Talking all things food and getting the news of an Ectopic pregnancy with Australian MasterChef Contestant Max Krapivsky
Welcome to Season 2 of The Brain Game Changer podcast. I am your host, Melissa Gough. In this week's episode I had the heartfelt pleasure of speaking with Australian MasterChef Contestant Max Krapivsky. We discuss Max’s culinary adventures and delights growing up, his wife’s terrible cooking and how that encouraging nudge started his journey of applying to be a contestant.
Whilst on Masterchef Max also shares the with us the journey of going through an ectopic pregnancy during the COVID lockdowns with his wife Simmone. Let’s get into the interview.
Follow @thebraingamechanger on Instagram
Email: thebraingamechanger@gmail.com
Follow @mkap on Instagram
-
Melissa Gough 0:04
Welcome to the Brain Game Changer: where heartfelt stories, awareness and education can change the game. My name is Melissa and in each episode I talk with inspiring humans and organisations from across the globe, who share significant adversities, triumphs after tragedy, and those game changing moments to provide you with some useful tools and resources to take with you into your everyday life.
Melissa Gough 0:33
In this week's episode, I had the heartfelt pleasure of speaking with Australian MasterChef Contestant Max Krapivsky. We discussed Max's culinary adventures and delights growing up, his wife's terrible cooking, and how that encouraging nudge started his journey of applying to be a contestant. Whilst on MasterChef Max also shares with us the journey of going through an ectopic pregnancy during the COVID lock downs with his wife, Simmone. Let's get into the interview.
Melissa Gough 1:03
Good afternoon, Max, and welcome to The Brain Game Changer podcast. It is great to have you with us.
Max Krapivsky 1:07
Thank you, Mel. I'm very happy to be here.
Melissa Gough 1:09
So we're going to talk about one of my favourite topics in particular, amongst other things, we're going to talk about food, who doesn't love food, and who doesn't love damn good food. We did get to see a lot of it when we saw you on MasterChef, and we'll talk about that journey. But before we delve into all that I usually ask, your passion for food must have stemmed from somewhere. So I'm just going to get a bit of a backstory about what it was like growing up for you: the environment, the culture, your heritage, did that play a part, in your knowledge about food, your passion for it?
Max Krapivsky 1:40
The short answer would be yes, and I'm sure you'd like me to explain it! My background is from both mom and dad's side, both emigrated from Soviet Russia at that stage through Italy and then to Australia in the late 70s, early 80s. Lucky to have some extraordinary food and extraordinary cooks on my dad's side, and some not so great cooks on my mum's but they're great eaters. nonetheless. Every day I'd get picked up from school by my grandfather on my dad's side, and then my grandma would have food prepared for me Monday to Friday, soup, main and dessert and I was an exceptionally lucky boy to have that. I think it led to me being quite a pudgy character through most of primary and high school but it was definitely worth it. My dad is also an exceptional cook. He saw me as free child labour I think for most of my life! He had me as his sous chef or chef de partie just doing little jobs, deveining prawns, destringing beans. I never knew they needed to be unstrung, but I guess that was one of my main jobs in the kitchen. So I was very lucky to have those two culinary influences in my early childhood.
Melissa Gough 2:48
So I'm also just visualising your lunchbox after you've just explained everything there. Like the good old fashioned Australian lunchbox was either Strasberg meat and tomato sauce sandwiches or Vegemite and cheese sandwiches. What was your lunchbox like? Was it different?
Max Krapivsky 3:02
I would have killed for Vegemite and cheese sandwiches, I literally would have killed! Me and my very good friend Colin, who has a Japanese background, often talk about our lunch boxes at school and my wife Simm just can't believe it. My father's a barber by trade and he had a barber shop in Caulfield called Johnny The Barber. It was also famous at that time for selling caviar and smoked salmon out of the back of the shop. This was in 1990! So not illegal, but a lot of my sandwiches had caviar and red salmon roe in them, which I hated and still don't like today. So yeah, my lunch boxes weren't the typical Australian childhood lunch boxes that it's all I craved. So that is why I try and get as many LCM bars into me now whenever I can!
Melissa Gough 3:45
It's interesting, we probably would have looked at your lunch box thinking, Gosh, I wouldn't mind giving that a bit of a go! Then you would have wanted a bit of our lunch box. But what an extraordinary way to be exposed to food, and also realising that your foods and the culture is different to just the everyday Australian way.
Max Krapivsky 4:03
I think it's something you can reflect upon now as an adult, or even you know, in your late teens and see that, but as a six year old, I just wanted to add the sandwich had some Nutella in it, or peanut butter. I wasn't that highly aware of how unique food was to every single person in that classroom.
