June 20, 2023 • 55 mins
Episode 77: Elizabeth Benedict
Mental Health Advocate, Cancer Survivor and Author Elizabeth Benedicat is ready to Tell Us The Truth about her new book Rewriting Illness: A View of My Own. Listen as Elizabeth opens up about
*You can Subscribe to Tell Us The Truth on all leading podcast apps including the iHeart Radio App, Spreaker and iTunes/Apple Podcasts. Join us on Facebook and Twitter for daily discussion about top news.*
Mental Health Advocate, Cancer Survivor and Author Elizabeth Benedicat is ready to Tell Us The Truth about her new book Rewriting Illness: A View of My Own. Listen as Elizabeth opens up about
- Her personal experiences being a Cancer Survivor,
- Warlike metaphors used to describe cCancer,
- How Doctors fears influence their comments on patients
- Whether or not the fear of waiting to find out you have Cancer or being officially diagnosed with Cancer is worse
- How do you keep going when Doctors tell you that you're wrong
- Getting second opinions
- Much more
*You can Subscribe to Tell Us The Truth on all leading podcast apps including the iHeart Radio App, Spreaker and iTunes/Apple Podcasts. Join us on Facebook and Twitter for daily discussion about top news.*
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Mental health advocate, cancer survivor andauthor Elizabeth Benedict opens up about her new
book, Rewriting Illness, A Viewof my Own. My name is E
Duke Bennett and this is tell Usthe Truth. Hi, my name is
(00:24):
Elizabeth Benedict. I'm the author ofRewriting Illness, A View of my Own,
and I'm here today to tell youthe truth. I wrote Rewriting Illness
because I had an experience encountering themedical establishment over a cancer diagnosis that caused
(00:48):
me to reflect on the system,my relationship to it, how it might
work better, how to decode whatdoctor to say, and how to navigate
it in a very stressful situation.And I wanted to explore all of those
(01:12):
things in a way that might behelpful and in some way comforting to other
people going through this, Elizabeth,As you know from firsthand experience, cancer
is a pretty traumatic event, youknow, if it occurs in someone's life,
not just for the person personally experiencingit, but also for their loved
(01:37):
ones, you know, anyone whowas on the journey with them as they
hopefully get nurse back to good health, so to speak. The trauma associated
with cancer is that something that youfind can be passed down. Well,
I don't know whether the trauma inmy case is going to be passed down
(01:59):
generationally. I I hope it's not. I hope my stepdaughter, who's an
adult, doesn't. It wasn't traumatizedby my experience, although she was very
wonderful and responsive and loving, andI'm sure it was very difficult for her.
But in my own life, Ithink my mother's traumas were passed on
(02:21):
to me and my sister. Shehad difficulties, including the murder of her
brother two months before she got marriedto my father, and that's that event
is something I've written about in otherplaces. But I do think that trauma
can be passed down, and Ithink those of us who come from traumatic
(02:43):
situations or have a traumatic heritage havewell, I think it's important too if
you will get help for that sothat we don't keep passing those things down.
And I have a number of friendswhose parents were Holocaust survivors and very
close friends, and so I've seenthe trauma that was passed down to them
(03:07):
even decades, many decades later.But so I think trauma can be passed
down, and I think the historyof our country is it's a traumatic history,
and there's a lot of trauma thatis passed down. And I'm very
much a believer in working through thethings that hang us up and the trauma
(03:30):
that that we're that we inherited,but also that we encounter in life,
because we all encounter trauma. Youknow, when when you're five or ten
or fifteen, life can be verysweet. By the time you're forty five
or fifty, you know, afew things have happened to you. You've
gotten knocked around a little. Youknow. When we hear people talk about
(03:52):
cancer, especially when it comes tohow cancer is reported on, there are
these warlike metaphors, you know,the fight against cancer, the battle against
cancer, the war on cancer.It's really interesting how this is characterized,
and I feel that it may contributeto the angst unfortunately. Is there a
(04:15):
way do you feel we'll get toa point where the way that we characterize
someone's experience with cancer, can yougraduate or just completely get away from these
warlike metaphors. Well, I hopewe can change it. Susan Sontag famously
addressed this issue in her book nineteenseventy eight book called Illness as metaphor,
(04:40):
and she said, the way wetalk about cancer as a war and a
battle could discourage people from getting thehelp they need and from quote unquote fighting
cancer, because it was a battle, and when an individual goes into battle,
it's pretty hard to win if you'rejust one individual battling you know,
(05:03):
a system or a huge illness.But for many kinds of cancer, it's
still a battle, all right,it's still but but the what's happened in
the last fifty years since Susan Sontagwrote that book, cancer treatments have advanced
(05:23):
tremendously. And while cancer is stillvery much with us, and one in
two men is diagnosed with cancer,one in three women are diagnosed with cancer,
the treatments for cancer in many caseshave progressed to a phenomenal degree.
(05:44):
And so somebody might have breast cancerthat would have been the end of them
thirty years ago, and now theylive for twenty years, for thirty years
and it never comes back. Okay, Obviously, there's some kinds of cancer
that have less good outcomes than others, but there are many kinds of cancer
that that there are treatments for thatjust didn't exist ten twenty thirty years ago.
(06:11):
I have a dear friend who recentlypassed away. He was eighty eight
years old. He'd had lung cancerfor eight years and was getting immunotherapy for
lung cancer, and he survived foreight years with very advanced lung cancer.
