it to win it, man.

Kaitlin Payne (01:14:22) –  Right.

Katy Ripp (01:14:22) –  How old are your kids right now.

Kaitlin Payne (01:14:23) –  Five.

Katy Ripp (01:14:24) –  Five and almost three. Yeah. And that’s an intense time right. My kids are 15 and 12. There’s no end in sight, I promise. Oh, right. Like you don’t want to wish that season away, for sure, but, like, when you get out of car seats, man.

Kaitlin Payne (01:14:40) –  Are the car seats.

Katy Ripp (01:14:42) –  So.

Kaitlin Payne (01:14:43) –  Gross? Oh, my God, there’s so many goldfish in there. Turtles, whatever the heck. We have frickin gross food on fruit snacks.

Katy Ripp (01:14:54) –  Just throw that motherfucker away when you’re really. So you don’t think you do not want it.

Kaitlin Payne (01:15:00) –  But that’s the hard thing. It’s like. Or if, like, I went shopping, you’d get like, no.

Kaitlin Payne (01:15:07) –  Yeah, that’s not how it works. Like, we both know what we bring to the table. Yeah. And our strengths and our weaknesses. So that’s how you mesh. And you have to figure that out. You figure that out real quickly after you go through something like this. And everyone’s like, oh yeah, makes you stronger in the long run or whatever the heck people like to say. You know, we were actually really very weak for like. And then that’s what we chose to do. Yeah. You had to choose that because it just doesn’t.

Katy Ripp (01:15:41) –  Do you remember that as a choice at all? Like, do you remember making a choice? Like, I have a choice here.

Kaitlin Payne (01:15:47) –  And I mean, not really, because I don’t think it was ever like we were like hand in hand.

Katy Ripp (01:15:54) –  Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (01:15:55) –  Just an.

Katy Ripp (01:15:55) –  Unspoken choice. Yeah. Correct.

Kaitlin Payne (01:15:57) –  And like, there might have been days where, like, I literally couldn’t get out of bed. T takes the brunt of that.

Kaitlin Payne (01:16:06) –  Yeah. He is having a day. I take the brunt of that. And it’s not tit for tat because if you do that.

Katy Ripp (01:16:12) –  Yeah that’s over. Just like please stop taking score. Correct.

Kaitlin Payne (01:16:17) –  This is like a I’m going to pick you up when you’re down. You’re going to pick me up when I’m down. And it’s a trust. It’s not a. Yeah. Oh last week you did this. So this week I’m going to do that. No. Yeah. So just all oh we’ve, I knew that I wanted to marry him literally the second that I met him.

Katy Ripp (01:16:39) –  Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (01:16:40) –  So it was just I was like well you’re stuck with me so and.

Katy Ripp (01:16:43) –  You really know because we got to be.

Kaitlin Payne (01:16:45) –  Like right.

Katy Ripp (01:16:46) –  And I need help. Right. Yeah. Tell me about really strong the golf outing. Okay. All of the things because it’s not just the golf. Right, right.

Kaitlin Payne (01:16:56) –  So around for Riley. So we were like, we have to give back. Like we have to.

Katy Ripp (01:17:02) –  Help did around. I’m sorry to interrupt it around for Riley start the first year. So it was like six months later. Was that your idea?

Kaitlin Payne (01:17:10) –  We kind of just were like, what? Do we want to do something. What do we do? Yeah. And we’re like, obviously, you know, my brother in law had played in a lot of charity golf tournament and things like that. He’s like, you make it what it is. Yeah. So we were like, all right, yeah, be that fucking hurt. So let’s go. It has become I won’t say like standardized, but now it’s just me and my sister Kelsey. She does a lot of work on it. I’m very thankful for her because she takes on, you know, a lot of jobs and responsibility when it comes to that. We wanted it to be around her birthday, not on her birthday will never be on her birthday. It’s always the first Friday in October, and we just wanted a place to one celebrate her life because obviously she deserves that.