Melissa Gough 4:19
So as you're growing up, and as you're going through your teens and getting into adulthood, did your passion for food, did your interest for food, did you want to expand on the knowledge of what you're being exposed to around you?
Max Krapivsky 4:31
I wouldn't say I did. I was probably focusing on other things that, you know at the age of 15/16/17, it was, sport, school, friends. I was just lucky enough to eat a lot of good food, I wasn't really thinking about it that much. I probably reconnected with it again, back at uni when I started dating my now wife Simmone who is an atrocious cook, but I was just trying to impress her really. Then yeah, when we moved out together, her shopping and cooking wasn't an option. So I took up that and fell back in love with it.
Melissa Gough 5:01
Now does Simm know that she's an atrocious cook?
Max Krapivsky 5:03
She would openly say that! I think it's one of the main reasons that we're still together as she's held me around for the cooking at least! She hates shopping, she hates thinking of cooking, she hates cooking. Luckily for me, she loves cleaning, so it is a match made in heaven.
Melissa Gough 5:18
That sounds like a great team right there. So we're going to lean into MasterChef, MasterChef is everywhere. It is amazing. It's a huge part of Australian television. However, it is also phenomenally popular around the world. Having lived overseas, I lived in the UK, I spent time in the Middle East, it is watched everywhere. So where did your curiosity come into play? To think, okay, well, I'm already impressing my wife with my cooking or she said yes. So she's agreed to marry me, something must be working there with my food as well. Where did that sparks sort of go, oh, that game changer, go.Okay, do you know what, I'm gonna apply, I'm going to give this a shot.
Max Krapivsky 5:58
I grew up watching MasterChef. You're right, it's huge. My dad actually auditioned for the very first season of MasterChef. My school friend at the time, Tom, his dad was actually approached as potentially being a judge with the original cast, and he wasn't interested in being on TV. He said, 'I'm out of that, but I've got the perfect contestant for you.' So my dad auditioned, and unfortunately, couldn't get into Season One. Julie Goodwin would have absolutely washed the floor with him anyway! But it was probably eight years later, when we were just watching it from the couch, and somebody was boiling potatoes, I can't remember exactly what happened, and they boiled the potatoes whole. I was just like, Come on, mate, you cut them up, they'll boil quicker! I just got a very quick response from Simm like, 'if you think you can do better, then go try!' I was like, You know what, I probably should, I'm gonna stop being the person who can criticise and actually put myself in the position and open myself up to critique instead.
Melissa Gough 6:55
So even though we had a glimpse of you in Season 13, and we saw the amazing you in Season 14, it took you a bit of time to finally get to that space. Can you talk us through the process of applying? I can imagine it's quite a task, that they want to know everything about you that they possibly can. I can only imagine that they get 1000s upon 1000s upon 1000s of entries. What did you have to go through to finally get to the space of Season 14?
Max Krapivsky 7:22
So I started auditioning for Season 10. It starts off with a simple application. If you got through the written application then MasterChef would travel between every major city and actually hold auditions at some cooking institutions. So in Melbourne, it was at Melbourne Polytechnic, where they had three days of cooking trials, tests exams. It was the mystery box on day one, and then it was your signature cook for day two. So on my first application, I was lucky enough to get through those two cooks. After that you get put on a shortlist and then they'd go through, have a look at your performances, have a look at your bio, have a look at your food, there's filming going on throughout the auditions as well. Then they whittle down that audition shortlist to around 35 or 36. They then go on to what my favourite episodes are the first and second episode where people try to cook their way into the show and present their signature dish for the judges. First time I tried out I got to the shortlist stage but then didn't get through. The second time I tried out was actually the all star season so they asked me to try out again, then that was cut short. Then was the next season where I got through to the televised audition stages and bailed out there in an absolute train wreck of a cook. And then yeah, last season, I was lucky enough to finally reach the pinnacle and made it onto the show as an official contestant.
Melissa Gough 8:43
It's funny. I didn't realise that pre Zoom that, that was the process that they did. I didn't realise they went on that sort of national trail of every city to find, you know, the sparks to put on the show. Now I have fond memories of watching your interesting cook. Season 13! They were very heartfelt episodes that you were in when you went to make a dish. What was it again? It was... I can't say the word very well...
Max Krapivsky 9:08
It was a Peach Tarte Tatin.