That's that that wouldn't have happened twentythirty years ago. So the idea that
(06:32):
cancer, that being a cancer patientmeans you have to go into battle to
some extent, that's changed in somefor many people, the terms of the
battle have changed. The the theammunition you need has changed, The treatments
have gotten better, and the outcomesare better. So I don't hear are
(07:00):
quite as much she died after along battle with cancer. I don't read
that quite as often. I thinkwe've we've demilitarized it a little bit.
Do you think that that's my sense? You know, Elizabeth, I often
wonder about the fear of knowing somethingversus actually knowing. You know it's confirmed
(07:25):
and from your perspective, what you'veseen and based on folks that you've spoken
to, your research and would haveyou when it comes to cancer, which
have you found is is worse?Is the is the fear of going through
the process of getting tested, waitingfor results, etc. Is that fear
(07:46):
greater than actually being told yes,you do have cancer? Without question?
All aspects of this situation are frightening, and I'm not sure I can pair
one kind of fear to another.The basic thing people want to know,
in my experience is am I goingto make it? Am I going to
(08:09):
live right? Right? That's thebottom line. And whenever you get a
hint that maybe you won't, youknow, you kind of fall into despair,
into despair. Whenever you get aglimmer that maybe you'll be okay,
you kind of bounce back. Andmy experience is that I might go through
(08:31):
that up and down like ten timesa day based on how I felt or
something I read or something somebody saidto me. So the fear is I'm
afraid, the fear is is Forme, it was pretty constant. I
know a lot of people who've beenthrough this who somehow are better at managing
(08:56):
fear, and my hat is offto them. My husband was, I
think, better at managing his fear, and we had a lot of conversations,
let's say, about his level offear versus my level of fear.
He's a much calmer person than Iam. But I think the fear it
(09:18):
is a scary situation, there isno question about it. And one of
the things to keep in mind isthat as scary as it is, the
most important thing is to get helpas soon as you can, and to
push to get help as soon asyou can. If your doctor says I
(09:39):
can't see you for two weeks,you go to an urgent care place,
or you go to an ear,or you say the doctor, no,
you need to see me today.This is an emergency. You don't don't
let doctors push you off and againgo to the urgent care or the er
if there's something that's going on thatreally concerns you and for some reason you're
(10:00):
doctor is not responsive. Okay,um, But you know, our our
level of fear is sort of likeit's like an engine running right and then.
But the medical system that we thatwe have to move through can move
very slowly. It sort of moveslike a turtle, you know, or
a snail, and it's very hardsometimes to match up, you know,
(10:24):
our level of fear and our levelof need for for answers with the medical
system which is very slow. SoI think I had to learn how slow
it was, and I had tolearn how much delay doctors introduce into this.
And also you know, when Ifinally was diagnosed at a major New
(10:48):
York hospital and I've been dealing withthis doctor for two months, he gave
me the diagnosis on a piece ofpaper and he said, call the head
of our foma treatment department. AndI called that man as soon as I
got home, and I was toldhis next appointment was in two months.
(11:11):
And I'd been a patient at thathospital in one capacity or another for two
months already, and it took threemonths for me to be diagnosed with something
that was in my armpit. Itwas not deep in the recesses of my
body, and nobody could find it. You could feel it. So that
was an example of I mean,I was just stunned when the woman said
(11:31):
his next appointment is in two months. I was very fortunate because somebody had
given me the name of another doctorwho had treated her mother, and I
called that doctor right away, andhe called me that night. And he
was a legendary doctor in the lymphomafield, and he called me that night,
(11:52):
and he at one point, Isay in the book, he called
me more often than my best frienddid he gave me his cell phone number.
Okay, So there's all kinds ofdifferent impediments that that we encounter as
patients, right, and but oneof them is being put off and being
an encountering delays. And then oncein a while you strike gold, you
(12:16):
find a doctor who is really therefor you. It's very unpredictable, but
there are those people. And thenthat's why it's important to have a support
group of friends or whoever you havein your corner that you go whom you
go to for support, encouragement andalso sometimes help. Like some you might
(12:41):
have a friend called the doctor,you might have a friend go with you
to a doctor's appointment. All ofthose things are very important. But as
far as the fear, I mean, that's a tricky one. I mean,
I don't know how that fear goesaway. The fear. I think
the fear is just it's part ofthe job of being a patient, is
you feel you feel fear. Well, first of all, what an experience,
(13:05):
my goodness, and I'm sure thatthat's common for people having to wait,
hurry up and wait and what haveyou, when literally you're experiencing something
that could very well extinguish your lifeunfortunately. So thank goodness for that friend,
and thank goodness for that friend's referral. That's that's a game changer,
(13:26):
that's a that's a lifesaver, literally, right, And that in that referral,
that friend was somebody I wasn't evenin touch with very much, and
she happened to call me because shethought I had called her and I hadn't,
and we hadn't talked to each otherin years, and she was the
one who ended up giving you thereferral. So there's a lot of luck.