Kaitlin Payne (01:18:05) –  We kind of were like, you know, people are asking us all the time like, what can we do to help with XYZ? So we’re like, okay, this first date. And we wanted we knew we wanted to give back because there was no funding. Yeah. For pediatric cancer, like literally the funding is it’s actually sickening. And you can earmark things all the time. Yeah. Like in which at the children’s hospital, if you wanted to go to certain things like child life, which gives them toys to play with and things like that. Otherwise you can say like what they most need it to. But then with obviously my brother in law’s affiliation with the cancer center, which is affiliated directly with American Family Children’s Hospital, we said, why not give it to the cancer center so they can strictly do pediatric cancer research.

Katy Ripp (01:19:01) –  And you can earmark it? Yeah. That specifically. That’s amazing. Yes. Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (01:19:06) –  Then and now just become this full blown, you know the doctors come out and talk.

Kaitlin Payne (01:19:12) –  Doctor Bailey is awesome. He literally has talked for the last 3 or 4 years. And it’s really, I think, nice for the people who are at the golf outing to hear him talk, just so we know where the money is going, because, I mean, yes, it is a golf outing. It’s a good time, right? Yeah. It fills up so fast. It’s just it’s crazy. And we do want everybody to have fun. That’s like, this is not a sit here and cry. And you know for me about this thing, that’s the exact opposite of what we want. We want fun. We want you to be here because we were celebrating her life and her memory and, you know, things like that. Her picture is in the American Family Children’s Hospital next to Cindy Crawford. Oh, yes. Yeah. So Cindy Crawford’s brother or some sibling was treated.

Katy Ripp (01:20:10) –  Oh, I did not know that.

Kaitlin Payne (01:20:11) –  Yeah, it’s something along those lines. And so she obviously donated a ton of money there.

Kaitlin Payne (01:20:18) –  So but then obviously then Riley’s picture and plaque is next door. We haven’t gotten to seen it yet because of Covid and all the restrictions they’ve put on there, but we are hopefully going to go to see it in the next coming months. So she’s making her mark and I think she probably will for a very long time. Yeah. So yeah around for Ali is it’s just fun. It’s fun to be there. There’s Willow and Weld comes. Yeah.

Katy Ripp (01:20:48) –  It’s your silent auction is amazing.

Kaitlin Payne (01:20:50) –  Yeah. You know.

Katy Ripp (01:20:51) –  If somebody wanted to donate in Riley’s name, is there a way to do that?

Kaitlin Payne (01:20:56) –  Yes, it’s all on. It’s just around for Riley.

Katy Ripp (01:21:01) –  Riley? Yes, yes. We’ll definitely put that in the show notes to. Okay, how about going forward? What does life look like? I know you’re in that, like, intense kid time. Yeah, I would imagine that some people that are listening to this or possibly going through this know somebody that is. Are you interested in talking about it forever? Are you interested in doing something with it? Are you not there yet?

Kaitlin Payne (01:21:27) –  No, I’m definitely interested in talking.

Kaitlin Payne (01:21:30) –  I mean, I think it’s if you can’t talk to people about it, like, to me, I want to help as many people as I can with this stuff. This happened to me. Okay. And if it’s also happening to you, having someone who has been through it might, you know, help. You might, I don’t. It all depends on your, you know, what you’re going through and whatever. But to me, I’ll always be connected to this. I will. And with my new job right now, I am the HR and Project Management Director for Brand Tech. and we also partner with Guarding Against Cancer. Oh yeah, so I set up all the basketball games very cool around. So I get to work with guarding against cancer for right now and go around. And it helps obviously, that there’s a kind of a history there. And that’s why my boss was like, you know, I knew you’d be perfect for this job. So here it is. You know, so, you know, it’s just when you have a story, I’m not afraid to tell my story or afraid to tell her story.

Kaitlin Payne (01:22:37) –  Right. Like that’s just not who I am. And if I wasn’t, that’s fine. If I didn’t want to share a story, then I wouldn’t. So I will always be connected to it. Yeah.

Katy Ripp (01:22:47) –  I think you mentioned therapy a couple of times. Is there anything else that’s really helped you?