Melissa Gough 9:09
That's it. You could tell the pressure was on, you're up against the clock. But one thing that also came through on the show was like, even in that short period of time, you got to meet your fellow contestants, you could tell bonds were already getting formed. Even though you didn't get on the show, you were so emotionally happy for your now friend and collaborator of #PastaBois, Connor, and that was so endearing. I think you touch people's hearts about how emotionally happy you are also for him and the other contestants.
Max Krapivsky 9:46
If anything, the good and the bad's from MasterChef, the you know PTSD that still hangs around to the shared joy that a lot of us felt, the single best moment was actually staying there and hearing that Connor got his apron into the top 24. No one will take that away from him, and no one's going to take the moment away from me either. We were roommates we'd actually met at the auditions very briefly and just absolutely clicked, just hit it off. So when it was announced that he was in the top five cooks to get an apron at that stage, it was genuine tears of joy. I haven't cried like that many times in my life and that was really overwhelming for me. I didn't think it was gonna come as strong as it did.
Melissa Gough 10:25
It was probably a mix of everything! Like you said you shared joy for Connor but also the fact that just like oh my gosh, I'm here I'm cooking this, and my cook hasn't gone how I wanted it to so this is where I am. But you came back with the courage you thought, 'no, I'm, I'm determined, I've had that taste, talk us through getting into Season 14.
Max Krapivsky 10:47
I couldn't leave it there after everything, after the amount of time that I'd invested, the amount of time that my family had invested, like we couldn't go on holidays when we wanted to. We couldn't go to events we wanted to just in case it clashed with MasterChef audition dates. So I couldn't leave it as close as I did to actually getting on the show. I decided one more go and then I'll leave it from there and I'm not going to die wondering. At least I'll know if it was meant to be on. So we went through the audition process one more time, no shortcuts, I had to fill out the application for the fourth time. This time because it was still in the throes of COVID lock downs and restrictions, I started off with a one Zoom call, then a second Zoom call. Then finally, it was a week now of auditioning in person at the Melbourne Showgrounds. They held two separate auditions. One in Melbourne which was for Victoria, New South Wales, Tassie and Queensland, and then one which was held in South Australia, which was for the rest of the country. Now as a week, there were four cooks in that week, incredibly, incredibly stressful, but probably the most fun I actually had this season. It felt like you were at a cooking school camp with a lot of other people, it was a lot of fun. After that, we got whittled down once again, almost like getting cut at sport, you were told to either go into one group or the other. One group was sent home and thanked for their efforts. Then the other group was told that they were on the shortlist, and that they'll be contacted within the next week to let them know if they made it on the show or not.
Melissa Gough 12:12
I'm going to lean into this and this is probably going to sound a little bit 'woowoo' for people. So Max is someone who's an integral part of my recovery post brain haemorrhage. But I remember, I'd only been home for a couple of months, and I had the most vivid dream. It was so vivid it was like I was standing there watching a recording, like a video that Max had got into MasterChef, right. I reached out to Max the next day and said, 'Max, Max, Max, I'm gonna share this dream with you. He's like, 'oh, my gosh, what's going on here!' I saw you getting the white apron, and I think you're gonna find out around this date. I don't know why, but I've got this date in my mind. I remember you responding back to me rather quickly going, Oh, my gosh, Mel what! Then you sent me a little notification saying that you're going to find out and it was a two day difference of what I said, was just one of those bizarre moments.
Max Krapivsky 13:04
Yeah, there's no bullshit there! I screenshotted the email to you with the date that we were supposed to find out and it was right on. I don't even think it was two days separate. I think you pick the exact date!
Melissa Gough 13:14
Oh, gosh, well, I should be making money on that! But the wonderful news is Max gets into Season 14 of MasterChef. What is also really beautiful is you've got a video on your social media page where you're recording sharing the news with Simm and it is gorgeous. I mean, tears were flowing anyway. Obviously she doesn't know that you're about to tell her. So can you just share that little gorgeous moment with us?
Max Krapivsky 13:39
We were supposed to find out on a Wednesday. I can't remember what the date was. But it was supposed to be a Wednesday and the MasterChef production crew had been having issues finalising their 12 contestants that they wanted. So they said we'd be finding out later on in the week, not on Wednesday anymore. So it's out of my mind, out of my head. Then I got a call from one of the producers and she essentially told me that look, keep it to yourself, but you're in and we need to start organising some filming for your backstory. So I got home earlier than Simm,and then set up a camera and she wasn't expecting to find out. I wasn't expecting to find out at that stage either. When she came home, I think I jumped and ran at her and just said yes, nothing else. Yeah, picked her up and squished her a bit. You can hear the yells in the videos. Pretty cool moment.