Let me let me answer your question. There are a lot of resources
(13:52):
online to get information from. Andthere are a lot of websites and a
lot of instagram counts, And Iknow this sounds kind of silly, but
there are instagram is now I thinka very good place to get information and
get support about cancer. If yougo to Instagram, there are a number
(14:16):
of cancer patient sites where people sharetheir experiences. They're also a huge number
of forums, so you type inwhatever your illnesses and you can be in
touch with people all over the worldwho've had these illnesses, and people share
information, they share diagnoses, soyou can and it can be scary on
(14:39):
the one hand to hear about otherpeople experiences, but it can also be
encouraging and empowering. And there area lot of websites forums that where you
can get information, and there arethere are organizations like the American Cancer Society
(15:01):
that you can call and they havepatient sort of I don't know whether they're
hotlines, but you can call themand talk about what you're going through and
what kind of support you need,and they'll be able to direct you places.
And so there's the American Cancer Society, there's the lymphomus In Society,
and there are a number of cancerorganizations that help take people to appointments and
(15:26):
that give social services of various kinds. So please don't feel like if you're
doing this alone or with people whodon't know how to help you, go
to these websites, make the phonecalls. There are a lot of people
who want to help cancer patients.Even though it seems like you're on your
(15:46):
own. There are a lot ofwebsites, and again start with the American
Cancer Society or just you can googlesomething like cancer Patient Support, and they're
all kinds of organization that will supportthat help support cancer patients. We're talking
to mental health advocate, cancer survivorand author Elizabeth Benedict here On tell us
(16:11):
the truth. Elizabeth, I wonderhow does it feel to go from being
someone who went on this journey,had this personal experience and learned so much
along the way, to now beingsomeone who legitimately is a source for information,
(16:33):
a facilitator, and with this book, you are someone that can provide
such helpful information that you may infact extend lives, if not help save
lives. How does it feel tobe in this position now where you're literally
a source? Well, the funnyyou should ask that question. I'm a
(16:59):
writer. This is my book.I've also edited three other books where I
invited other writers to write about aparticular subject because I wanted to start a
public conversation about those things. SoI'm used to, I guess you would
say, starting conversations or being inconversations. I'm also a teacher a journalist,
(17:22):
so I'm used to communicating with people. And I wrote a book on
how to write about sex in Literaryfiction, and I did that twenty five
or thirty years ago, and soI'm used to people coming to me for
advice of all kinds, including abouthow to write a sexing. When I
was considering writing this book, itwas not I was very reluctant to write
(17:45):
about it. I was reluctant togo into all the detail about my body
and about my medical situation. Andit was a complicated story because I had
other medical issues that were being dealtwith and I didn't It wasn't like a
smooth a smooth story to tell,and I wasn't really sure how to do
it. And I also just wasn'tsure I wanted to expose myself and my
(18:08):
family. And I had a friendwho was a nurse practitioner who had really
helped me a lot during the process, and she said, you have to
write this book. You have towrite it because you need to to help
other people when they go through thisexperience. Because what happened to me was
(18:29):
I got dismissed basically in various waysfor three months before my lymphoma was diagnosed.
And what I went through, andI don't have this raging condemnation of
the medical system, but it wasjust a series of mishaps and misdiagnoses and
doctors who didn't want to consider thatI might have cancer, and doctors who
(18:52):
wanted to save money on tests,and all kinds of weird things went on.
So it took three months for meto have this thing diagnosed, which
it could have happened in a week. If it had happened in a week,
I don't think I would have hada book to write, because I
would have just gotten treated and thengone on with my life what I hoped
would be my life. But becauseI had all these encounters that were so
(19:17):
puzzling with doctors and doctor said,oh, I don't think you have cancer,
and I don't think you have cancer, and let's wait, and you
know, now I have to goon summer vacation and somebody will call you,
and just lots of being put off. Those experiences were really I was
going crazy. I mean I waslike a caged animal. I was just
(19:40):
so I wanted to write about howyou deal with those things or how you
don't deal with them, and alsogive people some courage to speak up for
themselves in ways that I couldn't.I thought I could, but it was
very hard for me because I wasso afraid of what I would hear.
I had a friend Dina Colbert,who's very much a figure in the book
(20:04):
and was a figure in my life. And she had survived cancer forty years
before when it basically had killed alot of people. So this was now
about forty five years ago. Shehad breast cancer that had spread to her
lymph notes and she survived, andshe became a life coach and a health
coach, and she was a veryclose friend. And she was somebody who
(20:26):
was very fearless, and she wouldgo to a doctor's office with twenty five
questions. And she kind of toldme to do that, and I couldn't
do it. I just I wastoo afraid. I just sort of but
I had her always in my headsaying, asked the questions, ask more
questions, find out what you needto know. And it was very hard
for me to do that. Andso and so I part of writing the
(20:52):
book was to show people how howmuddled this can be. I did every
thing right. I felt this lumpon my arm. I literally went to
the doctor twelve hours later when Igot up in the morning. I didn't
dawdle. I did everything I wassupposed to do. I did all the
tests. But these things kept happeningwhere I kept getting delayed and postponed,
(21:15):
and at one the first measurement ofmy lymph node was was inaccurate, which
I found out a month later,more than a month later. So all
kinds of weird things happened that patientshave to be aware of, and you
have to just realize that things arenot going to go smoothly and it's up
(21:37):
to you and maybe somebody in yourcorner who can help you, to advocate
for yourself. And so I wanted. I wanted to share that, and
I didn't. It's funny there werea lot of people I didn't tell that
I was sick too. There wererelatives and old family friends and many friends
(22:03):
I didn't tell I was sick.And unless somebody called me and they said,
oh, I'm about to come toNew York and you want to have
dinner, and I'd say, okay, I can't do that because I am
having chemo. But if they weren't, you know, in my immediate life,
I didn't talk to them, andso they don't know that I was
sick. And so it was veryhard for me to write the book and
(22:26):
realize that I would have to tellall these people that I was sick.