Kaitlin Payne (01:22:52) –  Oh, so I started working out. Yeah. Like it’s just I started doing. Actually, my friend Lauren was like, hey, do you want to just try working out? And so I ended up working out with a bunch of girls on or women on zoom. Yeah. When this whole stuff was going down, we had it was obviously more back then because of Covid and whatnot. Like, you know, if I don’t move my body, I’m crappy. You don’t want to deal with me. Like, it’s just kind of like a mental thing, because it’s more like an expressive kind of like lift, heavy weight and kind of. The first program that I did was a boxing one, and I literally took that very seriously, like, and I actually got a bag some of it.

Kaitlin Payne (01:23:40) –  And I was so beyond frustrated that I just beat the shit out of the back. Shit out of it and helpful.

Katy Ripp (01:23:48) –  Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (01:23:48) –  Oh, God. Yeah, yeah. Obviously mentally, emotionally and with my health. Yeah. You know, journey I ended up I think it lost like £30, £35 like it was crazy because obviously and I still am this way. I’m an emotional eater. When I’m sad, please give me a casserole like dad. Can you make me some potatoes and ham, please?

Katy Ripp (01:24:18) –  I mean, I’m the same. And I love, like, this sounds horrible, but I love funeral food. Oh, yeah. Right. Like all the funerals. Right. Like the cheesy potatoes. You know, again, we’re from Wisconsin, so funeral food is a real thing here. Like, I think it’s a real thing everywhere. But we’re not like in Louisiana. No. Right. Like where they have, like, cool funeral, funeral food. This is like.

Kaitlin Payne (01:24:37) –  No, this is like meat potatoes.

Katy Ripp (01:24:39) –  Yeah. Tater tot casserole. All the desserts. Yeah. Hit me all the funeral food.

Kaitlin Payne (01:24:44) –  Right. The strawberry pretzel dessert. I’m like, dad, can you please just.

Katy Ripp (01:24:48) –  Make.

Kaitlin Payne (01:24:48) –  Anything in the polka dot casserole dish, please? Yep, yep. Whatever you say. You know what I mean? So. Yeah. Or, like, I think I asked my one of my aunts, can you make me your macaroni and cheese? Well, of course.

Katy Ripp (01:25:01) –  Yes, I.

Kaitlin Payne (01:25:02) –  Can, of course.

Katy Ripp (01:25:03) –  Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (01:25:03) –  So that’s the thing. Let me ask.

Katy Ripp (01:25:06) –  You about your family. How is everybody? Right. Like, I know you’ve got four nephews, right? And they were super close to Riley. And that’s hard to lose a cousin. Right. Like there’s just. Well. And I think it was more like their sister.

Kaitlin Payne (01:25:19) –  It was crazy to I mean, watching them navigate I mean, the oldest one, Alden, is going to be 20 here in a couple of days.

Katy Ripp (01:25:29) –  Really?

Kaitlin Payne (01:25:30) –  I know, isn’t that crazy? And 20.

Katy Ripp (01:25:34) –  Oh, wow.

Kaitlin Payne (01:25:35) –  And they’re just so like. And he. Happy Mother’s day Kate. You know, like texting and like they all just they’re very well brought up boys and obviously watching them kind of navigate this whole scenario because they all they lost a cousin. Then they lost their great grandma and then they lost their grandma. Yeah.

Katy Ripp (01:25:58) –  They and their mom lost their mom and their mom lost their niece. Right. And, you know, I mean, there is a lot of, again, a lot of bags of grief that go along with that. And it changes those kids lives. It just changes them. Right. Like my kids were different. My kids were only five and eight when al died. But my kids were different before. Yeah, just like death just changes you. It’s a part of life, but death changes you. Period.

Kaitlin Payne (01:26:27) –  Yeah. And their dad, Tim, usually always talks to at the golf outing. And he is like a big proponent of perspective.