Melissa Gough 14:22
That was a great moment. You turn up to the very first day of filming of Master Chef. Is it as full on as what they say? You know, pressure cooks this happening, that happening, you hear the dramatic music. Is it an intense experience?
Max Krapivsky 14:41
I'm lucky in this situation. It is an intense experience, but I've been through it. I was there the season prior and so I had a very similar experience of what the first day is like in those kitchens, I had a taste of it. If you wanted to try and put yourself in the situation of what it's like on that first day. You just crank up the heater to as high as it can go. Get 15 of your closest friends into a room, and just run around like mad people for a while, and that's a pretty close comparison to what it's actually like.
Melissa Gough 15:05
Oh my gosh, that sounds scary and fun and intense all in one go.
Max Krapivsky 15:11
Definitely.
Melissa Gough 15:11
What was it like working with the judges? I mean, this season was Jock, it was Melissa, it was Andy. Andy has worn the t-shirt! Melissa just presents as the most articulate person I've ever heard in my life describing food and Jock comes from a very reputable background of food. What's it like? Is it quite intimidating? Are they really supportive? Is it really helpful because when the cameras are on, we've all got a job to do, but it sort of also came across that they wanted you to do well, they were trying to be supportive as well.
Max Krapivsky 15:43
I think first and foremost, you said that it is their job. So they're there to do a nine to five and quite often it's a lot longer than a nine to five, they're not really there to be your best friend. I guess like most relationships develop, they develop over time, as I can only talk about the time that I was there, which was roughly two months in real time, but around 13 episodes. I personally didn't have a huge amount of tuition from the three of them. Probably got the most tuition when we had Shannon Bennett come on as a guest chef, which was an incredible experience. He actually cooked with us rather than just judging the food, which I think is a really difficult lens to come from. But yeah, all respect to the three judges. It's not easy to do, what they do, eat the amount of food that they do and still come up with really succinct clear feedback.
Melissa Gough 16:26
So let's talk about the episode where you got eliminated. What was that time like for you?
Max Krapivsky 16:32
The cook was a Reynold Poernomo pressure test, ex MasterChef contestant and really royalty in the kitchen. We had to recreate his signature dish for his upcoming restaurant. It was two little tubes that were chocolate tempered cubes filled with a mousse and filled with different jelly centres, an apple sorbet, some little chocolate twigs, some tweaked leaves, it was very complex. It had around eight or nine different components to the dish and was actually really quite delicious. I find a lot of those desserts can be style over substance, but this wasn't the case. The four and a half hour cook was long, but I actually loved it. I really went through the cook methodically while tasting along the way. I had Jen who's one of my good friends cooking in front of me and she had the exact opposite. She had a nightmare cook. So I was sort of looking at what was going wrong with hers and pacing myself off that. Yeah, I was really happy with the dish that plated up. Aesthetically, it was gorgeous. Out of the four it was one of the more compact looking dishes. Unfortunately the flavours, the judges said the flavours didn't come through which I was shocked by. As I said I was tasting the way through but at the end of the day, they're the ones eating the full dish put together and that was the end of me unfortunately. But if it was ever going to be a dish to kick me out, it was going to be an intricate, you know, tricky fine dessert, and nobody I'd rather be sent home from than a MasterChef legend.
Melissa Gough 17:52
Yeah, it was really beautiful, and we were all so proud. You received so much encouraging feedback, and so much support. As I mentioned earlier, we talked about Connor and #pastabois, but you've also talked fondly of the friendships that you've made, and it genuinely looks authentic on the television. You spend so much time together, you become roommates and become housemates. Can you describe to us about these friendships because you also all go through something we can only imagine.
Max Krapivsky 18:24
We joke between us that it's a shared trauma! But it really is, because you're put into a scenario where you're taken away from friends, family, your day to day habits, your day to day commitments, and you're almost babied in some way. You are told when you can go to the toilet, when you can eat, more times you can walk around. It's really hard to try and describe that to people when you leave there, and so it makes it easy to form friendships and bond with people that went through the same thing that you did, and it's an incredibly amazing experience to go through. I say shared trauma in full jest! This season I was really lucky to form a really close relationship with Harry. Probably the second day of arriving at MasterChef accommodation, our odd, funky weird senses of humour really clicked and she was my person for the rest of the series. Plenty of walks together and plenty of wines together. Yeah, I was really fortunate to find another friendship like what I found the season prior.
Melissa Gough 19:18
I really adored her journey on MasterChef because she was totally authentic in how she wanted to deliver herself and how she wanted to share her journey and I loved the fact that she, you could tell from very early on, was someone who thought outside of the box. You could also see on the looks of the judges faces they're like wow, we are seeing food that we have never seen before and that was quite phenomenal.
