Latest / Get Real with Jim Weiss / Jonathan Gluck, Journalist and Author of An Exercise in Uncertainty

Transcript

Jonathan Gluck, Journalist and Author of An Exercise in Uncertainty · Get Real with Jim Weiss

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, I wanted to introduce Kate Voss. You probably
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: read about her on the credits, but there is a
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: person behind the credits, isn't there case.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Hey, Jim, we had two awesome conversations back to back.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: I know, and there's been a lot of really good
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: ones and there's a lot of good ones coming. Let's
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: talk about these two.
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: So John Block, Jonathan Block, incredible writer, came out with
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: a memoir and we had him on the show, and
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: I feel like all three of us were close to
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: tears at different moments. I wanted to ask you, Jim,
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: what were some of your favorite moments in that episode.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: I think probably among the favorites was when he really
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: talked about how real difficult the actual diagnosis and treatment
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: cascade over the years, put pressure on the marriage. Got
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: a wife that's obviously ultimately incredibly supportive and positive and helpful,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: but when you go through and have cancer hanging over
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: your head like he has for so long, I think
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: there's a stress and attention that just exists there. Loved
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: hearing about how he has leveraged his love of fly
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: fishing with himself in a more powerful way. So it
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: was just an interesting take on fly fishing, which I've
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: done and my son does quite a bit of it.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: So it's just going to make me think about what
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: the meditative focused effects of fly fishing can be and
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: healing effects. So that was probably a couple of highlights. Yeah.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: I love that.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: There's a line in the book I think when he
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: first intros fly fishing.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: As his like exercise and finding certainty, he says fly
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: fishing is expensive. But what he doesn't say in the book,
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: but he said to us, was that he actually gets
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: different magazines and newspapers to pay for his fly fishing excursions,
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: which I didn't know that.
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: I thought I was so great like, which is so
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: so awesome, right fly?
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: I will say Also, I get to sing on this
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: one a little bit because he mentioned his favorite album
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: and I was trying to find out if one of
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: my favorite Neil Young songs is on it. So for
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: people who really want to hear me saying, you know,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: this is the one.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: The book is called Exercise and Uncertainty, and it is
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: about living with illness and also holding onto hope. And
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: he's written for hundreds of publications, he's won many awards,
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: and we were just so lucky to get to talk
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: to him.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, everyone, you're ready for this episode, let's go. Thanks Jonathan.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: You know I read your story and people and of
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: course so quickly it resonated for a lot of reasons.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: And you know that I've done a podcast with Kathy
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Juicy and have worked in the space, launch a lot
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: of products in the space in multiple mile almas, so
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: it was super relevant.
• 2:47
  Speaker 5: No, I appreciate you reaching out, and you know it's
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: been you've probably seen this, I imagine yourself. But it's been
• 2:53
  Speaker 5: incredibly rewarding to do something for this community that needs
• 2:57
  Speaker 5: all the helping and get very often, and to see
• 2:59
  Speaker 5: the response and how the book seems to be resonating
• 3:02
  Speaker 5: with people, and I dare say helping people has been really,
• 3:05
  Speaker 5: really meaningful.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm sure it's helping people. Anyway, here's the book.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: You know, we will always need to show the book
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: and exercise and uncertainty. Talk a little bit about that, right.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: You know, why'd you call? I mean, did you come
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: up with the title or did somebody else?
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: It's a great question.
• 3:23
  Speaker 5: The short answer is my editor came up with the title,
• 3:25
  Speaker 5: and it was plucked from a line in the book
• 3:28
  Speaker 5: where I was talking about pretty early on after my diagnosis,
• 3:32
  Speaker 5: I was speaking with my primary oncologist and I had,
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: you know, a thousand questions, like you do at that
• 3:37
  Speaker 5: stage of something like this, And I was asking him
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: this and that and prognosis and treatment options and if
• 3:43
  Speaker 5: I do this option, what's likely to happen to me?
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: And that option what's likely to happen to me?
• 3:47
  Speaker 5: And his answer to pretty much everything was he would
• 3:50
  Speaker 5: give me a best guess, but then he would say,
• 3:53
  Speaker 5: the truth is, we just don't know.
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: And after in the book.
• 3:56
  Speaker 5: Writing about that whole litany of questions with basically the
• 3:59
  Speaker 5: same answer, I had made the observation that it was
• 4:02
  Speaker 5: then that I learned that cancer is an exercise and uncertainty.
• 4:05
  Speaker 4: And my editor, very wisely, i think.
• 4:08
  Speaker 5: Because I like the title too, plucked that out and thought,
• 4:11
  Speaker 5: not only did it have a nice ring to it,
• 4:13
  Speaker 5: but it really captures the larger idea of the book,
• 4:15
  Speaker 5: which is, whether you're sick or not, whether you have
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: other difficulties or not, we all face uncertainty. It's not
• 4:21
  Speaker 5: just cancer, it's not just other chronic illness, not even
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: just health issues. It can be economic issues, it can
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: be political issues, it can be social issues, it can
• 4:29
  Speaker 5: be your life. Circumstances where you're born, more torn countries.
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: Everybody faces uncertainty.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Well, we're here to talk about the one related to
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: the big CEA, the cancer, the thing that continues to
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: hit everybody, probably more than we want. So with that
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: in mind, one thing that was certain is they told
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: you I had cancer. Let's start at I guess what
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: you call the slip, right How did you find out
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: you were sick? Was it an uncertain journey to get
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: there or did they tell you right away? Like how
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: did the let's go?
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: It's a great question. It was very uncertain and took forever.
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: So it started out.
• 5:05
  Speaker 5: The reason I called that first section of the book
• 5:07
  Speaker 5: the slip. I was leaving my office one night in
• 5:09
  Speaker 5: downtown Manhattan and I just slipped on a patch of ice.
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: It was just a tiny slip. I didn't even fall.
• 5:16
  Speaker 5: I barely even noticed it except I twisted my hip
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: for a second. I kind of regained my balance and
• 5:20
  Speaker 5: I went on. The Next morning, I woke up and
• 5:22
  Speaker 5: my hip hurt a lot, and I thought to myself.
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: Well, that's a little weird.
• 5:25
  Speaker 5: You know, I didn't barely slip at all, and why
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: does my hip hurt so much, but I just chalked
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: it up to, you know, maybe I'm getting a little older.
• 5:31
  Speaker 5: I was thirty seven years old at the time. Maybe
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: this is the first kind of thing you hear people
• 5:35
  Speaker 5: talk about its and pain start to set in easier
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: than before.
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: So I didn't think anything of it.
• 5:40
  Speaker 5: A few weeks or months went by, and I decided
• 5:43
  Speaker 5: it was still hurts. I realized, and I better go
• 5:45
  Speaker 5: see a doctor. So I saw my orthopedist and he
• 5:47
  Speaker 5: took X rays, but the X rays didn't show anything,
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: and he just gave me a physical therapy prescription and
• 5:53
  Speaker 5: told me to go back about my life. Fast forward
• 5:55
  Speaker 5: to the following November. That was November when I slipped
• 5:59
  Speaker 5: on the ice November two thousand and two. So November
• 6:02
  Speaker 5: of two thousand and three came along and I realized
• 6:04
  Speaker 5: this not only still.
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: Hurts, but it hurts much worse.
• 6:07
  Speaker 5: And I was having trouble getting up and downstairs getting
• 6:10
  Speaker 5: it out of cabs. My wife and I had had
• 6:12
  Speaker 5: our first child at that point. She was seven months old.
• 6:15
  Speaker 5: I was having trouble picking her up. Went back to
• 6:18
  Speaker 5: the doctor this time he did an MRI called me
• 6:20
  Speaker 5: right away said I'd like you to come in to
• 6:22
  Speaker 5: talk about your test results.
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: And I was so incredibly naive.