Kaitlin Payne (01:26:37) –  He’s like, you could do this, you guys, or you could do this. You know, you could lay in bed all day or you could like. And he always like said, rather you would choose to get up and go move and go do this. So and then but yeah, watching their parents go through it because some of my sister Kelsey was in Chicago and Riley was going through her chemo, and she would come up whenever she could, obviously. Yeah. But then Kendra would, you know, come to the hospital, bring the boys, and, you know, she’d come and hang out during the day and, you know, all those things. So, yeah, they just they’re all, you know, and the littlest one is he just got a sixth grade. So and he I think they were obviously they would have sleepovers with her at my parents house and you know, they would, you know, little kids hang together. So it’s like yeah, you know, they are still in that like get Ted mode, you know what I mean? Which I’m always like, should I send them pictures? Should I want, you know, and they, you know, have their moments when they talk about it and then they don’t because, yeah, they’re still there, I Imagine being that.

Katy Ripp (01:27:45) –  Yeah. They’ve been like in their teen, you know, like little kid lives up to teens. And, you know, they become very self-absorbed too. And that’s exactly how it’s supposed to be. So by all means. But no. I’ve seen photos, you know, over the years, and it just like they are such good boys. I don’t know them personally, but, like, you could just tell that they’re just, you know, their sister really well and him. and they’re just it’s just a good family. So. And it’s very hard to see bad things happen to good families. That is like while it’s reality, it’s not fun. Oh of course, like, it’s not it’s not easy even from I mean, I’m not in any way saying like, oh, you should feel bad for me because I feel bad for you. But like, it’s a very it’s just hard to see stuff like this happen. But then you see things like around for Riley. Right. Which it just.

Katy Ripp (01:28:37) –  And you see the outpouring of support and you see that people are very engaged and and again, right. Like it’s a golf holiday. Right. Like we’re all here for the fun. And I get like, don’t get me wrong, I love me a good golf outing. But when the doctor talks everybody shuts up. Right. Like it is really important for that to be like at the forefront with the side of fun, right? Right. Or vice versa or whatever it is. Oh, and.

Kaitlin Payne (01:29:04) –  I should say, like with the Boys, its initial show, like the where they grew up and stuff. Their friends like all know about Riley and things like that, which, you know, they have a choice not to talk like maybe it really makes them sad. So. And I never want to make them or whatever. But like, not all the news in college. All of his buddies came to around for Ali and then we went out together. Yeah. So it’s just like.

Katy Ripp (01:29:31) –  And then we’ll just continue, right? Like their kids will know about Riley.

Katy Ripp (01:29:35) –  They’re like, it is a it just that kind of thing. When you can find the positive in it, when you can shine some light on it, when you can be thankful and grateful for the time that you had. It does spread. I mean, I hope it spreads faster and deeper correct than the other way, right? Because there’s other ways.

Kaitlin Payne (01:29:56) –  Well, and also giving them space to have shitty days and having it’s okay if you are sad about this today because I’m sad too. Like I always there. they’re always there for me, I think. And this was even in a went to the race for research. It’s something that the Carbon Cancer Center does. And there’s a picture of me and I’m leaning on Hudson and he has his arm around me, and I remember him saying, it’s okay, it’s okay. Like so they are all protectors of.

Katy Ripp (01:30:27) –  Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (01:30:28) –  All of us.

Katy Ripp (01:30:29) –  The tallest boys on Earth. Oh, they all look like protectors tonight.

Kaitlin Payne (01:30:35) –  It’s so crazy to me.

Kaitlin Payne (01:30:36) –  I was like, you were literally felt like yesterday. You were sitting on my lap. Yeah.

Katy Ripp (01:30:41) –  Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (01:30:41) –  And now you.

Katy Ripp (01:30:42) –  Are. Time marches on, you know.

Kaitlin Payne (01:30:44) –  18 year old making, you know, all your own decisions, and you couldn’t turn out to be a better person. So it’s just crazy. But they are, you know, they’re amazing boys.

Katy Ripp (01:30:58) –  And you said Kelsey just had her scan and she’s free. Yes. Yep, yep. Amazing.

Kaitlin Payne (01:31:01) –  Building the house with her husband. Yep. And she’s a stepdaughter who was literally three days apart from link. Oh. So.

Katy Ripp (01:31:10) –  Yeah. And Kendra is good. I mean, she’s watching all those boys.