I really kept it a secret fromeverybody in my building. My neighbors had
no idea. I wore a hat. And then when I when my hair
was growing back and it was very, very short, one of my neighbors
(22:47):
said, wow, you have anew haircut. How come? And I
said, oh, I'm just tryingsomething different. So I just didn't tell
anybody when I went to the Whenmy hair was grown going in and it
was finally long enough to do somethingwith, I went to a hairdresser and
I didn't tell them I had beensick. I just said, do something
(23:08):
with my hair. You know.I never told any person who worked on
my hair that I had been sick. My sister kept telling me to go
to a beauty poller and maybe they'dhelp me lose my hair, you know,
give me a good way to losemy hair, and I just refused.
I didn't want to tell anybody Iwas sick. And there was a
(23:29):
lot of you know, embarrassment andshame and all kinds of things that are
very I know, are very unhealthy, but that's how I felt, and
I think that's how people feel.So so, but now that the book
is out, I'm actually very happyto be offering this advice. I didn't
realize I'd have so much advice tooffer because my book is not a self
(23:53):
help book. You know, ifI'd written a self help book, I
would have expected, you know,to be asked a lot of questions,
how do you deal with this?How do you deal with that? But
the book is really a memoir anda meditation and reflections on what it means
to be sick and metaphors and familyand things like that. But now that
(24:15):
I'm here, I'm happy to offerwhatever advice I can to people dealing with
this. And one interesting thing isa lot of times somebody will read my
book a friend and say, Iknow, I have a friend I need
to give this to who's going throughthis, you know, And there's always
somebody going through this, right becausecancer is so prevalent. So I'm happy
(24:40):
that it can be some company forsomebody going through this. They can say,
oh, yeah, this is thisis what happened to me too,
and she And the other thing thatI like, and that of course I'm
happy about in every way, isthat I'm okay now. And you know,
there are a lot of cancer booksthat we can read where people we
(25:02):
read them posthumously right, we readthem after the author has died. But
this is a book that you're you'renot reading posthumously. The author is alive
and fine. So I like tothink that that's something that's encouraging to people
who are going through this. Youknow, that is so interesting to hear
(25:22):
you bring up hair and talk aboutit in this regard because I got to
tell you, you know, andtell us the truth. One of the
things that I do is I'll grabquotes and you know, maybe I'll put
some music behind it, but Igrab photos of whoever the guest is and
we'll put it on a carousel,and that's part of how we promote the
(25:45):
episode. And as I was collectingphotos of you, one of the things
that stood out was your hair,and I say to myself, Wow,
Elizabeth has great hair. So it'sit's really interesting to year you talk about
your experience in this way when yourhair is something that absolutely jumps out in
(26:07):
photos and anyone can google Elizabeth Benedictand you'll see exactly what I'm talking about.
Your hair is a major statement piece, and I think for a lot
of people it's a major statement piecejust in general. It's part of your
identity, right, Interesting, didn'tyou write a book about hair? Wasn't
there something in relation to that?Yeah, I edited a book. I
(26:32):
edited a book of essays where Iasked women to write about why they were
obsessed with their hair. And Iwrote an essay too, but I edited
it, and I, you know, I was the promoter of it.
Yes, and so I very interestedin why we're so obsessed with our hair.
Thank you for the comment about myhair. I would have to say
(26:52):
that it's kind of funny because Ithink when I would get my picture taken,
and I knew I'd have to getmy picture taken, and I would
do something with my hair so itlooked good. But I think day to
day, if you if you justsaw me walking down the street, you
wouldn't say, oh, she hasgreat hair. You'd say, oh,
poor lady. You know she needsto you know, comb her hair.
But but so it's nice that I'veat least projected this image of somebody,
(27:18):
you know, with good hair,but um, but no hair hair is
a friend of mine who's a breastcancer doctor, said that some of the
women she deals some of the womenshe deals with, they're more upset about
losing their hair than they are abouthaving breast cancer. So the hair is
a really important facet of our ofour identities, right, and it conveys
(27:41):
a lot of messages. It putsout a lot of messages. It Uh,
it says a lot about who weare and sometimes who we want to
be. Um. So when whenwe're faced with losing our hair, it
can be very traumatic. And againI mean I I was happy that I
was being treated with chemo in Octoberbecause when my hair felt out, it
(28:03):
was almost winter and so I couldjust wear winter hats and nobody nobody had
to say, how can be wearinga hat? You know, So I
really did it. I was verydedicated to hiding the fact that I was
sick from as many people as possible. Not everyone feels that way. I
(28:25):
mean, I'm not sure whether that'sa good way to be or not,
but that was sort of how Ifelt. But I people have very different
you know. One of the otherthings about cancer related to whether it's a
battle or whether it's a war.In the old days or in the times
(28:47):
before most recently, if you ifyou told your boss you had cancer,
they might fire you because they thoughtyou might not survive, and it was
a very dangerous thing to tell youremployer or people around you, because the
people would shun you, or youwould lose your job, or you know,
(29:07):
they would dismiss you because they figuredyour end was near. And I
think and I have many friends,I mean, Nora Ephron was a famous
example of that. She told noone she was sick, even people who
thought they were her closest friends.And one of the reasons, and that's
been sort of a mystery about herlife and her death, is why she
(29:29):
didn't tell people. But one ofthe reasons was that she was making a
movie, and she was making themovie Julie and Julia, and she didn't
want to tell people she had cancerbecause they might not have funded her movie,
you know. And so that's millionsand millions of dollars at stake here,
right. But there have been andthere sometimes are good reasons to tell
(29:52):
people that you're not sick. I'msorry that you are sick. They are
good reasons to tell people, goodreasons to to hide. This is what
I'm saying. Because people might say, what kind of cancer do you have?