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: I actually thought to myself, like, Wow, what a great doctor,
• 6:27
  Speaker 5: you know, in this day and age, She's going to
• 6:29
  Speaker 5: call me in to give me my test results face
• 6:31
  Speaker 5: to face instead of just sending me my chart. So
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: I went into the second I got there, I knew
• 6:35
  Speaker 5: something was wrong. The receptionists had kind of a grave
• 6:37
  Speaker 5: tone about her, and she immediately looked over her shoulder.
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: They had obviously been prepared for me. Somebody else took
• 6:43
  Speaker 5: me straight to an examining room, no waiting room. The
• 6:46
  Speaker 5: doctor came in and told me, you know, I have
• 6:48
  Speaker 5: to tell you have a lesion on your hip. And
• 6:50
  Speaker 5: I said, allegian, what is that? Is that like a tumor?
• 6:53
  Speaker 5: And he said yes. And just like that, from one
• 6:55
  Speaker 5: minute the next, I had a cancer diagnosis.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: Incredible use the word lesion, it is if you'd know
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: what it was. I'm getting detas from my wife's own
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: similar horrible, difficult diagnosis journey. I mean, what did you
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: think the pain was. I'm always fascinated how we talk
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: ourselves out of the grimace possibility. I myself had that
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: conversation with my wife she always thought I thought everything
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: was cancer. But how did you guys rationalize a year
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: and here's your thirty eight you can't lift your seven
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: month old boo? How'd you talk about it? How'd the
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: rest of the family talk about it? Yeah?
• 7:32
  Speaker 5: First, let me just say I'm sorry that you and
• 7:35
  Speaker 5: your family have been through this, and I know how
• 7:37
  Speaker 5: difficult it is. So the answer to your question is
• 7:40
  Speaker 5: it honestly never crossed my mind that it was anything
• 7:43
  Speaker 5: more than some kind of orthopedic injury.
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: And first and foremost, because.
• 7:47
  Speaker 5: There seemed to be a cause, it didn't seem to
• 7:50
  Speaker 5: add up exactly that I twisted my hip and it
• 7:52
  Speaker 5: hurt that badly and wouldn't go away. But it's not
• 7:54
  Speaker 5: like it was totally out of the blue where I
• 7:56
  Speaker 5: might have started to wonder, gosh, what could be causing this?
• 7:59
  Speaker 5: So I never even open that door in my mind.
• 8:02
  Speaker 5: On top of that, I have no family history of cancer.
• 8:05
  Speaker 5: I had no serious risk factors for cancer. And then
• 8:08
  Speaker 5: I guess if in retrospect, I would say, on top
• 8:10
  Speaker 5: of all of that, and probably more important than all
• 8:12
  Speaker 5: of that, who wants to imagine that it could be
• 8:15
  Speaker 5: something so serious? And I am raised in our culture. Right,
• 8:18
  Speaker 5: if you're a guy, you're supposed to be tough, and
• 8:20
  Speaker 5: you're supposed to say, oh, big deal, So my hip
• 8:23
  Speaker 5: heart's a little bit.
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: I don't need to see a doctor.
• 8:24
  Speaker 5: You know how many of us put off going to
• 8:26
  Speaker 5: the doctor, even for routine things. I just never thought
• 8:30
  Speaker 5: about it that way. And once or twice, like I said,
• 8:33
  Speaker 5: when it got to the point where it had been
• 8:35
  Speaker 5: many and I was busy raising a new baby girl,
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: I had a new job at the time, sort of
• 8:40
  Speaker 5: a dream job, working as an editor at New York Magazine,
• 8:42
  Speaker 5: which is a place I had wanted to work forever.
• 8:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you're starting out a new job.
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: You're trying to prove yourself and put in the extra hours,
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: and the last thing you want to do is take
• 8:50
  Speaker 5: time off for doctor's appointments. Or in the back of
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: my mind, my worst case scenario was maybe I'll need surgery,
• 8:57
  Speaker 5: And so partly I was putting it off because it's
• 8:59
  Speaker 5: like I didn't want to go and have the surgery
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: and have difficulty helping my wife with our daughter, and
• 9:03
  Speaker 5: have difficulty at work at a new job. But I'll
• 9:06
  Speaker 5: tell you an interesting story about all this. Many years later,
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: I was speaking to the same orthopedis who initially diagnosed
• 9:12
  Speaker 5: me and then of course passed me along to oncologists,
• 9:15
  Speaker 5: and he said, you know, that slip on the ice
• 9:17
  Speaker 5: was like an angel's kiss.
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: And I said, what do you mean?
• 9:19
  Speaker 5: He said, who knows how long you would have gone
• 9:23
  Speaker 5: undiagnosed and how much farther the cancer may have gotten
• 9:27
  Speaker 5: if you hadn't slipped on the ice and hurt your hip.
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: And so that's how I've come to think about it
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: ever since.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Kathy Gusty wrote a whole book about how to navigate
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: the healthcare system once you get these diagnoses, and she's
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: certainly had her share of them. I think what you're
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: saying is so important in what I say all the
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: time here on this program, which is stay out of
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: the system. Do everything you can to stay out of
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: the system. And the way to do that is to
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: jump on it. But look, you're an inspirational story. I
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: mean a lot of times these diagnoses are death sentence
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: is not what they were thanks to Kathy Drewsy and
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: the work a multiple I long a Research Foundation and
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: a lot of great companies that have come along with drugs.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Can you tell us if you're comfortable talking a little
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: bit of what was your treatment pathway and how did
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: you get through it.
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I'm happy to talk about it.
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: Mitt all documented very thoroughly in the book, and one
• 10:22
  Speaker 5: of the things I wanted to do is be as
• 10:24
  Speaker 5: detailed as I could for a lay audience, you know,
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: it's not a scientific book, so that people could see
• 10:29
  Speaker 5: the reality of what it's like to go through these treatments.
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: I think we all have a lot of stereotypes in mind.
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: I know I did.
• 10:35
  Speaker 5: In some cases, I imagine some of the things I
• 10:37
  Speaker 5: would go through would be worse than they were, And
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: in other cases I imagined, based on those stereotypes, that
• 10:42
  Speaker 5: some things wouldn't be as bad as they were, and
• 10:44
  Speaker 5: they were worse. So I tried to put down at
• 10:46
  Speaker 5: least my reality to help educate people about what that
• 10:49
  Speaker 5: reality is. So I started out. My initial treatment was
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: a round of radiation therapy on my hip for I
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: believe it was the.
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: Eight sessions I think five and a half weeks raw.
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: The overall pattern of my treatment experience has been which
• 11:07
  Speaker 5: is typical in multiple miloma. I'm diagnosed, I'm treated, I
• 11:11
  Speaker 5: go into a remission, sometimes a partial remission, sometimes a
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: complete remission. Luckily, I've had a response to just about everything,
• 11:17
  Speaker 5: some level of response. That remission lasts in some cases
• 11:21
  Speaker 5: for a very short time, a matter of months, in
• 11:23
  Speaker 5: other cases a very long time. I've had one remission
• 11:25
  Speaker 5: of seven full years, and which was almost unheard of.
• 11:29
  Speaker 5: And then I get sick again and I get a
• 11:31
  Speaker 5: different treatment. And so those treatments have included four rounds
• 11:35
  Speaker 5: now of radiation therapy, two rounds of chemotherapy, many many
• 11:39
  Speaker 5: rounds of different immunotherapy drugs in different combinations, and an
• 11:44
  Speaker 5: ongoing regimen of monthly IV infusions of a substance called immunoglobulin,
• 11:50
  Speaker 5: which is an important element of your immune system to
• 11:53
  Speaker 5: help boost my immunity, which has been damaged over the years,
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: both by the illness itself and a treatments I've had.
• 12:01
  Speaker 5: And so I'm quite immune compromised and I need these
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: monthly infusions to keep me healthy that way.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: And you're about fifty now.