Max Krapivsky 19:45
There was a walk that would have been maybe three or four days into filming starting where we were just walking around the pool and talking to you some dish ideas for future cooks or what we could pull out of the bag. She talked to me about an idea where she was comboing, grapes with strawberries with tomatoes with vinegar with coriander, and I was like you're nuts, what are you talking about! Where is this idea coming from? I'm here doing tomato and basil and you're, you're doing what? But some people have an incredible mind for flavour and for flavour combinations. And yeah, I was in awe of that.
Melissa Gough 20:19
I remember that dish now that you've said it. I think one of the judges applauded her for that dish.
Max Krapivsky 20:24
I can't remember, but I was applauding her.
Melissa Gough 20:30
Now, as you've mentioned a little bit earlier, time on MasterChef also met time away from family and friends. It also meant time away from your beautiful wife Simm. When you were on MasterChef was Simm already pregnant?
Max Krapivsky 20:45
No. When I left for MasterChef, it was around late October, early November, and then filming actually breaks before Christmas. So you have a decent amount of time off, I think from memories around the 20th of December through maybe the 6th/7th of January. So almost just those regular corporate two weeks off for shutdown. I came home during that break, and Simm and I actually fell pregnant pretty much the next day or the day after that, and then we found out about just after New Year's Eve.
Melissa Gough 21:14
Then when did you have to hit back to MasterChef?
Max Krapivsky 21:17
I left roughly three, four days after that.
Melissa Gough 21:20
So you're back in MasterChef, Simm's pregnant? How is it all going for you?
Max Krapivsky 21:25
Yeah, I think I had two days back at the MasterChef accommodation. We were heading back after the Christmas break into a Mystery Box Challenge. The day before that Mystery Box Challenge, I just told Harry the good news just because I wanted somebody to be able to lean on and share their experience with in a place where you can be caught up in everything else that's going on. Then later that day Simm actually called me to say that she just can tell that something's not right, and that we've lost the baby. It was very early at this stage, maybe four weeks. So we both know, coming from the medical world, the rates of miscarriage in the first four weeks are incredibly high. So we never got our hopes up, but we both definitely disappointed at that stage that we'd had the miscarriage. That was as far as we knew to that point.
Melissa Gough 22:11
First of all, thank you for sharing, and I'm sorry to hear that Simm was at home, you're at MasterChef, you're in a position where you can't just sort of get up and leave. There's a whole process going on at MasterChef this filming going on. What happens next?
Max Krapivsky 22:25
Yeah, so first off, that's a really good point. I guess at this stage as well being so early into it, like most people, you just keep it to yourself. You don't tell a lot of friends or a lot of family because you don't, you don't want to get anyone's hopes up really before you know something is really solid. Which is the contradiction on its own because whether it's solid or not, it's still happening at that time. So we go on, the next cook happens and it was a really difficult cook for me, broke down a bit at the end of the cook, and I was put into the elimination after that even though I was really pleased with the actual dish that I put up. It meant a lot more for me that I was able to actually complete it in the first place.
After that, and funnily enough, MasterChef was rocked by a COVID outbreak. So we went on a mandatory 10 day break from all filming. At that time, we were still staying at MasterChef accommodation, but I was on the phone to Simm multiple times a day. Then roughly a week later, she was going for a walk with some friends and felt some really intense abdominal discomfort came home, and then it just got worse and worse. She called me and I was with Harry at that stage and Simm was at the stage where she couldn't even stand up to walk. So I told her to get herself immediately to a hospital because she had had some irregular bleeding as well, at that time. She took herself to the hospital. Once again, nobody else knew about the pregnancy in the first place. She didn't want to call anyone and explain, she just wanted to get herself some medical attention, and I left MasterChef immediately to go meet her. Simm took herself to Holmesglen Private which is a hospital close to home and I drove there as soon as I could. Unfortunately due to some mix ups with private health insurance, we had to move. So I picked her up from Holmesglen and drove her to Sandy, distraught at this stage and really concerned about what was happening. We had an idea that it may have been an ectopic pregnancy, but we had no we had no real finite evidence of that yet. When I took it to Sandy hospital because of COVID restrictions and lockdowns, I couldn't even walk her into the emergency room. I had to take it to the front door and watch her barely be able to walk through the doors to the ER, and that was probably one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.
Max Krapivsky 22:45
Oh gosh, I can only imagine. You know, like you say, having to walk in there was such strict protocol. She's struggling. You're both struggling together, and as her husband you just want to support her. So what did you have to do? Did you have to just sit in the car and wait.
