Michele Turk’s Journey of Parenting a Child with Tourette’s Syndrome

Debbie:

Hey Michele, welcome to the podcast.

Michele Turk:

Thanks so much for having me.

Debbie:

Yeah, I’m really looking forward to getting into your book, which I read with fascination and really kind of struck me in so many ways. What you went through in your own journey of discovering who your child was and how to support him. And you were very vulnerable about your own journey of self discovery. So I want to get into all of that today. But could you kind of tell us a little bit more about yourself behind the bio? So I’ve read your formal bio, but how you came to decide, I need to write this book. Where did this really stem from?

Michele Turk:

So I have been a journalist for, I guess, 30 years now, mostly writing about parenting and health and some business. But I was writing about parenting before I even became a parent. And then I scaled back a lot and was very part -time when my children were little. I have two children, Michael who’s 25 now and Katie who’s 23. And so when Michael was diagnosed with Tourette syndrome when he was 11. I mean, I’ll tell you all about, you know, what led up to that, but basically, you know, we were sort of blindsided by it, even though he had minor motor tics. And as someone who’s a writer, I just started jotting down things that were happening on pieces of paper, like all over the house and then in my journal, because it was just sort of hard to believe it was happening. And then eventually I was just sort of doing a little writing about it just for myself. And then about nine months in, I started taking an essay and memoir writing class. And I have a journalism degree, but this was different because it was writing about myself and my family. And it was uncomfortable to be honest, because I’m used to writing about other people. And that’s when I started thinking, okay, there’s probably more to this. And at the same time, I was reading everything I could about Tourette syndrome. And there wasn’t a whole lot out there. There really aren’t that many. So I kind of wrote the book that I wish I had back then. So it took a long time because I don’t know, I’m a procrastinator and I would write a little bit and then put it aside and then write a little bit more and then show it to different agents or editors. And at one point, not that long ago, an agent looked at it who made the suggestion that it be a reported memoir, meaning that I sprinkle it with facts. So because there’s so many misperceptions about Tourette syndrome. So that’s basically what it is. It’s sort of our family story, but also information that can be helpful to other parents. Not just of kids with parents of kids with Tourette, but also ideally parents of other kids with challenges, anyone who’s neurodivergent or has learning disabilities and so forth.

Debbie:

Yeah, I appreciate that so much. I’m remembering a conversation I had with my agent many, many years ago. And I’ve written a number of books before I did Differently Wired. I’ve had my agent for 25 years now. That’s a long time to have the same agent. But I remember having lunch with her when my kiddo was maybe 11 or something, 10 or 11. And I was feeling drawn, like, I need to write about this in some capacity. And she said to me, Debbie, you need to live it first, and then you can write it. And that was such good advice, because I wasn’t ready to write it yet. And so I’m just curious about your instinct to start writing things down. Was it part of your trying to make sense of what was happening? Was it to keep track of symptoms? Or was it that you kind of knew instinctively, I’m going to have to do something with this, ultimately?

Michele Turk:

All of the above, all of the above. I mean, some of it was, you know, in the class I took, we had 1000 word assignments each week. So writing a thousand words was, you know, came very, very easy because there was so much happening. So trying to make sense of it and even in some respects, like some of it was kind of unbelievable because it just, so really put it, it made it real putting it on paper over time, you know, because you know. So that’s why if you read it, there’s dialogue that’s very specific, right? That’s all because it was written in real time. I didn’t have to go back and recreate anything. So that was sort of a plus. But what came later, like your agent said, is, you know, trying to make sense of all of it. And that’s why publishing it 10 years after all of this went down was a good thing because it really did allow me to sort of process all of it before I got it into a book.

Debbie:

Yeah, yeah. Right, yeah, to have some distance from it. Yeah, that makes total sense. Yeah, and some of the dialogue in there, we’ll get into it in a little bit, but it definitely does feel very present and visceral as a reader. You kind of take us right there. So you mentioned that there had been some signs before Michael was diagnosed when he was 11. So can you share what some of those first signs were? Because I think, you know, the audience for my show are parents of neurodivergent kids. I know that there’s a lot of co -occurrence with ADHD and OCD. So what were some of those early signs and what were you thinking at the time that you were observing those things?