• 12:08
  Speaker 5: Sixty, Yeah, thanks for sayeah, you guess done in the
• 12:10
  Speaker 5: right direction, Jim, I love all right.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: Well, you and I are the same age. You look right,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: You look normally. You know, it's as if you didn't
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: have it, but obviously you had it. How do you
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: explain how well you've done.
• 12:21
  Speaker 5: You will relate to this, because the answer I always
• 12:24
  Speaker 5: give people is science. I've just been incredibly lucky to
• 12:28
  Speaker 5: have been diagnosed with this disease at a time when
• 12:31
  Speaker 5: there have been revolutionary breakthroughs in the treatment of many cancers,
• 12:35
  Speaker 5: but in particular multiple myeloma. So early on, that same
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: doctor who inspired that thought about an exercise and uncertainty.
• 12:44
  Speaker 5: When he and I were talking about my diagnosis, he
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: said to me, the bad news is, your prognosis is
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: not very good right now because we haven't had a
• 12:51
  Speaker 5: lot of drugs to treat this. The good news is
• 12:54
  Speaker 5: there are a ton of drugs in the pipeline. And
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: I thought, maybe part of me just thought, oh, he's
• 12:58
  Speaker 5: blowing smoke. He's just trying to give me some hope.
• 13:01
  Speaker 5: But he turned out to be one thousand percent correct.
• 13:03
  Speaker 5: And those drugs all came online, many of them not
• 13:07
  Speaker 5: only during the time since I was diagnosed, but incredibly enough.
• 13:10
  Speaker 5: And I didn't even realize this myself until I put
• 13:13
  Speaker 5: the timeline together for the book in a detailed way.
• 13:16
  Speaker 5: Many of them came around or were FDA approved, honestly,
• 13:19
  Speaker 5: within months or maybe a year and a half or
• 13:21
  Speaker 5: two of when I needed them. So I'm incredibly grateful
• 13:25
  Speaker 5: to the scientific and research community and the biomedical community
• 13:28
  Speaker 5: in general for developing these treatments, plain and simple.
• 13:32
  Speaker 4: I wouldn't be here without them.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: That's great, And I know that's why people continue to invest.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: I know it's why I invest in these opportunities because
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: ultimately that does happen for many As a way, I
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: know you took carties, right, did you get those? And
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: so you've had lots of the next gens that are
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: there in design for the people who get recurrence but
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: otherwise in the past probably would have not had a chance.
• 14:00
  Speaker 4: That's exactly right.
• 14:01
  Speaker 5: Yeah, And I've had a number of those treatments designed
• 14:03
  Speaker 5: for people with multiple relapses, and I've had you know again,
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: I've lost count at this point, ten twelve recurrences and
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: just in the nick of time, pretty much every time
• 14:14
  Speaker 5: something has come along that is effective to one degree
• 14:17
  Speaker 5: or another.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Tell me how have you coped with it? How did
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: you deal? I mean, you were a young guy when
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: it started your career, it couldn't stop it. I'd love
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: to hear about how your family coped.
• 14:28
  Speaker 5: It's funny you mentioned career, because I'll start there. I mean,
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: one thing I've said to people over the years, or
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: people have noticed over the years, is, you know, I've
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: honestly barely missed a day of work during all this time.
• 14:39
  Speaker 5: And they say, oh, you know, there's this cancer stereotype
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: kind of oh you're so brave or that's so courageous,
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: and I always say, believe me, it's got nothing to
• 14:45
  Speaker 5: do with bravery or courage. You had to do with
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: self preservation. Work is an excellent distraction. And I had
• 14:51
  Speaker 5: a demanding job and it required a lot of hours
• 14:54
  Speaker 5: and a lot of mental energy. And sometimes people would
• 14:57
  Speaker 5: say to me, oh, gosha, you're sure you want to
• 14:59
  Speaker 5: be that stress when you have a diagnosis like this,
• 15:01
  Speaker 5: And I said, that's not stress to me, that's stress relief.
• 15:05
  Speaker 5: Stress is sitting around board and allowing your mind to
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: run in circles and go to dark places. So first
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: and foremost, I guess I would say work was in
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: many ways how I coped. I'm also extremely lucky to
• 15:16
  Speaker 5: have an incredible family and friends who have been supportive
• 15:19
  Speaker 5: emotionally and have been there if I need practical help
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: with anything. Really, going to doctor's appointments or dealing with
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: side effects. And having my daughter be just seven months
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: old when I was diagnosed was, of course, on one hand, horrible,
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: because I found myself thinking a lot about my daughters.
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: Is she going to have to grow up without a father?
• 15:40
  Speaker 5: Is my wife going to have to raise her by
• 15:42
  Speaker 5: herself and all the burdens that that entails. On the
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: other hand, it was a blessing because my daughter gave
• 15:49
  Speaker 5: me a great reason to live and something fun and
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: engaging and to do every day. And again, you know,
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: you're super busy when you're raising a child that age,
• 15:56
  Speaker 5: but that was another thing that helped keep my mind
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: off of things. It's pretty hard not to be happy
• 16:01
  Speaker 5: with a little kid at bathtime and reading time. You know,
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: It's like even when you have something really rotten going on.
• 16:07
  Speaker 5: I used to call her my joy machine because she
• 16:09
  Speaker 5: would reliably bring me joy no matter what else was
• 16:12
  Speaker 5: going on. And then another way, which I write about
• 16:14
  Speaker 5: a lot in the book, is fly fishing. That's my hobby,
• 16:17
  Speaker 5: it's my passion. Before I got sick, I was a
• 16:20
  Speaker 5: pretty avid fly fisherman. After I got sick, it became
• 16:23
  Speaker 5: almost like a necessity. It's so engaging, you're focused completely
• 16:28
  Speaker 5: on what you're doing. You're in a beautiful place, which
• 16:30
  Speaker 5: is relaxing in its own right, on a river, usually
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: mountains and sunshine.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: Where do you fish? Mostly?
• 16:36
  Speaker 5: I fish upstate here in the Catskills sometimes, but I
• 16:40
  Speaker 5: learned to fish in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and made a
• 16:44
  Speaker 5: very good friend there. The first fishing guide I ever
• 16:47
  Speaker 5: had has become a lifelong friend, and I talk about
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: that first trip and about him in the book, and
• 16:53
  Speaker 5: I still go out there a lot, to Wyoming and
• 16:55
  Speaker 5: Idaho and Montana. In fact, I was just there last
• 16:58
  Speaker 5: week fishing with the same guy. Like I say, we've
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: become lifelong friends, and it's as always just a completely
• 17:04
  Speaker 5: wonderful escape for me.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: So you talk about the concept of precrastination, and I
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: could totally relate to it, and how I've coped through
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: my wife's journey through post that. You know, this idea
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: of work a lot of my friends I've worked with
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: my jam and that's probably true. Can you tell me
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: how you handle the affliction of procrastination? Are there upsides
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: and downsides to it? My guess as there are.
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: Yeah, So I think what happened to me happens to
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: a lot of people. Who've been through a serious diagnosis
• 17:36
  Speaker 5: or sometimes maybe a life threatening event or a near
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: death experience, if you want to call that a car
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: crash or something, or maybe they lose somebody close to
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: them and you do I hate to give cancer credit
• 17:47
  Speaker 5: for anything positive, but there are certain lessons you learned
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: that can be valuable. And for me, one of those
• 17:53
  Speaker 5: lessons was, if you want to do something, do it now.
• 17:56
  Speaker 5: Don't put it off, because none of us has promised tomorrow,
• 17:58
  Speaker 5: as they say. And so I kind of developed this
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: habit of pouncing on things when I want to do them.
• 18:04
  Speaker 5: So that can be something small. If I think of
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: a friend, I'll text them and say hello. It could
• 18:09
  Speaker 5: be something large, like a trip to Patagonia or Alaska.