Max Krapivsky 24:53
So after that I was quite certain that I wouldn't be seeing Simm that same that night or at least for another few hours. I just had to drive home. I had to drive home, make myself dinner, I made her dinner in the hope that she'd come back and have something good to eat and wait. I got a phone call maybe three, four hours later where Simm said that the specialist Obstetrician had said there's two options. Either there's a medication you can go on to which you have to take every single day and you have to come back to the hospital for monitoring every two days. Or the second option, which is what the Obstetrician was recommending was surgery, a laparoscopic procedure, which came with risks such as potentially losing one or both fallopian tubes, but that's essentially what Simm and chose to do with the Obstetricians recommendations as well.
Melissa Gough 25:39
Through doing that type of surgery was how they were able to establish that it was an ectopic pregnancy.
Max Krapivsky 25:46
There are a few ways in which they were able to essentially narrow down that it was an ectopic. One was a level of the hormones in the blood that correlates with a pregnancy occurring. And then during the laparoscopic procedure, they were able to clarify that further.
Melissa Gough 26:01
I'm just going to sort of share what the medical term is. An ectopic pregnancy is a pregnancy in which the fertilised egg implants outside the uterus. The reality is that it can not really survive outside of the uterus. If left to grow or undetected, it can cause major damage to nearby organs, and it can cause a life threatening loss of blood.
Max Krapivsky 26:25
An ectopic pregnancy is a medical emergency, it needs attention, not now, but needs attention, you know, the day before, that's essentially how serious it can be for a lot of women. In Simm's case, she was battling through it alone and probably pushed herself too far to the point at which medical intervention earlier wouldn't have changed the outcome. But she probably just wouldn't have been in as much discomfort for as long as she was.
Melissa Gough 26:49
How was it for you hearing the news? You're at home. She's in hospital, we're in the COVID lockdown process. How were you feeling at the time hearing all this?
Max Krapivsky 26:58
I think the best way to describe it is a complete feeling of helplessness. But it's interesting what happens when you go through adversity in life. Exactly like you would have done and so many of the other people that have shared their stories on this podcast, is that you go on, you can't stop. You can't just wait and go, well, I bow out of making a decision. You go well, we need to make a decision, that's the best for you. At that stage, for Simm to receive the attention, the medical attention that she needed there and then. Knowing that Simm was going to have to be put under to perform the surgery and the unpredictable nature of what we were going through anyway, it was just stressful being at home in the dark.
Melissa Gough 27:38
How long was she in the hospital before she could come home?
Max Krapivsky 27:41
Including the first night she was there for another three nights? I was at home this whole time as well looking after the cat Felix, who provided me a lot of solace. But yeah, she was at a hospital in total for three nights.
Melissa Gough 27:55
How was it for you in that time when you had to be home and she had to be there? What was going through your head as you know that she's in the right place? She's getting the treatment, and she's getting the professional medical support that she needs. How was it for you?
Max Krapivsky 28:10
I honestly can't remember. I can remember the first night being there, but I can't remember the other days that I was there. Yeah, completely wiped out from all memory.
Melissa Gough 28:20
Do you feel like you've blocked it? Or do you feel like it was just numb?
Melissa Gough 28:23
I'm not sure. I think it's just because I can remember being there that night taking Simm there waiting for the call from the hospital. Then the next morning I can remember going to get some groceries and getting a phone call saying that the surgery went well and that she was in recovery. That's pretty much about it.
Melissa Gough 28:38
Did you have to go back to MasterChef during this time?
Max Krapivsky 28:41
So Simm came back home, and we had one day together, one night together. Then I had to go back, I could have chosen not to. The producer, executive producer called me and spoke through exactly what had happened, and Simm was just pleading for me to go back. I was allowed to come back home on weekends. So MasterChef was aware of what was going on and allowed me to be at home with Simm, if it came to that. So I had to leave her and Simm’s mum, Annette, who was an angel, came and stayed with us and looked after her for the time that I was away.
Melissa Gough 29:14
How was Simm? Obviously she's recovering physically through the operation and the process she had to do there, but how was she going emotionally at the time?
Max Krapivsky 29:21
First off, physically it was a train wreck. The surgery is really intense, quite similar to the recovery, if not a bit tougher, and I'm not saying that I have gone through these myself, but just from what the doctors said to a C- Section. So really debilitating physical recovery, and then emotionally I think we were both putting it away, putting it in the back of our minds knowing that there had been something that we both worked on so much in the MasterChef journey, that we didn't want to open ourselves up too much. There was definitely a lot of grief coming from both of us with the loss of the pregnancy but then also the potential complications that might arise with further conception. But yeah, it was something that we wanted to put into the back of our minds. But the one word that keeps coming back after this whole experience is perspective. Our perspective on life had changed dramatically in the span of, you know, 24 hours. Something that to me and to Simm was a shared goal of ours in Masterchef had very, very quickly become more pedestrian.