Michele Turk:

Well, I think the very first signs, which we didn’t realize had anything to do with Tourette, but you know, Michael had behavioral problems from preschool. By the time he was in kindergarten or first grade, he was sent to the principal. He was, you know, had the discipline charts, you know, the smiley faces and so forth. But then he was around six or seven years old. He started having eye blinking and facial grimaces. So they call those motor tics. So as opposed to vocal tics. So the motor tics could be anything involving, you know, any part of the face or body. And so the pediatrician diagnosed allergies, which it turns out he does have the blink eye blinking. He does have allergies. But then they continued even during the winter months. So we were referred to a pediatric neurologist and he said tics are common in boys and he will likely outgrow them. And while that is true, that’s not what happened with Michael. And we actually went back to the same pediatric neurologist a couple of years later and he said the same thing. So I guess for your listeners, you know, what we were told when he was diagnosed is that he had a rare manifestation of a rare illness because he has coprolalia, which is the cursing or any shouting obscenities and other inappropriate words. You know, jump ahead, what 12 years later and in 2022, the CDC revisited the incidence of Tourette syndrome and they estimate now that one in 50 kids has either Tourette or some other tic disorder and the criteria for what is Tourette is very sort of definitive, but there’s other tic disorders. So, again, for your listeners, I think, I mean, I’m not a medical doctor, I’m a parent who went through this and I did research, but certainly monitor them, keep track of them, and then definitely seek medical care probably beyond the pediatrician if they’re significant and continuing because it is much more common than once thought. And as you said, the co -occurring conditions, super common. So I think something like 85 % of all kids with Tourette syndrome have some sort of comorbidity, whether it’s OCD, ADHD, learning differences, handwriting problems, it goes on and on.

So it’s not just that you’re treating the tic, you have to treat whatever co -occurring conditions are going on too. I mean, the good news is, you know, Michael’s 25 compared to when he was 11. I’m lucky I live in Fairfield County, Connecticut in between New York City and New Haven. So we could have either gone to get treated to either of those. We went up to Yale, the child psychiatry center, which was, you know, a mecca for studying and treating Tourette. Now the Tourette Association has 21 centers of excellence all over the country and those places really are ideally where you’d want to seek help if you think that this could be what your child has, in my opinion.

Debbie:

So I just want to go back to something you said earlier on that Michael had behavioral problems. And I’m just wondering now reflecting, right, because so many of us listening to this show, right, had those behavioral charts for kids or have them currently for what’s happening. And we also know that there’s always an underlying reason for what’s being exhibited as behavior that is difficult or challenging. So I’m just wondering, you know, if you could talk a little bit more about those behavioral problems, what were they? And now in retrospect, are you clear that they were a part of Tourette or what else was going on with my go at the time?

Michele Turk:

I think it was something to do with the Tourette. I think that, you know, he had, someone told us early on, one of the experts that Tourette is a triangle of OCD, anxiety and the tics. And I think, OCD, ADHD and the tics. Okay, I’m gonna repeat that. So someone told us early on that. Tourette is a triangle of the tics, OCD, and ADHD. And I think Michael had some ADHD when he was very young. You know, in preschool, he was defiant, he was impulsive, he had trouble staying on task, but sometimes he focused intently on certain things. So, yes, definitely I think those things were related to Tourette. But over time, you know, we were in a school system, public school system that wasn’t a great fit for him. And he was getting into trouble in elementary school as well. And I started feeling like I was a bad mother. I felt like I was doing all sorts of things wrong. That’s when I started reading all these parenting books. I consulted parenting coaches. I was, you know, there was a chapter in the book called what makes him tick T I C K because my husband and I were always trying to figure out, you know, what the problem was. and when he was diagnosed, in some ways it was a relief because I thought, okay, now everything falls into place. It makes sense. We can move forward and try to actually get help for him.

Debbie:

Yeah. Yeah. And so much of what you wrote about is just so relatable, you know, especially when we’re getting feedback that our child is having challenges in certain environments and is, you know, again, exhibiting behavior that can be challenging or perplexing to the environment, whatever’s happening. And then internalizing that, right? What does that make it mean about me as a parent and how I’m showing up? When you were first getting curious and you saw the pediatric neurologist and it could be allergies and or he’s going to outgrow this, I’m just wondering, did you know or have the sense like, I don’t think that that’s right. Did your parental intuition tell you that there was more going on here?