• 18:12
  Speaker 5: Once I get my mindset that I want to do something,
• 18:14
  Speaker 5: I'm going to do it as fast as I reasonably can.
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: And somewhere along the line, after I had noticed that
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: I had begun doing that. It wasn't something I consciously
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: set out to do. It just kind of kicked in
• 18:23
  Speaker 5: after I got sick, especially at times when I was
• 18:26
  Speaker 5: in remission and have the.
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: Opportunity to do those things.
• 18:29
  Speaker 5: Somewhere along the line I came across this term procrastination,
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: which is basically the opposite of procrastination. So procrastination as
• 18:36
  Speaker 5: you tend to put things off. Procrastination is you have
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: an almost compulsive urge to do everything right away.
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: And I do have a bit of that.
• 18:43
  Speaker 5: And as you say, it's got pluses, and I just
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: kind of went through some of those. So it helps
• 18:47
  Speaker 5: you live life to the fullest and jump on things
• 18:50
  Speaker 5: while you can. The downside, and you could ask some
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: of my colleagues or family members about this, is that
• 18:55
  Speaker 5: I can be a bit impatient. I'm always chop chopped
• 18:58
  Speaker 5: with myself and with them and what's.
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: Taking you so long? It's like, don't you realize? Life assured?
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: And sometimes I have to watch that.
• 19:05
  Speaker 5: But for the most part it's been, like I say,
• 19:07
  Speaker 5: I hesitate to give cancer credit for anything, but for
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: the most part it's been a positive development. I'm also
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: a New Yorker and you know we all were fast
• 19:14
  Speaker 5: here in general. So yeah, you put those two things
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: together and you've got a Tasmanian devil.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, there could be worse devils, some kinds
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: of dif very true. So Deni, your wife keeps it
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: real as your rabbi said during your wedding ceremony. I
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: love that, but I'm biased. I like to keep things real.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: My podcast is about getting real, so you don't shy
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: away from how cancer plus life work children can put
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: pressure on the family. The marriage obviously, marriage with or
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: without cancer. Do you want to speak to any of that?
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, how did you guys navigate the sort of
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: better or worse cut through us? Part thing that I
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: think some people probably face when this all goes down.
• 19:54
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's something we both feel really strongly about, and
• 19:58
  Speaker 5: having gone through some pretty serious difficult which I'll get
• 20:01
  Speaker 5: into in a minute, we realized the book was just
• 20:03
  Speaker 5: not going to be real, to use your word, or
• 20:05
  Speaker 5: helpful to people if we sugarcoated things. So we have
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: many long conversations about remembering what we went through as
• 20:12
  Speaker 5: well as deciding on what we wanted to share, and
• 20:14
  Speaker 5: in the end we decided we wanted to share more.
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: Rather than less. Love the reality of it.
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: Oh, there's this sort of Hollywood stereotype is how I
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: put it of. Somebody gets sick and if they're in
• 20:24
  Speaker 5: a close relationship, their partner of whatever kind, their partner
• 20:27
  Speaker 5: is this angelic figure, right, who's always there to be
• 20:31
  Speaker 5: helpful and soothing and kind and going all the appointments
• 20:35
  Speaker 5: and be there with the ice chips. Well, in our case, anyway,
• 20:38
  Speaker 5: that wasn't true. I should point out that my wife
• 20:41
  Speaker 5: was amazing in many ways. She did come to many
• 20:43
  Speaker 5: of my appointments. And let's not forget we had a
• 20:46
  Speaker 5: seven month old daughter when I was diagnosed, and she
• 20:48
  Speaker 5: was still a new mom, she was still nursing, she
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: was a working mom, she was still working full time.
• 20:53
  Speaker 5: So the burden that this placed on her was tremendous,
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: needless to say, and she didn't have a ton of
• 21:00
  Speaker 5: time to devote to me, you know, she had a
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: lot of other stuff going on that had to happen first.
• 21:06
  Speaker 5: In theory, I was fine with that and I understood.
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: But over time, as happens with these things, sometimes you
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: can start to build up resentments.
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: So that was one issue.
• 21:13
  Speaker 5: Another issue is my wife just by chance lost her
• 21:16
  Speaker 5: father when she was quite young, and we used to
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: have sort of a dark humor joke between us that
• 21:22
  Speaker 5: they say, you marry your father, it's not supposed to
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: be like that, And the idea that she might lose
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: somebody else very close to her prematurely was very scary
• 21:31
  Speaker 5: for her and I think triggering, to use the modern word.
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: So just emotionally in many ways, she kind of put
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: up a wall.
• 21:38
  Speaker 5: And I'm saying that lovingly, and I know that she
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: would be the first person to say it herself, and
• 21:43
  Speaker 5: for her own emotional protection, she just needed to keep
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: that wall up to some degree, which again isn't to
• 21:48
  Speaker 5: say she wasn't there for me, She wasn't thoughtful, she
• 21:50
  Speaker 5: didn't care, But that day to day that kind of
• 21:53
  Speaker 5: crept in without either of us knowing, with me getting
• 21:57
  Speaker 5: a little resentful and then getting more and more are
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: needy and angry for more attention and more support that
• 22:04
  Speaker 5: she just reasonably couldn't give, and then her getting angry
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: at me for wanting that or not feeling ever satisfied
• 22:11
  Speaker 5: that she was doing enough, even though she was doing
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: a lot and had ten million other things on her plate.
• 22:16
  Speaker 5: That those kind of tectonic plates started rubbing together and
• 22:20
  Speaker 5: really caused a rift in our relationship to the point
• 22:23
  Speaker 5: where we were together, but we barely spoke. There wasn't
• 22:26
  Speaker 5: a lot of warmth in our relationship. And finally, to
• 22:28
  Speaker 5: your point again of her getting real, she said to me,
• 22:32
  Speaker 5: this sucks and we need to do something about it.
• 22:34
  Speaker 5: And we wound up going to couples counseling and we're
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: very lucky at a wonderful couples counselor who helped us
• 22:40
  Speaker 5: rekindle some warmths between us.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Often you just have to decide to deal with it,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: much like I guess the cancer itself. Right when you
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: first learn you have cancer, you don't think about the net,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: you know, I think you wrote this right, you know,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: think about the next twenty years. You think about the
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: next twenty seconds, which is a great line. So without cancer,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: the next twenty seconds or all we know. In a way,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: cancer creates that clarity. Did that do that for both
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: of you? Or really did he come along in that journey?
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, how did that evolve? Or did you have
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: to counsel through that?
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah, some of both, you know.
• 23:16
  Speaker 5: I think some of it is just time and getting
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: used to a radically new situation. I often say cancer
• 23:21
  Speaker 5: is like a nuclear bomb. It's not just the explosion,
• 23:23
  Speaker 5: it's all the fallout, and that fallout takes a long
• 23:26
  Speaker 5: time to even understand, let alone get used to, let alone.
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: Process in a healthier productive way.
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: So some of it was just time, and some of
• 23:35
  Speaker 5: it was counseling, And I think what we came to
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: understand is there's a big difference between trying to win
• 23:41
  Speaker 5: an argument and trying to solve the problem. And once
• 23:46
  Speaker 5: we stopped trying to each of us trying to be
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: right and insist that the other person was wrong, and
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: we started to get more into a mindset of there's
• 23:56
  Speaker 5: a problem here that we need to work on together
• 23:59
  Speaker 5: to solve, mutual solve because that's going to be good
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: for both of us. It's going to be good for
• 24:03
  Speaker 5: both of us individually, it's going to be good for
• 24:04
  Speaker 5: our relationship, it's going to be good for our kids.
• 24:07
  Speaker 5: I've subsequently had a son, so I have two kids now.
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: Once we got into that mindset, things started to get
• 24:13
  Speaker 5: a lot better, and it wasn't easy.
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: Don't want to pretend it was.