Melissa Gough 30:24
So what was the timeline of you being eliminated?
Max Krapivsky 30:29
The Mystery Box cook that put me into the elimination was the day after Simm said that we'd lost a pregnancy. Then the elimination cook was three, four days after the ectopic pregnancy in the surgery. So a really quick turnaround.
Melissa Gough 30:43
So after that, you get to come home and you get to be with Simm, and I guess you get to properly look after her and nurture and I guess be able to be that partner. How was that recovery process? Now that you're back together, after MasterChef?
Max Krapivsky 30:58
It was where I needed to be at the time. Being the woman in the couple that goes through the ectopic pregnancy, the surgery and the recovery must be the hardest thing in the world. So being the nonpregnant partner, all you can do is be there to support and provide whatever comfort whatever lending hand you can. You're both going through that emotional trauma, but only one has really gone through the physical. So we were one another's emotional support, but I was trying to be there as much as I could with anything physically.
Melissa Gough 31:27
In your quiet time away from Simm, did you have conversations with friends or family members to process this significant event as well? How was your time away from Simm processing it?
Max Krapivsky 31:39
That's a really interesting question actually. Because as I mentioned earlier, we hadn't told anyone about the pregnancy. I just told Harry and had great support from her while I was still with the show, and afterwards. But having to tell our family members what had gone through was an incredibly surreal experience because they went through grief like we did. But they got hit by a bombshell when we just told them, look Craig, my father in law, Simm's in the hospital. I have left MasterChef, she's okay, explaining that we're going through what seems to be an ectopic pregnancy. All of a sudden, it's so yeah, my wife went through that, Simm's stepmum, and I'm telling my parents and my parents going out we have, we've had friends that have had that or gone through fertility issues, and it was such a weird experience for us. But I can't imagine what that phone call would have been like for a father or a mother to get about their child without knowing what was going on in the first place.
Melissa Gough 32:28
I can imagine that everyone just wanted to rally around and support you.
Max Krapivsky 32:32
Yeah, that's exactly it.
Melissa Gough 32:33
So you're both going through the emotional recovery of it all. Simm, I'm sure day by day, week by week is getting better, or you know, her body's getting better. What medical feedback have you been given about the next steps going forward?
Max Krapivsky 32:49
It was something that Simm and I were wondering about. We've actually only started on the journey of trying to conceive the month prior to the ectopic pregnancy, and so we were still really, really fresh to it all. Simm works as an Osteo for paediatric patients, and also pre and post pregnancy patients as well. So she knows a lot more about fertility stuff than I do. But essentially, what the doctor said is with one fallopian tube removed, your chances of conceiving is still really, really good. If we add another ectopic pregnancy where the chance is actually a little bit higher. If you've had one previously, then we'd have to go through IVF. So it would be more difficult, but we'd still have avenues there, which was a really important thing to hear from the doctors.
Melissa Gough 32:49
So as we've just said, you had a lot of support, telling family members, even though that was quite an ordeal, telling family members and telling friends. One thing that I did notice is you put a post up, I mean, you sort of didn't use those words ectopic pregnancy, but it was all reading between the lines that we could see that you guys had gone through this significant event. I think also, it was around a really interesting time of what was going on in America with Roe vs. Wade situation. How did it go? When you put that post up? Did you get a lot of response to that?
Max Krapivsky 34:04
Yeah, I put a small post of my appreciation of how strong Simmone was during the time, and you know, what we went through as a couple. I didn't want us to make the same mistake as we've done previously, which was keeping things just between us. So I thought it was important to share a bit of what we'd gone through. As you said it was around the Roe v Wade decision in The States which I’m not going into politically but medically I find some difficulties with it. Yeah, essentially, Simm wouldn't have been able to get the medical attention she needed because it would have fallen under the guise of an abortion in several states in the United States of America.
But the response that we got from it was way bigger than I expected. Not a lot of messages came through to me personally but a lot of Simmone's very close friends like people she's known for a decade, if not more, we're contacting her going, we've been through something similar. We've been through an ectopic, we've been through ovarian cysts. We've been through reproductive issues like if you need to talk, just let me know. I was blown away by how many women had gone through something like this, and how we didn't know about it as some of their closest friends and colleagues. I think that women in current society are so good at talking about so much. But this is still a topic that is so swept under the rug or dealt with within the confines of home and not really spoken about on a wider basis. I think it's changing, but the support networks need to be there, and there should be your friends and family.