Michele Turk:

Definitely, definitely. I was really conflicted because there’s just something off. We, you know, we couldn’t put a finger on it. And, you know, I gave this talk at the Tarrant Association conference in Dallas a few weeks ago in June. And it was called, if I knew then what I know now, 20 lessons from parenting a child with Tourette’s syndrome. And one of them was trust your gut because I didn’t, I didn’t trust my gut at all. And I think part of it was because I was such a nervous new mother. I mean, I really was uncomfortable about becoming a mother and I had never even babysat. And I, you know, I published an essay in the Washington Post a year or two before I had my first child titled Motherhood Angst about how nervous I was. So, none of it came naturally to me and I was looking at these other mothers and everything seemed to be so swimmingly easy for them and here I was struggling with just one child. So yeah, I was really hard on myself and I didn’t trust my gut and I do think that that’s, that was definitely a mistake.

Debbie:

Again, so very relatable. So just, I’m going to recap it and share with listeners the name of your book. It’s What Makes Him Tic? A Memoir of Parenting a Child with Tourette’s Syndrome. And it was a very compelling read. And I don’t think I realized until I read it just how challenging Tourette could be. Like I think I knew, you know, intellectually that, you know, and I kind of know what some of the more common symptoms are, but you really brought it home just how difficult it can be, especially for a child in school. So I’m wondering if you could talk about some of the biggest challenges and how they impacted both you and Michael, because you experienced it very differently.

Michele Turk:

Well, I think for me, you know, just watching your child suffer as a parent is the hardest thing. That’s true for any of us, right? But with Tourette, it’s, you know, someone said once, it’s not life threatening, it’s life tormenting. I mean, he’s 11 years old and all of a sudden he starts cursing uncontrollably, you know, and he missed school for three months because he didn’t want to be around other kids. And I supported that. I didn’t want him to either. And he used to, you know, call himself a freak and say things like, I’ll never have a girlfriend. I’ll never get married. And, you know, part of it is that there’s a huge stigma surrounding Tourette’s syndrome. So on top of having this diagnosis that’s perplexing and hard to deal with, there’s this stigma. And even kids that age know about it because they know about it from the way Hollywood has portrayed it, you know, on TV shows like The Simpsons and South Park. They don’t really, they do have done a horrible job of portraying Tourette’s syndrome. Now, it’s no longer the butt of jokes in Hollywood. The good news is when Billie Eilish told the world that she had Tourette a couple of years ago, I think it really made a lot of people wake up and see that someone can, you know, not only thrive, but be Billie Eilish. So I think it is changing. And the more people talk about it and the more people like her talk about it, I do think that it will become easier. But it is a really hard diagnosis. And it was hard for us too, you know. I’m a grown woman and we just, we didn’t know a whole lot about it. People don’t, I mean, even, and I’m doing events, the questions that are asked, you realize how little people know about it.

Debbie:

Now I want to know what question you’ve gotten that you find really surprising because it shows you exactly how much misinformation or non -information is out there. What do you think, what are some of the biggest misconceptions that you’re aware of? Because I do think there is more of a stigma surrounding Tourette than ADHD or learning disabilities or autism. Like it seems very distinct to me. And, and again, not a lot, not, not a lot of awareness of what’s really going on. So are there any kind of myths that came up for you or things that really surprised you that people didn’t really understand?

Michele Turk:

Well, I think, you know, as I said, one of the myths is that most people assume that it’s all about cursing and only 10 % of people with Tourette have coprolalia, the cursing. So you could have Tourette and never blurt out curse words. Your words could be anything or your tics could be anything. And I think people think it’s sort of this rare out there condition when I can’t tell you how often I see people who are ticking enough that I can say that they have a tic disorder. I don’t know if it’s Tourette, but my husband teases me because he said, you think everyone has Tourette. And then I’ll say, I mean, literally, like in the last few months, I was at a museum and there was a kid sitting next to me and he was ticking away. A boy I tutor, ticking away, two holiday parties. There were grown men ticking away, it’s much more common. And I think people don’t connect the dots and think that it could be a tic disorder. And I think that is something, again, for your listeners, that if the child is ticking, if their child is ticking, it’s something to just keep an eye on for sure.