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: I also don't want to pretend that everything's monkey dory
• 24:19
  Speaker 5: all the time. Now we have the same struggles everybody has. Yeah, exactly,
• 24:24
  Speaker 5: matter exactly.
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: But that was kind of the key mindset shift.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: How'd the kids handle it? How did they deal?
• 24:30
  Speaker 5: So that was super tricky for my wife and I
• 24:33
  Speaker 5: to figure out when to tell them my daughter when
• 24:36
  Speaker 5: I was diagnosed, as I said, was seven months old.
• 24:38
  Speaker 5: Obviously you're not gonna tell seven months old. My son
• 24:41
  Speaker 5: came along almost five years later, and I learned something
• 24:44
  Speaker 5: interesting along the way. Where we had talked to a
• 24:48
  Speaker 5: lot of people about wanting to tell our kids and
• 24:51
  Speaker 5: when we should tell our kids, and that included our
• 24:53
  Speaker 5: therapists and doctors and friends and people who've been through
• 24:57
  Speaker 5: something similar. Everything we heard was basically, there's no great time.
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: But another thing we heard was I never thought of
• 25:05
  Speaker 5: this distinction before. Was there's a difference between your need
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: to tell somebody something and their need to know it.
• 25:11
  Speaker 5: And we started to approach that problem that way, and
• 25:14
  Speaker 5: I started to thinking my wife and I had this
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: need to tell. We didn't want to keep secrets from
• 25:18
  Speaker 5: our kids. We didn't want to carry around a secret.
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: Ourselves can be burdensome to carry around a secret. But
• 25:24
  Speaker 5: they didn't have a need to know. It wasn't age
• 25:26
  Speaker 5: appropriate for them to know. They probably couldn't have understood
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: even what was happening. It probably would just have been
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: it scary without helping them in any way. So we
• 25:33
  Speaker 5: waited till we thought their ages were appropriate, and then
• 25:37
  Speaker 5: we just told them, and after years and years of
• 25:39
  Speaker 5: worrying about it, it actually went really well and they
• 25:42
  Speaker 5: were lovely and supportive. And another thing I tried to
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: do again, based on advice we had gotten from friends
• 25:47
  Speaker 5: and doctors and therapists, was tell them at a time
• 25:50
  Speaker 5: when I was healthy and in a full remission and
• 25:52
  Speaker 5: could confidently say, my doctors say I'm doing well, and
• 25:55
  Speaker 5: they expect I'm going to continue to do well because
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: there are all these new treatments and so just take
• 25:59
  Speaker 5: a look.
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: You can see for yourself, I'm fine.
• 26:02
  Speaker 5: I think that was a big part of telling them
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: in a way that was as gentle as possible.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean I totally went through it myself and
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: had older kids when it happened, and I think their
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: views were old enough to know. And at the same time,
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: it's always a bit of a struggle. So I don't
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: think again there's any right. There is, just how you
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: handle it and make it work. And you are here,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: So that's pretty incredible. Was there a time you didn't
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: think you were going to be here? Did you ever
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: lose faith? Hey?
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, many times.
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: There was a time I was quite sick, I had
• 26:36
  Speaker 5: come out of a remission and there was some delay
• 26:39
  Speaker 5: in figuring out what we were going to do next
• 26:41
  Speaker 5: because there were a couple of choices and I wanted
• 26:43
  Speaker 5: to get a couple of opinions. And I started getting
• 26:46
  Speaker 5: sicker fairly rapidly, and then finally settled on a treatment
• 26:50
  Speaker 5: plan to enter a clinical trial up in Boston at
• 26:53
  Speaker 5: Dana Farber Cancer Center, which is, as you know, one
• 26:56
  Speaker 5: of the renowned cancer centers in the world. And I
• 27:00
  Speaker 5: I was able to get into a clinical trial there
• 27:02
  Speaker 5: involving two immunotherapy drugs, and I was just about to
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: start the following week when one of my kids had
• 27:10
  Speaker 5: an emergency, a serious emergency, a health emergency, and we
• 27:14
  Speaker 5: were in the emergency room with them, my wife and
• 27:17
  Speaker 5: I and just you know how that is. You're just
• 27:20
  Speaker 5: at your wits end and absolutely terrified that the worst
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: is going to happen. And as I was sitting there
• 27:26
  Speaker 5: in the emergency room waiting room while the doctors were
• 27:29
  Speaker 5: treating my child, I got a phone call. I've gett
• 27:35
  Speaker 5: I made it this far without getting emotional, but now
• 27:37
  Speaker 5: you've got me. I got a phone call as I
• 27:40
  Speaker 5: was sitting there, and I looked at my phone and
• 27:42
  Speaker 5: it was from the doctor's office in Boston and they
• 27:46
  Speaker 5: were calling to arrange the first appointment for this clinical
• 27:50
  Speaker 5: trial treatment I was going to be in and I
• 27:53
  Speaker 5: thought to myself, Man, it doesn't get much lower than this.
• 27:55
  Speaker 5: You know, I'm in the emergency room with my child
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: in a life threatening situation and I'm getting by my
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: oncologists to start treatment for an experimental treatment.
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: At that that I didn't know if it was going
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: to work or not.
• 28:06
  Speaker 5: And that was one of the few times where I think,
• 28:08
  Speaker 5: to answer your question directly, where I thought, I'm not
• 28:11
  Speaker 5: sure this is going to work out.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: How did that and other incidents make you want to
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: keep living? I suppose it was the kids. I mean,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe I'm long.
• 28:23
  Speaker 5: No more than anything, you're right every day. That's two
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: amazing reasons too. The only two reasons I need but
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: to keep going are them. They're great kids. They're funny,
• 28:31
  Speaker 5: they're smart, they're nice to be around. So just being
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: in their company is very inspiring to me. My sixtieth
• 28:38
  Speaker 5: birthday came along earlier this year and everybody said, oh,
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: it's a milestone birthday, and for you it's a bigger deal.
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: He Given everything that happen, what do you want to
• 28:47
  Speaker 5: do something fantastic, travel to I don't know, Paris or
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: Hong Kong, or take everyone to Vegas they went to Vegas,
• 28:54
  Speaker 5: or have a big surprise party. They told me they
• 28:56
  Speaker 5: were talking about at one point my wife and kids
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: and my siblings to my wife, you know what, I
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: don't want to do any of that. The thing that
• 29:03
  Speaker 5: is meant the most to me through all of this
• 29:05
  Speaker 5: is you guys, my wife and my two kids. And
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: I was like, let's just be together, Let's go out
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: to dinner, let's do nothing but just the four of us.
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: And then, as it turned out, so everybody's cool with that. Then,
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: as it turned out, my daughter was still in college.
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: She just graduated. But this was back in April, and
• 29:21
  Speaker 5: she's a drama major and she was in a play
• 29:23
  Speaker 5: that weekend of my birthday.
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: So we decided we were all going to go out
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: to see her.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: That's cool.
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: And we saw her play, and then for my sixtieth birthday,
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: they were like, okay, well where you want to go
• 29:33
  Speaker 5: for dinner? Dad, Let's take you someplace nice. I was like,
• 29:35
  Speaker 5: you know, I like the college cafeteria. Your college cafeteria
• 29:39
  Speaker 5: is awesome. So wait, what college is that she went
• 29:42
  Speaker 5: to Kenyon College in Ohio, and I have to say,
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: a fantastic dining hall, a cafeteria, that's my vibe.
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: You know, I just wanted something.
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: Really low key and just with my family, and I
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: didn't feel right. You know, it was a strange thing
• 29:57
  Speaker 5: to celebrate. It's like, well, celebrating cancer is a little weird,
• 30:03
  Speaker 5: even though I realize it's my birthday and I'm glad,
• 30:05
  Speaker 5: very happy to be here. And also I've gotten a
• 30:07
  Speaker 5: little superstitious, to be totally honest, over the years, and
• 30:10
  Speaker 5: I don't feel comfortable acting as if I've won this
• 30:13
  Speaker 5: battle when I know there's still lots more to go.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Does it feel like it's hanging over your head or
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: do you feel power over it?