Melissa Gough 35:31
So true. I agree with you, and I resonate with your words. I think you sort of go through a bereavement, you go through guilt, you question yourself, you question your body, you go through all these different layers of the process. Whereas if we just probably put the stigma aside and just came from an absolute space of acceptance, and being open minded, and creating that safe space, I'm sure more conversations will be taking place, and people will feel less alone. It was also brave for both of you. Because as we know, when something's on social media, it's out there. This is where you've used a post for good, for creating awareness and it's great that you know, conversations were able to come about because of it.
Max Krapivsky 36:12
Yeah. What's the point of having a voice if you don't encourage others to use theirs?
Melissa Gough 36:16
So true. So how are the plans going for you and Simm now?
Max Krapivsky 36:22
Luckily, Simm is 20 weeks pregnant at the stage getting bigger and less comfortable. As everyday goes through, you're incredibly blessed and fortunate to be in the position we're in. We let people know really early this time round. We wanted to have a support network around us. We didn't want to go through the lows, but also the highs alone. It is Important to share those with the ones you love.
Melissa Gough 36:43
First of all, amazing congratulations! Is there certain protocol and procedures that she has to follow in tests as a result of the ectopic pregnancy?
Max Krapivsky 36:51
Essentially, the only thing was really early detection of where that embryo was implanted. So if it was found in the fallopian tube, again, they wanted to be on that really early, or if it was implanted in the uterus, where we're essentially all good to go with just regular intervention from then.
Melissa Gough 37:07
So when is this little bundle of joy due?
Max Krapivsky 37:11
Feb. 19, three days before my birthday!
Melissa Gough 37:13
So there you go, you might be getting a birthday present.
Max Krapivsky 37:15
I'm happy to share!
Melissa Gough 37:17
I need to ask, I guess as the little bundle is growing up, what sort of lunch boxes are they going to have?
Max Krapivsky 37:23
I use the term shared trauma a few times! I want my child to have the same shared trauma that I had! (laughter). I'll put some funky things in there. I'll have to go dig up the red caviar from deep in the freezer.
Melissa Gough 37:35
Pass the baton…
Max Krapivsky 37:37
I reckon.
Melissa Gough 37:37
Do you know what I'm sure they could almost get a little bit entrepreneurial. I'm sure there's probably some kids in the playground who would love to have those types of lunches, and they might be able to start making a little bit of profit from it.
Max Krapivsky 37:48
Oh, it'd be 2030 by then. So, yeah, why not! Funky lunch boxes all the way!
Melissa Gough 37:52
All right, Max, as we finish up this interview, first of all, thank you for your time, it's been great speaking with you. It's funny even though I know you I've got to see more of an insight into your journey and in MasterChef and also what you and Simm went through during that time. But I'm going to ask you the same question that I have asked everybody else. So the name of the podcast is called The Brain Game Changer: where heartfelt stories, awareness and education can change the game. If there's one bit of advice, guidance, supportive tools that you could give to our listeners today, what would it be?
Max Krapivsky 38:22
Put yourself out of your comfort zone! Even if you think it's small, or if it's something big like a change in career, put yourself out of your comfort zone and do what you want to do? Do what makes you happy! If you look at us, I got something that's as small as putting an application in MasterChef was my game changer. Yours came about in a completely different way, a really significant medical event. But what you've been able to do and change your life around is an inspiration to everyone. I remember having a conversation with you when you were in the hospital bed, which you can't remember at all.
Melissa Gough 38:55
Please don't let me cry Max! Don't make me cry! I know you've, you've said this to me before and I'm not going to cry. I don't remember this conversation at all.
Max Krapivsky 39:03
Yeah, but to say where you've come from, from your recovery to here, starting a podcast, to some some people might be like climbing Everest, but you just gotta do it. There's no point in going on not doing the things you love.
Melissa Gough 39:15
That is true. That is such great advice. Thank you so much, Max, and thank you for your time today. It means so much.
Melissa Gough 39:20
Thank you Mel.
Melissa Gough 39:20
Thank you for listening to this episode, and I hope you found the show really valuable. If you'd like to learn more about the podcast, our guests and the topics we discuss, please head over to our Instagram @thebraingamechanger, and make sure to subscribe and tick those five stars so you never miss an episode. In the meantime, continue embracing those game changing moments. Have a great week and see you again soon. Take care.