Debbie:

So one of the things that I just felt so, I just really kind of felt your struggle and the challenge and the dilemma surrounding school. And the fact that you’re like, my child can’t go to school because he is kind of coming out with these obscenities and these offensive things, right? So there’s fear for you. There’s obviously fear and concern for, you know, on Michael’s part of not wanting to stand out, then you’re getting pressure from the school, like he needs to be back at school. You know, so you’re getting kind of mixed signals. And I wonder if you could just kind of talk about that a little bit. Like, how did you navigate that? Because and I don’t know what the right I don’t know what the right answer is. Like, how did you figure out how to do that?

Michele Turk:

Well, early on, you know, he missed school for three months because he was ticking so often and so loudly that if he were in a classroom, it would be so disruptive. it, it, it, I couldn’t, I couldn’t see how that could happen, you know, but he was, we were fortunate that, I don’t know if all school districts do this, but once you’re out for two or three weeks because of a medical disability, they send a tutor to the home. I think it was every day for two hours. So he was keeping up with his work somewhat. But then, you know, he did eventually go back to school, but that was difficult too because there was, you know, he felt like he was a curiosity, you know, where was he? He wanted to tell people he broke his leg or he had mono. And then, you know, he was still, he was suppressing the tic. So he went on some medications and I believe that’s certainly one of the reasons why he was ticking less, but he was also suppressing the tics, sort of muffling them. So he was, you get something called a promontory urge before the tic comes on. So it’s kind of like when you feel a sneeze coming on. So he would suppress the tic, but that takes a lot of energy. And so he wasn’t really paying attention in school. So, you know, it was definitely affecting his learning. So there was a lot of back and forth and just trying to figure out how do we make this work? And you obviously appreciate that as someone who chose to homeschool. It’s a lot and I feel like, you know, there are resources for people and even just talking to friends. So I didn’t have any friends with children with Tourette, but I had friends with kids with lots of other diagnoses and they were helpful just in giving advice. But you know, things like what you’re doing with the club, things like that, just having, you know, a hive that can understand and relate to what you’re dealing with is helpful.

Debbie:

Yeah, yeah. I can imagine it’s super isolating. And I also, you know, that exhaustion of suppressing tics, that also sounds like the exhaustion that so many neurodivergent people have just from masking, like, you know, or if you have ADHD, like to focus on something takes so much energy that you can’t do anything else. So I really appreciate that. It’s super interesting. I just wanted to call out there was a story that he relayed when Michael, I think it was right after sixth grade. He said that at lunch, if there are too many kids at a table, the kids take a vote on who has to leave. And he said, it’s always me. You said, when’s the last time this happened? And he said, yesterday. Someone said, who votes that Michael leaves? And they all raised their hands. And my heart just broke reading that. I can’t imagine you hearing that story from Michael. And I’m wondering if you could just talk a little bit about that aspect of navigating being a young person, a middle schooler with Tourette’s. How did you do that?

Michele Turk:

It’s just, it’s so hard to be a middle school student period, right? I mean, middle school was tough for me. I talk about it in the book. And when he told me every time I, you know, when you write a book, you have to go back and revise it and revise it and revise it. So I have rewritten or revised and read that passage a dozen times. And I cry every time I read it too, even now it’s just, you really, you really wonder. And you think, how horrible is that for him? You know, and again, your heart just breaks for him. So that was one of the things that made me think, okay, we have to look into alternatives. I don’t know that this is going to work, but really what you said before about, you know, he wasn’t really learning too at the same time. So he was socially being ostracized and not learning. So there was a lot going on. One thing I will say along those same lines is, you know, Michael once told me a long time ago that he thought that having Tourette made him a better person. And I went back and asked him, when I was wrapping up the book. So he read the whole thing and I went back and asked some follow -up questions. And I said, what did you mean by that? And he said, I think that when you’re ostracized and bullied, you know, like I was, or like other kids are, you’re more compassionate and you’re not gonna treat other people that way. You’re just gonna be more kind. And I thought that was a nice silver lining to what he experienced. And some of these things, you know, he was what, 12 years old when that happened. Some of the things like that, like he kind of put that in his past. I’m the one who dwells on it. But he has moved on from a lot of that, which is good.

Debbie:

Yeah, that’s awesome. I want to talk for a minute about the family dynamic. So you wrote about your relationship with your husband and that initially you were, it seemed like you were responding with more urgency, like this is something we got to deal with and your husband wasn’t on the same page. And I was hoping you could just share a little bit about how you got on the same page, because that’s obviously a big topic of conversation in this community as well.