• 30:19
  Speaker 5: Oh, it always feels like it's hanging over my head.
• 30:21
  Speaker 5: I think I've learned over the years to have some
• 30:23
  Speaker 5: degree of I guess you could say power over it
• 30:26
  Speaker 5: if you just want to talk about like how I've
• 30:28
  Speaker 5: learned to cope. But there are many times I have
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: no power over it. Believe me, it's much more powerful
• 30:33
  Speaker 5: than I am. And one of the things I write
• 30:34
  Speaker 5: about in the book is there was that I don't
• 30:35
  Speaker 5: know if anybody remembers their Greek mythology. I didn't until
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: I came across this phrase. But the sword of Danocles
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: was the sword that was hung over somebody's head to
• 30:45
  Speaker 5: remind them. He was given all this wealth, but the
• 30:47
  Speaker 5: sword was hung over his head to remind him what
• 30:50
  Speaker 5: power and wealth can bring in terms of potential dangers
• 30:54
  Speaker 5: in your life. And he had to live with that
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: sword hanging over him, And that, I think, is how
• 30:58
  Speaker 5: a lot of people in my position feel when you've
• 31:01
  Speaker 5: got one of these diagnoses that luckily in my case,
• 31:04
  Speaker 5: and believe me, I realize how fortunate I am compared
• 31:06
  Speaker 5: to some others.
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: I do get to live with this.
• 31:09
  Speaker 5: On the other hand, I have to live knowing it's
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: going to come back, and that is like a sword.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: But it's powerful to know that you went, you've got
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: the diagnosis, you've got treat me, you took chances. Is
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: there any point in this journey where you could point
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: to and say, yeah, that was a great move I made.
• 31:27
  Speaker 5: I wouldn't say that I had, but I would say
• 31:29
  Speaker 5: that some of my doctors have had and I guess
• 31:31
  Speaker 5: I'm involved in the sense that I had to pick ultimately,
• 31:34
  Speaker 5: so at one point, one of my doctors wanted to
• 31:37
  Speaker 5: go ahead with a standard protocol for what I have,
• 31:40
  Speaker 5: which would have been a stem cell transplant, and that
• 31:43
  Speaker 5: can be wonderful treatment. It's something I probably will still
• 31:46
  Speaker 5: have at some point I haven't yet had, but at
• 31:49
  Speaker 5: the time that was recommended to me. It's a very
• 31:52
  Speaker 5: big deal and very risky.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: I know people have done it, yeah.
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: So naturally I wanted a second opinion.
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: That's when I first got in touch with the doctor
• 32:00
  Speaker 5: at Dana Farber who I wound up seeing for many years.
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: His name's Paul Richardson. I'm more than happy to plug.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: Oh.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a big deal. People know him.
• 32:08
  Speaker 5: Yeah, he is, indeed, And he said, I don't think
• 32:12
  Speaker 5: a transplant is best in your particular case because you're young.
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: I'm unusually young to have this disease at all.
• 32:19
  Speaker 5: He made a very i think in retrospect, extremely nuanced
• 32:24
  Speaker 5: and brilliant judgment that it was wiser in my case to,
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: as he put it, keep our powder dry and use other,
• 32:32
  Speaker 5: if you want to say, smaller treatments while I was
• 32:36
  Speaker 5: still young and relatively healthy otherwise, and hold the big
• 32:40
  Speaker 5: guns in reserve for when I really needed them. And
• 32:43
  Speaker 5: there were other people who disagreed with that pretty forcefully.
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: But I don't know how or why I chose to
• 32:49
  Speaker 5: go that route. I just had a sixth sense that
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: he was to be trusted. When he was a hyper
• 32:54
  Speaker 5: specialist in this area and extremely well known to me,
• 32:58
  Speaker 5: it just made sense to trust him, and it turned
• 33:01
  Speaker 5: out to be the right call.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: Did you get more or less religion during this time?
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: Did you have religion in your background? I always wonder,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: like what gives people the metal? I guess you find it,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: but did you have something particularly that you can point
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: to that helped you through this.
• 33:17
  Speaker 5: I'm not a religious person, but they say no atheists
• 33:20
  Speaker 5: in a foxhole, I also say no atheists on an
• 33:23
  Speaker 5: oncology ward. There's certainly been times where I've been out
• 33:26
  Speaker 5: of other options and prayed for some kind of good
• 33:30
  Speaker 5: outcome or some kind of relief from what I was
• 33:32
  Speaker 5: going through.
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: But I'm not formally religious.
• 33:34
  Speaker 5: One of the things that's been interesting, and I mentioned
• 33:36
  Speaker 5: it briefly before, is I have become quite superstitious, which
• 33:40
  Speaker 5: most of the people I know sort of laugh at,
• 33:42
  Speaker 5: because I'm otherwise very skeptical of what you could, I
• 33:46
  Speaker 5: guess glibly call wuhu things. That's never been my kind
• 33:50
  Speaker 5: of mindset, but after I got sick, it is in
• 33:54
  Speaker 5: certain ways. My wife bought me the stuff Tiger from
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: the hospital once from the gift shop, and I've kept
• 34:00
  Speaker 5: that ever since.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: Does it have a name?
• 34:02
  Speaker 4: It doesn't have a name. Maybe I shouldn't have it.
• 34:04
  Speaker 5: My mother in law on me I should a little
• 34:07
  Speaker 5: Buddha from She's a pianist and was playing a concert
• 34:10
  Speaker 5: in China and brought me back a little Buddha that
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: she said sort of spoke to her in terms of
• 34:16
  Speaker 5: looking over me or protecting me. I still have that
• 34:19
  Speaker 5: when times are really rough and I'm going through something
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: particularly difficult. Sometimes I going I get the stuff Tiger
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: and I have a little chat with him, or sometimes
• 34:27
  Speaker 5: I get the Buddha and I rub his little head,
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: you know, the way for good luck.
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: So that's sort of, I guess, one of the ways
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: I cope.
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: And then, like I said, I'm just extremely fortunate to
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: have friends and family that I can talk to and
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: turn to. And I'm also lucky to have good health insurance.
• 34:41
  Speaker 5: I have a therapist I can talk to. I have
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: a pretty great support system, and I'm very grateful for it.
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: What about the wrap around care? Did you ever do
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: acupuncture or meditation? My wife did a lot of this stuff,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: and I always felt that help with the quality of
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: the life, even though she was mainly doing traditional therapies
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: because her cancer was rare and there weren't new things
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: other than clinical trials, which are still to be proved out.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: So what kind of things did you do or have
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: you done in that regard.
• 35:12
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's funny you asked, because I had a recent
• 35:14
  Speaker 5: experience with this. So going back about three or four
• 35:17
  Speaker 5: years ago, I came out of remission again and I
• 35:20
  Speaker 5: had another recurrence, and that presented as quite a number
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: of lesions on my bones in different areas, but the
• 35:26
  Speaker 5: largest ones were on my other hip, what I used
• 35:29
  Speaker 5: to think of as my good hip, because the first
• 35:31
  Speaker 5: one was on my left hip and this one was
• 35:33
  Speaker 5: on my right hip.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: And have you had hip replacement or anything?
• 35:36
  Speaker 5: I haven't, And it's interesting a lot of people ask
• 35:38
  Speaker 5: me that, But the hip replacement essentially fixes the joint
• 35:42
  Speaker 5: or your hip is like a ball and socket, and
• 35:44
  Speaker 5: the hip replacement know a lot about it. Yeah, Yeah,
• 35:46
  Speaker 5: replaces that top of that bone. If you have lesions
• 35:50
  Speaker 5: kind of here there and everywhere in a random pattern.