And then they might go to theinternet and say, oh, you
know, twenty seven percent of thosepeople die within five years and then they
fire you. So it's not alwaysa great thing to share, and it's
(30:17):
a very individual decision. And theInternet is sort of a garbage can of
information, right What you find onthe Internet may have nothing to do with
your life and nothing to do withyour medical situation. We can scare ourselves
to death right reading about illness onthe internet, and the one hand,
(30:40):
there's a lot of information that canbe helpful. On the other hand,
it may not have anything to dowith our lives, even though it looks
like it does. So I wouldcaution people to limit internet diagnoses and self
diagnoses and don't read everything that's therebecause it can really scare you, and
(31:04):
you might go to a doctor whotells you something dramatically different from what's on
the internet. You know, Elizabeth, you have your own personal experience being
someone who is a cancer survivor,and you took it upon yourself to publish
Rewriting Illness, a view of myown. During the journey of researching and
(31:29):
putting this book together, reflecting backon your own experience, was there anything
that stood out that surprised you atall? Like, Wow, I didn't
expect that I didn't see that coming. One of the interesting things about publishing
this book that I wasn't expecting isbecause I kept everything a secret for so
long. And then I've written topeople to invite them to events I'm doing
(31:53):
and so forth, and many ofthem say I had cancer too, And
I'm shocked, right, And theysay, oh, yeah, I had
I had cancer last year. OhI had cancer two years ago. Oh
I had cancer. I mean,the number of people who've had cancer and
survived is quite remarkable, and Iwant to pass that on to people also,
(32:16):
you know, the outcomes are sodifferent from what they were even a
decade ago, right, or certainlytwo decades ago. But every year,
there are breakthroughs in cancer every year. And I obviously I'm not a doctor,
and I can't and I'm not goingto give a list of you know,
(32:37):
good cancers not so good. That'sbut that's beyond my you know capacity.
But they are breakthroughs every year incancer. And I met a cancer
doctor like when I was in mytwenties who worked at the NIH and he
said, I think his wife saidto me, and he was a very
(32:58):
senior guy, and his wife saidto me, my husband is going to
work until he dies to try tofind a cure for cancer, you know,
and so they're you know, thereare people who really who really literally
devote their lives to cancer research,and they they're the heroes of you know,
for all of us. And Iknow there are other illnesses that are
(33:22):
serious and deadly and so forth.But you know, there is a huge,
huge, huge body of people allover the world who do cancer research,
and they're they're my heroes, andthey're working really hard on this stuff.
And even since I had lymphoma intwenty seventeen, there are new treatments
(33:44):
for recurring lymphoma. My mind neverrecurred Touchwood, but I spoke to my
original doctor and he said, ifit comes back, there are treatments we
can do. They might be morecomplicated than just getting chemo, but I
know people who've had recurring lymphoma,and she's just doing other interesting treatments that
(34:09):
are developed every year. So there'sa phenomena. I want to encourage people
to feel hopeful about pursuing you know, if they feel they have a problem,
go to the doctor. The otherthing that I think is really important
(34:29):
as a practical matter, if youlive in a medical center. If you
live in New York or Boston andyou have access to first rate cancer centers
like Dana Farber or Memorial Sloan Hettering, that's great. Go to those places,
you know, But if you don't, and you can go to your
(34:50):
local doctor, and you can andif you get a diagnosis, you can
get a second opinion at these places. They have whole programs for people to
get second opinion, and you don'thave to travel to them. I believe
you can send them your medical records. So these are places that are doing
high level, cutting edge medical researchand so and you have the ability as
(35:15):
a as a just an ordinary personto get a second opinion at these places.
And I encourage people to do that. Excellent advice there, and I
agree with you absolutely get a secondopinion if need be here. Don't just
allow yourself to be to be stuck, especially if something doesn't seem right.
(35:37):
That's just great advice, regardless ofwhat kind of medical issue you're dealing with.
There, good stuff there, Elizabeth. Why don't you let everybody know
what's the best way that they canget a copy of the book. You
can go to any online bookstore,Amazon, Barnes, and Noble Bookshop dot
org, which focuses on independent bookstores. You can go to any of those
(35:59):
places and you can get the kindleimmediately, the Cobo immediately, and you
can download it and start reading itin ten minutes. You can also go
to your whatever your favorite local bookstoreis. If they don't have it,
they can order it. I loveindependent bookstores. In Boston, there's the
Harvard Bookstore, there's Porter Square Books. In New York, there's the Strand
(36:25):
and Book Culture. But there area lot of places to get the book
and get it very quickly. Youcan also go to my website, Elizabeth
Benedict dot com, and you canread about more about the book. You
can read an excerpt from it,you can read some articles I've written about
how I came to write the book, and you can also get links to
(36:50):
these bookstore pages. So it's Ithink it's pretty easy to get right now.