Michele Turk:

Yeah, it’s, I was definitely a mom in a hurry. I was looking for, you know, the magic bullet, a cure for something that has no cure. And I was just, you know, in the first month we went to the pediatrician, the pediatric neurologist, a psychiatrist, an acupuncturist and so forth. I was dragging him to all sorts of doctors trying to figure this out. And my husband, who is a doctor, he’s an OB-GYN, he was more of the mindset, okay, you know, we’ll figure it out in time. Let’s wait to see when we get to the experts, because initially there was a long wait to get into the, see the doctors at Yale. Let’s see what they have to say. It took a long time to get on the same page because it wasn’t just the medical things. We were, for the most part, in agreement with, we deferred to. The doctor was Dr. Robert King. Yeah, we defer to him in terms of treatment for the most part. There was some back and forth about whether to put him on some more serious medications, definitely. And I have a lot of angst about that and it’s chronicled in the book. But we disagreed about a lot of other things, including education. You know, I was definitely throwing money at the problem, money we didn’t have at the time. It was a huge source of marital tension and that is not something that, you know, when friends and family members read the book now, they are surprised to read because I’m not someone who’s an open book, no pun intended. So, but I felt like, you know, if I’m going to write a memoir, you know, by definition it’s inviting someone else into your life, first of all, so you want to be honest. 

But also, I wasn’t writing it for my friends and family members. I was writing it for people like your listeners and people, parents of kids with Tourette who were going through what I went through, who really, you know might identify with what our family experienced. But that was very difficult. And I remember reading that parents of couples whose child has some sort of learning difference are more likely to get divorced. And I want to look into that a little bit more. I want to sort of maybe write an article on that because I’m not sure if it’s true or if it’s a myth, but I do think that it places a lot of stress on a relationship. There’s no question. We were not on the same page for a long time. And honestly, I think writing about it helped me appreciate my husband a little bit more. My editor at one point said, my husband calls himself the bad guy because in earlier versions he kind of was the bad guy. And my editor said to me, you’ve got to go back and write a chapter and tell or show the reader why you fell in love with this guy because I’m not seeing it right now. And going back and doing that and sort of revisiting that was a good exercise because I did come to realize some of the ways he was there for us and some of the things that he, you know, some of the things he did do when I was early on complaining that, you know, you’re a doctor, why aren’t you doing this? I don’t know what I’m doing.

Debbie:

So good. Yeah, I really appreciate that because and I think that is something, you know, I, I’ve talked openly about what we’ve gone through, my husband and I to get on the same page. But I think part of it is that I, when I’m asked this question, it’s always, how can you, instead of demanding that the partners show up in the same way you do, and kind of, you know, think the exact same way, but rather how can you look at what they are doing and contributing that is unique to how they show up in the world and how that can be supportive in other ways. So I love that your editor encouraged you to go back and that that exercise was helpful. That’s really cool. I also want to talk about the sibling dynamic. I get asked this question all the time and I always say I have one child. So I don’t have personal experience with this. And so you have Michael, but your daughter Katie is two years younger. And so I’m just wondering, could you talk a little bit about navigating that kind of mixed neuro -type sibling dynamic in your household? And what was maybe, yeah, just how did you navigate that? Because I imagine it was really tricky at times when Michael’s needs demanded more attention.

Michele Turk:

Right, well it was especially those first few months when I was, my philosophy was everything else has to stop. This is what we have to do. We have to fix this problem, which obviously was the wrong mindset. He wasn’t broken, but that’s how I thought of it then. And I don’t now, of course. But my daughter was nine at the time and she kind of dealt with it by putting her head in the books and she just started reading. She would go up to her room and just read and read. And she later told me that she kind of felt like she just wanted to not cause any trouble and stay out of our way, which is, you know, sad because, but she also, you know, I also decided, I knew that I couldn’t completely neglect her. So I made sure she continued doing soccer and Girl Scouts and play dates. And, and play dates just as an aside is interesting because she’s having her nine year old friends over. Her brother is in the house cursing. So I would have to explain. Now these were mostly good friends. but it’s funny because a girl who lives two doors down, texted me the other day, a girl, a young woman, she’s 23. She said, I read the book and it was so interesting reading it after living through this because she was here all the time and vice versa. Katie said later, I went from complaining about my brother ticking all the time to defending him to my friends at some point. And she also has said she thinks she’s a more accepting, compassionate person because this was in the home. But it was mostly initially just trying to make sure she stays in her routine and supporting her. And then once he got back to school, it was easier too. But it’s a lot. And I think the first tip I gave in my presentation in Dallas was acknowledge that your task is Herculean. Because you don’t really realize it. I feel like I’m so much on the other side of it now with a young adult who’s thriving, he’s living on his own, he went to college. But you don’t realize, and parents and moms especially need to give themselves credit, it’s a lot. It’s so, and you know, I certainly didn’t do that. You know, I didn’t come up for air for a long time.