• 35:52
  Speaker 5: The replacement isn't going to do anything to fix those,
• 35:55
  Speaker 5: so I haven't had that and I've been treated since then,
• 35:57
  Speaker 5: as we talked about earlier with carte therapy, and I
• 36:00
  Speaker 5: am in a full remission currently and have been for
• 36:02
  Speaker 5: a couple of years. However, the damage from those lesions
• 36:07
  Speaker 5: caused me a lot of orthopedic pain, and I had
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: been through every traditional type of doctor you could see
• 36:13
  Speaker 5: to try and treat that pain, and it wasn't getting
• 36:15
  Speaker 5: any better. One of my doctors said, you know, have
• 36:18
  Speaker 5: you ever considered acupuncture? And I recently started seeing an
• 36:21
  Speaker 5: acupuncturist who does a combination of acupuncture, deep tissue massage,
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: and cupping.
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: Where they put the I'd done it, and finally.
• 36:31
  Speaker 5: After years of pain in that hip that was more
• 36:34
  Speaker 5: or less unrelenting, even just in the last month or
• 36:37
  Speaker 5: six weeks, I've started to feel better.
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: Well, how old are you? That's great, and I'm so
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: glad I asked you, because I think there are some
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: other types of treatments out there that are less invasive.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: But still, again, this combo of Eastern and Western medicine
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: is an interesting idea. One of the questions. Kate put
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: this into my head because I am so obsessed with
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: bungevity and staying youthful and remaining younger. But you have
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: a little different view about all this, given your journey.
• 37:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I share your view to some extent.
• 37:09
  Speaker 5: I have a little bit different view, but also a
• 37:12
  Speaker 5: little bit the same. And what I mean by that
• 37:14
  Speaker 5: is after I got sick, I definitely started taking better
• 37:16
  Speaker 5: care of myself.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: I pay more attention to diet and exercise and try
• 37:20
  Speaker 5: and eat right, and try not to drink too much
• 37:22
  Speaker 5: or smoke, try and go to.
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: The gym as often as I can.
• 37:25
  Speaker 5: But I also kind of had this attitude, as I
• 37:28
  Speaker 5: wrote in the book, that like, what's the use of
• 37:30
  Speaker 5: being alive if you don't live a little. So I
• 37:32
  Speaker 5: haven't become a person who's super strict about my diet
• 37:36
  Speaker 5: or super strict about never having a beer or bourbon
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: or something, or never staying out late. I try and
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: mostly maintain good habbits.
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: I think most of.
• 37:46
  Speaker 5: Us try, but I haven't crossed the line into being
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: really kind of obsessed about it. I just think I
• 37:53
  Speaker 5: try and get eighty percent of the way there, and
• 37:55
  Speaker 5: then if I screw up the other twenty percent of
• 37:58
  Speaker 5: the time, I try and allow myself to just do
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: that and enjoy it.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: Well, live while you're living. I mean, that's what I
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: hear a lot for people who are going through this.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: So I think that's a reinforcement of that. It's not
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: like you haven't navigated enough. That's hard, So give yourself
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: a little bit of something fun and good times. How
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: about work? Has it changed how you've approached work and
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: the stories you want to tell cover tell us where
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: you are right now in your career.
• 38:28
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it has, and I think the book is really
• 38:30
  Speaker 5: the culmination of that. One of the things that's strange
• 38:33
  Speaker 5: about being in my position where you're sick but you're
• 38:37
  Speaker 5: not so sick that you can't work, but you're also
• 38:39
  Speaker 5: never going to get better, is that I was diagnosed
• 38:42
  Speaker 5: when I was young. I'm not a billionaire, so I
• 38:45
  Speaker 5: had to work. I've always had to work, and so
• 38:47
  Speaker 5: you try and balance that necessity against some other things
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: that are changing at the same time. And in my case,
• 38:54
  Speaker 5: that was just wanting to do work that was as
• 38:57
  Speaker 5: meaningful to me as possible. For many years, I was
• 39:01
  Speaker 5: very fortunate working at New York Magazine. I was able
• 39:03
  Speaker 5: to do a lot of work that I found very
• 39:04
  Speaker 5: meaningful and that in some cases was something super serious.
• 39:08
  Speaker 5: Maybe about I did one story I was very proud of.
• 39:10
  Speaker 5: Worked with a tremendous writer and friend of mine on
• 39:12
  Speaker 5: this story. I worked on it as an editor about
• 39:15
  Speaker 5: sexual abuse in the ultra Orthodox Jewish community, similar to
• 39:19
  Speaker 5: sexual abuse among priests and kids in the Catholic community.
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: That was a.
• 39:24
  Speaker 5: Very powerful story that led to the arrest of an
• 39:26
  Speaker 5: abusive rabbi, and a story I felt very worthy about,
• 39:31
  Speaker 5: even though it was a tough story to work on.
• 39:33
  Speaker 5: But I also really enjoyed doing the fun stories at
• 39:35
  Speaker 5: New York magazines. Sometimes we write about food trends, pizza
• 39:39
  Speaker 5: or food carts, and just stories that gave people a
• 39:41
  Speaker 5: lot of enjoyment figuring out how to live a more fun,
• 39:45
  Speaker 5: exciting life in New York. As time went on, I
• 39:48
  Speaker 5: got more and more, as I think a lot of
• 39:51
  Speaker 5: people do, whether they're sick or not, as you get older,
• 39:53
  Speaker 5: interested in doing stories that were really personal to me
• 39:56
  Speaker 5: one way or another, and so I began looking for
• 39:58
  Speaker 5: opportunities to do that and also to help other people
• 40:01
  Speaker 5: tell their personal stories. So I worked at a company
• 40:03
  Speaker 5: called Medium for a time that is essentially a blogging
• 40:07
  Speaker 5: platform that helps people tell their own stories, and I
• 40:10
  Speaker 5: got very interested in that at one point, because we
• 40:13
  Speaker 5: all have a story to tell. And then, as I say,
• 40:15
  Speaker 5: the culmination of all this was the book where I realized,
• 40:18
  Speaker 5: I feel it's time for me now, after all these years,
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: to share this story. There's a lot to it that
• 40:23
  Speaker 5: I think other people can benefit from hearing. And so
• 40:26
  Speaker 5: that to me has been the most meaningful work I've
• 40:28
  Speaker 5: done for sure, and kind of lines up with where
• 40:31
  Speaker 5: this whole journey has taken me.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: Well, what's next? Where do you go from here? The
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: book becomes a movie, becomes a show. What do you think?
• 40:38
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's such early days, it's hard to know. I mean,
• 40:41
  Speaker 5: as I said when you and I were talking right
• 40:43
  Speaker 5: at the very beginning. I've been incredibly gratified by the
• 40:46
  Speaker 5: responses I've gotten from other people, and both in and
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: out of the cancer community, whether they're cancer patients themselves,
• 40:53
  Speaker 5: or family members of people, or caregivers or supporters, whether
• 40:57
  Speaker 5: they've been through some other chronic illness, whether they've just
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: been through some difficulty that had nothing to do with illness.
• 41:03
  Speaker 5: That connection to people I'm feeling is very powerful. I've
• 41:06
  Speaker 5: done a number of events at bookstores and people come
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: up to me and tell me their stories. And some
• 41:11
  Speaker 5: people who said, to me, is that really hard? That's
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: so heavy? And I'm finding it very uplifting actually to
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: be able to provide that service, if you want to
• 41:18
  Speaker 5: call it that for somebody where they feel like they
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: can share their story, particularly with somebody who understands and
• 41:24
  Speaker 5: gets where they've been. There's something very powerful in that bond.