And what about keeping up with you? I mean, you're an author,
this isn't your first book, andyou're a writer in general, so
you always have something going on.I know that you're going to be on
a book tour promoting Rewriting Illness,which is fantastic so you know, when
(37:10):
folks hear this, it may bea little later than some of your events,
but regardless, especially if they're availableto view after the fact, why
don't you let everybody know the bestway they can keep up with you in
general? Absolutely, I'm doing twoonline interviews with two really interesting women and
(37:30):
you can read about them on mywebsite Elizabeth Benedict dot com and under the
events section. I'm doing an interviewon June first with the writer Caroline Levitt
that's going to stream. At thebeginning of COVID, when they are all
these writers who had books to promoteand there were no more bookstores, this
group of really smart, interesting womenstarted an online platform called a Mighty Blaze
(37:53):
that I'm sorry that streams. Theystarted up an organization that promotes authors online.
So I'm doing that on June first, and on June seventh at seven
pm, I'm doing an online conversationwith documentary filmmaker Betsy West, who was
the co director of the film RBGabout Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And you can
(38:17):
find out all of these these eventson my website, Elizabeth Benedict dot com.
Well, Elizabeth, I want tothank you for all of the hard
work that you've done providing more awarenessabout cancer, providing more awareness about how
a person and their loved ones cango about the process of hopefully, you
(38:42):
know, evolving into a survivor ofcancer. Very important. And you know
you speak in your writing and alsoeven here in this interview, you're not
speaking above everybody's head. Very relatable, very clear, and this is just
valuable information and that everyone can relateto. And it's it's really a breath
of fresh air because this is anemotional topic. It's a challenging topic,
(39:08):
but the way that you handle itis just excellent. And I'm so appreciative
that you took the time to joinus. So thank you for telling us
the truth. Well, thank youfor giving me this chance to talk.
It's it's been really an interesting conversationand I hope that it gives someone somewhere
(39:30):
some comfort and some maybe some reliefas they go through this. What a
fantastic conversation there with Elizabeth. AndI got to tell you, folks,
cancer is a tough, tough subject. We all know that, and I
don't really know. I don't thinkI know anyone who doesn't have some type
(39:52):
of story about cancer, whether theypersonally have experienced it, or they have
loved ones who have survived or evensuccumbed to cancer. So this is this
is a pretty emotional topic. Andagain I love the way that Elizabeth goes
about explaining everything and making it relatableenough so that we can really get an
(40:15):
education and really understand how to proceedforward. God forbid if we ever have
to experience waiting to find out ifin fact you are positive for cancer,
and then even beyond that, theprocess of going through overcoming cancer. I
(40:36):
mean, it's it's a lot,it's a it's a tall order. It's
just it's great that we have folkslike Elizabeth who you know, can break
it down for us. I've mentionedbefore, I have a one of my
dear friends, Anne Giordano. Sheunfortunately had succumbed to cancer, and I
(40:59):
believe that was her third about withit. So she had long stretches of
being in remission and cancer free asfar as folks knew. I think her
longest stretch was about ten years shewas about cancer free, but then unfortunately
it came back, and you know, ultimately she passed away. And this
(41:22):
is someone who I had worked withand developed a fantastic friendship with just incredible,
incredible conversations and experiences. And youknow, and is old enough to
be my mom. And you know, she's this white Italian lady. But
(41:43):
nonetheless of all, we here callingher my little sister. And a funny
story. We were out after awork meeting and we were just catching up,
grabbing a bite to eat, grabbinga beer, and I ordered us,
say, hey, can you I'llhave a such and such and you
know, and and my little sisterhere will have a such and such.
(42:06):
And the bartender is looking at melike, what the hell you know?
Here? I am this this obviousblack guy, and here we have this
uh, you know, fairly paleItalian lady here, and she's my little
sister. And she's, by theway, she's much older than me.
But that's the kind of fun thatwe had and just really really um an
(42:30):
incredible, incredible relationship. I learneda lot from Anne. You know,
at the time, we were ina sales environment, and she was coming
from a corporate structure excellent at recordsretention and back of the house things,
and I just was not skilled atthat stuff. Here I am this college
(42:51):
kid, Um, you know,although I'm studying political science, you got
to pay the bills. I'm workingin retail. I'm a manager. She's
a manager, and we were workingside by side and at one point where
actually I was put in charge ofa business and she was my assistant,
and I could do the sales allday long, and I can train staffs
(43:15):
and how to do the sales allday long. When it comes to talking
to people, when it comes todeveloping trust with another party, when it
comes to getting them to purchase theright thing. You know, it was
something that I was trained well atand therefore I was skilled at, but
I had no clue about the backoffice stuff. And fortunately that was where
(43:37):
Anne was coming from. She hadcompletely switched careers because she was for a
long time in the financial industry,and after surviving cancer, she switched careers
and wanted to do something a littledifferent. So that's how she got into
sales and sales management more importantly,and had she stabilized. I start back
(44:00):
office in terms of paperwork and thingsof that nature, and then proceeded to
teach me how to get better atthat, and in return, I taught
her how to do sales and howto excel at sales, not just be
functional, but how to be verygood at sales and then be able to
teach others. And I'm not goingto say, however, became very good
(44:23):
at the back office stuff. Butwhat she taught me I still utilized to
this day, and it's been invaluable, you know what I mean. Not
because she was an excellent teacher.I just wasn't that great of a student
there. It was. It tooka lot, took a lot of discipline
to sit down, learn how tokeep records properly, learn how to stay
(44:43):
organized, learn how to balance booksand things like that, and keep it
going. Because I don't care howgood of a salesperson you are. If
you're if you're paperworking right, ifyour back office and right, if you're
not keeping up with your inventory levelsand things of that nature, then you're
missing out on sales. You're missingout on money, which has a direct
impact on the bottom line there.So Anne was just a gift, you
(45:07):
know, she was a blessing inthat regard. Anne eventually became the manager
of her own store, and thenI ended up taking over another store,
so we were probably about thirty fiveminutes away from each other. And I'll
never forget. It was a blizzard. Not just a snowstorm. It's a
blizzard going on here in Massachusetts.And it's also during inventory, and I
(45:30):
had just finished my inventory from mystore, which took all day, right
and Anne calls me up and shetells me that she wasn't satisfied with the
inventory prep that her team had doneat the time, you know, because
they know you're also having to stayopen, you're doing sales at the same
(45:50):
time. And she was in chargeof a specialized store too, so her
inventory is a little different. Andshe was, you know, she was
really concerned. So I said,you know something, kid, don't worry.