Debbie:

Yeah. Yeah. I totally get that. And I, you know, just as a way to kind of, you know, come full circle, you mentioned that you had this kind of fix it mindset, which is also, you know, I think so many of us, when we find out there’s something going on with our kid, that’s where we go, right? Instantly, like, okay, how do I get things back on track? And you wrote in the book that watching James Durbin, who I remember was an American Idol contestant who openly, you know, had Tourette, you said that was the first time you truly understood that you needed to accept Michael the way he was and to help him do the same. So would you talk a little bit about your own evolution and that shift in your thinking?

Michele Turk:

Well, yeah, so early on, as you said, I wanted to fix him. I thought of him as broken and I think, you know, we were told early on that a third of kids outgrow Tourette, a third stay the same, and a third do a little bit better. What I was told by experts I interviewed more recently is that if kids are treated early and appropriately without, like, lots of extenuating circumstances, the outcomes are better than that but it seemed like such a crap shoot at the time. And I remember thinking initially, okay, he’s got to be in that top 30, he’s got to be in that top third. And then eventually, you know, seeing James Durbin, and for kids today, could you imagine seeing Billie Eilish? But it was because he was there up on stage and, you know, Michael by then had gotten into music and music was definitely his salvation. And something like playing music or an instrument does any focused activity, it could be a sport, can help sort of reduce tics, the severity and frequency in some people. So yeah, it was definitely this moment where I thought, okay, that could be a possibility, but look at this young man. And it was a shift, definitely. It was a shift.

Debbie:

Yeah. So before we say goodbye, I just want to say, first of all, listeners, I encourage you to read Michele’s book, What Makes Him Tic. It really, it is such a, you take us through your whole journey and we get to be part of your research. It is a well -reported memoir as well. So I learned a lot reading the book, but really kind of understand your own emotional journey, which I think is so inspirational for parents navigating, you know, this kind of maybe the parenting journey they weren’t expecting. And I just want to know, is there anything that we didn’t touch upon or any last thoughts that you would want to make sure listeners take away from this conversation?

Michele Turk:

Well, I would say one other thing that I think is important that I just mentioned is helping your child who’s wired differently find some sort of passion, something they’re really interested in. For Michael, it was music, but it could be anything. And early on, every doctor asked, what are his hobbies? What is he interested in? And I thought they were just sort of making small talk. But it turns out that this is a huge tie in with building self -esteem. So if they find something that they’re good at that they enjoy, it helps build self -esteem. But also, when Michael found music, he ended up doing School of Rock, which is a national franchise. And he found his people there. That’s where he made lots of friends and they were cool kids playing music on stage, in bars, you know, off hours, but it was really, really great. And I do think that it’s important for kids to find something that they’re good at, that they enjoy. I think that that’s not something that’s talked about that much, but I think it makes a big difference.

Debbie:

Yeah, no, I appreciate you sharing that. Totally agree that helping our kids really find flow or whatever that is, or just spend a lot of time in their area of strength or joy is so, so critical for so many reasons. Yeah. So Michele, first of all, thank you so much for this conversation. Congratulations on the book. And for listeners who want to learn more about your work and explore your social media, where do you want people to go?

Michele Turk:

So on Instagram, @MicheleTurkauthor. My website is michelturk.com. The book, What Makes Him Tic, can be purchased anywhere books are sold. And that’s about it. Thank you so much.

Debbie:

Yeah, of course, listeners. And as always, I always say this, but I will have a very detailed show notes page with all the resources that we talked about. Anything that came up in conversation, I’ll have links there as well. So Michele, thank you again. Such a fascinating conversation. I really appreciate it.