Kaitlin Payne (01:31:13) –  I know she’s.

Katy Ripp (01:31:14) –  Leave the nest. Right.

Kaitlin Payne (01:31:15) –  Gonna say that way?

Katy Ripp (01:31:16) –  Whichever way.

Kaitlin Payne (01:31:18) –  Stevens Point or watch it. Someone was here. Someone was there. And your dad. Oh, gosh. Geez. I joke with everyone. I’m like, he has a busier social schedule than I do. Like when I call him to like.

Katy Ripp (01:31:31) –  Hey, you want to do something?

Kaitlin Payne (01:31:32) –  Do you want to babysit? And he was like, no, I can’t. It’s like, oh, damn it. Like he’s like, well, I’m actually going to Remington’s for fish with. I’m like.

Katy Ripp (01:31:42) –  Okay. I mean, I wanted to do that, too.

Kaitlin Payne (01:31:45) –  Like, I guess I have to bring my kids out. No, duh. You take them over. But he just turned 70, okay? And he is, you know, just living man or whatever. You’re like Matthew McConaughey.

Katy Ripp (01:31:59) –  Yeah. Literally. So.

Kaitlin Payne (01:32:01) –  Yeah, he golfs and go watch length. He retired.

Katy Ripp (01:32:04) –  Yes. Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (01:32:05) –  Yeah, yeah. He retired.

Katy Ripp (01:32:07) –  Following sports.

Kaitlin Payne (01:32:07) –  Like seven years. He retired like almost eight years ago. I want to say. Oh okay. So yeah, when I was pregnant with Riley he retired. Oh okay. So yeah. 2016. So yeah. Way more than. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah he is goes to every T-ball game he can.

Kaitlin Payne (01:32:23) –  And every lacrosse game. Every. Yeah every game.

Katy Ripp (01:32:27) –  Just to close her up. Anything you would like to add? Anything you’ve learned. Anything. I’d love to have you back at some point after. Maybe after.

Kaitlin Payne (01:32:35) –  You know, I love talking.

Katy Ripp (01:32:37) –  So, I mean, maybe after around for Riley. That would be amazing. I would love to hear about, you know, how this year went and, yeah, anything you’d like to add?

Kaitlin Payne (01:32:44) –  Don’t be surprised that yourself and what you can walk through.

Katy Ripp (01:32:50) –  Yeah.

Kaitlin Payne (01:32:51) –  Literally just keep going because it’s a shit sandwich, but make it literally the best shit sandwich. I like that so much. It’s so it’s hard, but it’s worth it because you only get one life. So. And I don’t want my kids right now to be like, oh, did I get the short end of the stick because my sister got sick? They don’t even know her. Yeah, they have no clue about her. So I’m trying to be the best human that I can be for myself, for my husband and my kids.

Kaitlin Payne (01:33:30) –  Yeah. And my family. So.

Katy Ripp (01:33:33) –  And it sounds like she taught you a lot in her short little time.

Kaitlin Payne (01:33:36) –  And I am more than I could ever imagine. Yeah, more than anything I could possibly learn elsewhere.

Katy Ripp (01:33:42) –  Yeah. Thanks for being here.

Kaitlin Payne (01:33:45) –  Thanks for having me.

Katy Ripp (01:33:48) –  And that’s a wrap on today’s episode. I hope you enjoyed diving deep into the world of living authentically with me. Before you go, don’t forget to connect with me on Instagram. Shoot me a message at Katy Ripp. I’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode and connect with you further. And remember, if you want more details on today’s episode, or just want to explore more about designing your life unapologetically, head on over to my website at katyripp.com. There you’ll find all the juicy details and resources you need to keep the inspiration flowing. Lastly, if you’d like to join me on the show, whether it’s to tell about your experience of designing your own life, to share your expertise, or if you’d like to participate in lifestyle coaching live on air, don’t hesitate to reach out.

Katy Ripp (01:34:29) –  Your story could inspire countless others on their own path to living authentically. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep living boldly designing your life. And remember, #hashtagactuallyican