I'll be there soon. And Iliterally left my inventory. I worked
all day, drove through a blizzard, got there for Annie, and we
just looked at each other and justlaughed. And I proceeded to Annie and
(46:13):
myself we did the inventory for herwhole store, and in the end,
and this is a crazy part,her inventory ended up being more accurate than
my inventory at my store. AndI had a whole team. But here's
the thing. There were many timesbefore and even after that, when you
(46:35):
know, I was just influx ofmerchandise and things like that and needed help
getting it organized. And Annie wouldcome and help me organize my store boom,
just like that. She was excellentat it, fantastic at it.
Take a look at my books tomake sure all that stuff was in line.
And we were two of the higherperforming managers in the entire company with
(46:58):
over three hundreds almost four your stores, so that bond. And there were
a couple other people involved as well. You know, God Arrest is soul
Alan Friedman, I've mentioned him onthe on the show before. Um,
you know still with this, Darlin, Vesscis and Alan Rowa. I can
go down the list, God Arrest, his soul, Vinnie Bonano, who's
(47:19):
one of my assistants. There.We had a great crew of people who
supported each other and learned from eachother and were very very close. And
we had some a mix of youknow, older folks, you know,
younger folks, and even younger folkswho even hired some high school kids at
the time who have grown grown andbecome you know, various lawyers and elected
(47:43):
officials and folks working for the federalgovernment and all kinds of interesting things there.
Um, shout out to all ofyou if you're listening here. But
I got a call. First ofall, Annie and I had had been
talking, and by this time,I'm back and working in government. I'm
out of the sales management stuff.And Annie had stuck around in that world
(48:07):
and she was still doing her thing. And then she found out that the
cancer came back. And we hadwent out and grabbed lunch, like we
do. You know how to beerone beer, great conversation lunch. We
went to Patriot Place, which youknow Foxboro Stadium. They also have a
(48:28):
shopping center there called Patriot Place.Grabbed lunch there and she told me she's
gonna fight this thing, She's gonnabe all right in etc. And I
say, yeah, damn right.And you know, a couple of months
went by and we had made plansto grab lunch again, and unfortunately,
I randomly got a call and itwas her daughter, Kristen, and she
(48:53):
told me, you know, mymom has taken a turn, unfortunately,
and they don't think that she's goingto have much more time. So I
literally dropped everything that I was doingand I hopped in a car and I
(49:14):
drove. I drove over an hourto get to that hospital, and I
called some of our friends from thatcrew that we had that we all worked
with at this point, you know, everyone had gone their separate ways,
different industry and etc. Etc.But I called everybody and let them know.
Unfortunately, they weren't able to getaway like I was able to get
(49:35):
away. I think I was ona day off, so it just worked
out that way. But I madeit to the hospital and within in less
than forty five minutes from the timeI made it to the hospital, Annie
had taken her last breath, andI was able to be there and let
(49:59):
her, you know, one lasttime, you know how all of us
from our crew of friends felt abouther, cared about her, loved her,
and she was able to hear thatas she took her last breath and
transitioned into heaven. And it wasan honor to be able to represent our
(50:24):
crew of friends who were very,very close. It was an honor to
be able to be the person tobe there for Annie and those last moments
and let her know how we felt, and to be there in her family
to see that and know that havethat comfort in those last moments. And
(50:45):
it was just an incredible experience tosee someone take their last breath, it
just Jesus. And unfortunately that wascancer that did that. And this it's
tough woman here who had she hadbattled this thing three times old, and
(51:10):
she took all that it had andshe gave it back and she and she
was able to overcome it and didall that she could, and she lived
in a hell of a life.That experience has never left me. That
experience is something that I carry withme every day. And I see Annie's
(51:30):
face every day. I'll be atthe grocery store and someone looks like her,
and it's it's overwhelming. I seemy friend's face everywhere, which you
know, I've I've come to acceptthat as a blessing because every time I
see her face is like, allright, well she must be here.
We used to watch American Idol together, even when we weren't working together anymore.
(51:52):
We would still call each other orlive Facebook what's happening in American Idol?
