WEBVTT

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"To the God of Radiation."

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And I think even if there's
one more after this,

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we'll just stop with this one.

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"To the God of Radiation."

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So my treatment
chemo, mastectomy,

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PET scan which came back
with what they call NED.

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In breast cancer, you never
are in remission, you're NED.

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Hi, I'm NED.

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It means No Evident Disease.

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And so at this point,
I'm in radiation.

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And it was the final--

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It was like, I don't know, two
or three days from the final day

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of radiation.

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And I had gotten it down.

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Radiation, you go in
every day for 30 days

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except for the weekends.

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So there's a system.

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And in this particular
place you walked in,

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you whipped your shirt off in
front of god and everybody.

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Whoever was in the room,
there were three people,

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eight people, two people,
no people, didn't matter.

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Rip your shirt off, lay down,
and then they line everything up

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for you.

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So I walked into the
room already like this.

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And then my oncologist
was in there, [CHUCKLES]

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which is never a good sign.

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Also, she had no reason
to see any of this.

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At that moment, I
was like, oh, hi.

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[CHUCKLES] Sorry, I didn't know
you were going to be in here.

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And she said, all
right, well, we

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did a scan during your
last radiation appointment.

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And there's a thing in there.

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There's a bit of mustard.

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We don't know what it is.

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It could be cancer.

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It looks like an
inflamed lymph node.

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Or it might just be a bit
of inflammation generally.

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It might not be cancerous.

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But because of where it
is, we can't actually

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do a biopsy on it.

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It's too deep into--

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it was almost on
my shoulder blade,

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if you can imagine,
going all the way back.

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And I said, well, OK.

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Well, what can we do about it?

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And she said, well, we can give
it an extra blast of radiation,

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a booster is what they call it.

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Some people do them,
some people don't.

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But basically they go over and
above your lifetime allotment

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of radiation that
you're supposed

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to get in order to
hopefully fry it,

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I guess is the best
way to think about it.

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And she said the problem
is because of where it is,

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it's going to go through
this portion of your shoulder

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basically where all of
your muscles and nerves

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kind of pass through that.

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And she said because I had had
nerve damage from my mastectomy,

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she said, chances
are you won't be

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able to recover from that fully
as a result of this treatment.

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Also, we don't know
but you could end up

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with nerve damage in the future.

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And I was like, what
could that look like?

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And she was like, well, it
might just be some stiffness

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or you could feel like
your arm's on fire

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for the rest of your life.

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I was like, oh, great.

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And she said, and it
could happen in two days

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and it could happen in 20 years.

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And we don't really
understand why this happens.

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And we don't really understand
the mechanisms of it.

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We don't really understand.

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I said, OK.

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Well, what would you do?

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And I love this
radiation oncologist.

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She said, I have honestly
been up all night

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thinking about what I would
tell my daughter, or my mother,

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or what choice I
would make myself.

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And she said, for me, it's
as close to 50/50 as anything

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I've experienced in my career.

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And I don't feel like it's
really right for me to tell you

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what to do.

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But I can be honest that
I don't know what to do.

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And that's a hard thing
for a doctor to say,

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I have discovered,
among my many,

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many encounters with doctors.

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And I appreciate her
a great deal for that.

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And that's what
this poem is about,

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is about trying to
make that decision.

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"To the God of Radiation."

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Given the unexpected
choice between

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uncertain death--

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Oh, I forgot the punchline.

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I said, what if we
don't radiate it?

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And she said, well,
[CHUCKLES] if it is cancer,

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if it does turn
out to be cancer,

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we can't perform
any more radiation

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because you have had more
than your lifetime's worth.

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Chemotherapy was
unfortunately completely

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useless against my cancer.

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It didn't shrink it at all.

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And they couldn't
perform another surgery

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both because of where it was
and because my skin has already

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been so damaged by radiation.

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So basically, it
would be untreatable

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and would eventually kill me.

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[CHUCKLES WRYLY] So sorry,
that was an important part

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of the story.

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Back to the poem.

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"To the God of Radiation."

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Given the unexpected
choice between

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uncertain death
and certain damage,

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I find in the mirror a woman--

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breastless, burned-- who,

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in an advisory capacity,

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asks, how much do you

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want to live?

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Enough.

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O God of Radiation,

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let your light

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like a ship pass through me,

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Your radiance exposing,

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exposing what's inside me

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like film a God takes--

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but must you clatter the eaves

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of my scapula, scurry

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the grasshopper nest of
my heart, scythe my nerves

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and cobweb my muscles

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to the rungs

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of my ribs?

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How much more can one body take?

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Enough.

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Light every deadly
cell like a wick

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burning in the paper
lantern of my chest--

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My chest, a thing

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so ephemeral

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yet held so firmly in your fist.

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Thank you so much.

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[APPLAUSE]

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