• 41:28
  Speaker 5: Where I'm going with all that in terms of your
• 41:30
  Speaker 5: question is one thing I've been thinking about doing is
• 41:32
  Speaker 5: more speaking engagements where I can have that connection with
• 41:35
  Speaker 5: other people and try and make something good out of
• 41:38
  Speaker 5: something that otherwise is pretty rotten and help people.
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: It's amazing because I do think by inspiring others that
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: there can be a positive outcome, and there are clinical
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: trials and there are things that can be done. Then
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: I think that is a very cool mission. If you will,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: so I think keep doing it. Thank you. I do
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: have like a couple of lightweight questions that I always
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: ask every guest so we have a little fun. Well,
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: I kind of feel like I know what you're going
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: to say to this one, but I want to know
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: what is your dream vacation or maybe you've taken it already.
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: No, I mean you're right that you know that it's
• 42:16
  Speaker 5: going to be a fishing trip. I've gotten assignment to
• 42:18
  Speaker 5: go to Patagonia. I've gotten assignment to go to Alaska.
• 42:20
  Speaker 5: So I've been able to fish in those two places,
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: which are pretty much on every serious fly fishermen's bucket list.
• 42:26
  Speaker 5: The place I haven't been yet, So the answer to
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: your question is New Zealand.
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: I really want to fish.
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: My son keeps talking about that one.
• 42:32
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, that's supposed to be fantastic. I've watched a
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: bunch of videos, I've read up on it. I've done
• 42:38
  Speaker 5: a fair amount research, and one of these days I'm
• 42:40
  Speaker 5: going to procrastinate my way into a trip there.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: And then, if you're going to a desert island, what
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: album are you going to take? If they only had
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: one album, Oh.
• 42:50
  Speaker 5: That's a good one. I guess my desert island album
• 42:53
  Speaker 5: would be uh wow, I can only choose one. I
• 42:58
  Speaker 5: was going to cop out and give you two, but
• 43:01
  Speaker 5: I'm going to say Neil Young Live Rust And it's
• 43:06
  Speaker 5: because it covers so many emotions. It's not just sad.
• 43:10
  Speaker 5: It's not just upbeat. It's not just dark, it's not
• 43:14
  Speaker 5: just light. It's not just fast, it's not just slow.
• 43:16
  Speaker 5: It's got a little bit of everything.
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: That's what I'm a.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: Sugar mountain on. That is that off.
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: The top of my head.
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: I'm not sure I could tell you lies, but.
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: I don't want to.
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: I don't want to be quoting all the books and
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: the colored balloons.
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: Much better singer than I am. You're very late to sing.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: I never try. I'm not in a shower right now.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: All right, Kate, I was so great. Well, he wrote
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: the book. I mean that was easy. You know when
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: someone writes the book.
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: If I don't know the material, nobody's gonna right.
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: One thing that I like really made me cry when
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: I read it in the book, And if it makes
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: you cry, we don't.
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: Have to keep it on. But okay, yeah, I haven't
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: believe it. There's been plenty of crying in this process. Yeah.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: I just thought it was so beautiful. You studied with
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: Kate Sweeney at UC Riverside to learn about living with
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: uncertainty and how to cope with uncertainty, and towards the
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: end of the book, you talk about losing your dad,
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: And you said you still text him pictures of your fish.
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: Is that part of the art of coping?
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: Wow?
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you were right. I didn't think you were going
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: to get me, but you got me. Yeah. It's just I.
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: Couldn't get over it because I just think that's so amazing.
• 44:30
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, the honest answer is I don't think.
• 44:35
  Speaker 5: I mean, you've really actually making me think about something new,
• 44:37
  Speaker 5: which is this cool?
• 44:39
  Speaker 4: Which is cool?
• 44:39
  Speaker 5: Like, I don't I hadn't thought about it that way
• 44:42
  Speaker 5: prior to now. I'd mostly thought about it just in
• 44:45
  Speaker 5: terms of keeping in touch with him and keeping our
• 44:47
  Speaker 5: relationship alive even though he's gone. But I think you're
• 44:50
  Speaker 5: right because he was a big part of my support system,
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: and fishing was a big part of my support system,
• 44:55
  Speaker 5: and showing him those pictures always brought me so much joy,
• 45:00
  Speaker 5: brought him a lot of joy, and as you also
• 45:02
  Speaker 5: read in the book, he was not a fisherman, but
• 45:05
  Speaker 5: much later in life, when he was eighty, I took
• 45:08
  Speaker 5: him fishing for the first time. Then the two of
• 45:10
  Speaker 5: us went fishing together. So it was this very special
• 45:13
  Speaker 5: bond we shared over this, even though he wasn't nearly
• 45:17
  Speaker 5: as avidly into it as I was, so I do
• 45:19
  Speaker 5: think it was a way for me to cope and
• 45:21
  Speaker 5: just keep the strength of that relation.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: Tell you how to fish? How did you get into it?
• 45:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah, my wife and I were on vacation in Wyoming
• 45:29
  Speaker 5: and we had done kind of all the other things
• 45:32
  Speaker 5: to do there, hiking, biking, you know, river rafting, and
• 45:36
  Speaker 5: we actually just went up to the desk clerk at
• 45:38
  Speaker 5: the little inn we were staying at one night and said,
• 45:41
  Speaker 5: you know, we've done all these other things. We've got
• 45:42
  Speaker 5: a couple more days. What do you recommend we do?
• 45:45
  Speaker 5: And she said, well, have you ever gone fly fishing?
• 45:47
  Speaker 5: And my wife and I had both fished as kids
• 45:50
  Speaker 5: conventionally with rod and reel spin casting, but neither of
• 45:54
  Speaker 5: us were serious about it. You know, we'd each fished,
• 45:56
  Speaker 5: you know, a handful of times, maybe ten times with
• 45:59
  Speaker 5: our parents are great parents.
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: So we said no, but we'd love to try.
• 46:02
  Speaker 5: And she set us up with she said, I'll get
• 46:05
  Speaker 5: you a guide in the morning and he'll pick you
• 46:07
  Speaker 5: up at seven o'clock sharp and he'll take you out.
• 46:09
  Speaker 5: And that's, my friends, that's how we met. And that night,
• 46:12
  Speaker 5: not only did beaty, my wife and I have an
• 46:14
  Speaker 5: incredible time fishing, but we all had so much fun
• 46:17
  Speaker 5: and got along so well. He called his wife when
• 46:20
  Speaker 5: we came off the river and said, his girlfriend at
• 46:22
  Speaker 5: the time, I met this great couple. You got to
• 46:24
  Speaker 5: come out and meet us for drinks and dinner, and
• 46:26
  Speaker 5: we all hung out that night and became, as I say,
• 46:29
  Speaker 5: you know, friends forever. So it was really just Kis
• 46:32
  Speaker 5: mit I guess, right place, right time, right people, and
• 46:35
  Speaker 5: we both just kind of fell in love with it.
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: That's awesome, amazing how these things happened. I know. Well, listen,
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: thanks so much. Thanks for writing the book, Thanks for
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: sharing your story. We hope more people do it. We
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: know not everyone gets to take this journey like you did.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: You're both lucky, privileged, honored and inspirational to all of us.
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: So thanks. I'm excited to share this one with everybody
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: and hope to see you more out on the trail,
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: continuing to inspire more people with the story.
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: I'd love to do that. And thanks for having me, Jim.
• 47:09
  Speaker 5: I really appreciate it, and the work you do for
• 47:10
  Speaker 5: this community is incredible, and thank you and really really
• 47:14
  Speaker 5: grateful for.
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: All of it.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, thanks for joining me on the Get Real podcast.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: You know. I hope you feel a little healthier hanging
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: out with me. You know it's going to be a
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: lot of fun. Passing this along to others. Please subscribe below,
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: Please share. I'm excited not just to talk about healthcare,
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: but a lot of other fun topics. It's about making healthy.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: Talk about healthcare is not a lecture. This is supposed
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: to be fun. And look forward to spending more time
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: with you in the future.