Loved American Idol, Love country music. I always talk about country music
together. So to this day,when I watch American Idol, it's not
just about me enjoying the program personally, but I'm doing that because I know
my friend Annie is up in heavenwatching American Idol with me. I'm sharing
(52:16):
this information, folks, just tolet you know from my personal experience with
cancer through a very close loved one, close friend of mine. And I
know that everyone listening here you,I'm sure you have similar experiences. It
is tough, man, and there'sa lot I don't understand. It's terrifying.
(52:39):
So again, somebody like Elizabeth writingthis book, it's been comforting.
It's a heavy read, but it'sbeen comforting. And that's why I encourage
all of you rewriting illness a viewof my own. Grab yourself a copy.
(52:59):
I share with other lovel and sharewith young people. It's just great
perspective, it really is. Andum, to all that we've lost to
cancer, and to all that arestill here because they've been able to overcome
cancer, because they've been blessed,to all that have contributed to the research
(53:21):
and the advancements in helping folks overcomecancer, I thank you, I thank
you, I thank you, Ithank you, and I'm thinking of you
everyone, everyone in the whole linethere. I just named. Tell us
the Truth on Facebook, on Twitter, tell us the Truth dot duke at
(53:45):
gmail dot com. You're welcome toshare some of your experiences, even in
the comments in the episode, sharesome of your experiences if you so choose.
I know it's it's personal, it'semotional. I'm I'm a mess right
now, tears and all that goodstuff. But you know it's therapeutic to
talk about this stuff. Man.Wow. Happy Juneteenth to everybody, Happy
(54:09):
Pride to everyone, mental health awareness, all the good stuff. They're happy,
happy, happy. I hope youand your loved ones continue to be
safe and you know, find areason to smile every single day, because
every single day that we are here, it certainly is a blessing. Okay,
(54:32):
till next time, be kind toyourselves and be kind to others.
This is E. Duke Bennett andyou've been listening to tell Us the Truth.
Tell Us the Truth is produced inBoston in association with iHeartMedia and WBZ
News Radio.
Mental health advocate, cancer survivor andauthor Elizabeth Benedict opens up about her new
book, Rewriting Illness, A Viewof my Own. My name is E
Duke Bennett and this is tell Usthe Truth. Hi, my name is
(00:24):
Elizabeth Benedict. I'm the author ofRewriting Illness, A View of my Own,
and I'm here today to tell youthe truth. I wrote Rewriting Illness
because I had an experience encountering themedical establishment over a cancer diagnosis that caused
(00:48):
me to reflect on the system,my relationship to it, how it might
work better, how to decode whatdoctor to say, and how to navigate
it in a very stressful situation.And I wanted to explore all of those
(01:12):
things in a way that might behelpful and in some way comforting to other
people going through this, Elizabeth,As you know from firsthand experience, cancer
is a pretty traumatic event, youknow, if it occurs in someone's life,
not just for the person personally experiencingit, but also for their loved
(01:37):
ones, you know, anyone whowas on the journey with them as they
hopefully get nurse back to good health, so to speak. The trauma associated
with cancer is that something that youfind can be passed down. Well,
I don't know whether the trauma inmy case is going to be passed down
(01:59):
generationally. I I hope it's not. I hope my stepdaughter, who's an
adult, doesn't. It wasn't traumatizedby my experience, although she was very
wonderful and responsive and loving, andI'm sure it was very difficult for her.
But in my own life, Ithink my mother's traumas were passed on
(02:21):
to me and my sister. Shehad difficulties, including the murder of her
brother two months before she got marriedto my father, and that's that event
is something I've written about in otherplaces. But I do think that trauma
can be passed down, and Ithink those of us who come from traumatic
(02:43):
situations or have a traumatic heritage havewell, I think it's important too if
you will get help for that sothat we don't keep passing those things down.
And I have a number of friendswhose parents were Holocaust survivors and very
close friends, and so I've seenthe trauma that was passed down to them
(03:07):
even decades, many decades later.But so I think trauma can be passed
down, and I think the historyof our country is it's a traumatic history,
and there's a lot of trauma thatis passed down. And I'm very
much a believer in working through thethings that hang us up and the trauma
(03:30):
that that we're that we inherited,but also that we encounter in life,
because we all encounter trauma. Youknow, when when you're five or ten
or fifteen, life can be verysweet. By the time you're forty five
or fifty, you know, afew things have happened to you. You've
gotten knocked around a little. Youknow. When we hear people talk about
(03:52):
cancer, especially when it comes tohow cancer is reported on, there are
these warlike metaphors, you know,the fight against cancer, the battle against
cancer, the war on cancer.It's really interesting how this is characterized,
and I feel that it may contributeto the angst unfortunately. Is there a
(04:15):
way do you feel we'll get toa point where the way that we characterize
someone's experience with cancer, can yougraduate or just completely get away from these
warlike metaphors. Well, I hopewe can change it. Susan Sontag famously
addressed this issue in her book nineteenseventy eight book called Illness as metaphor,
(04:40):
and she said, the way wetalk about cancer as a war and a
battle could discourage people from getting thehelp they need and from quote unquote fighting
cancer, because it was a battle, and when an individual goes into battle,
it's pretty hard to win if you'rejust one individual battling you know,
(05:03):
a system or a huge illness.But for many kinds of cancer, it's
still a battle, all right,it's still but but the what's happened in
the last fifty years since Susan Sontagwrote that book, cancer treatments have advanced
(05:23):
tremendously. And while cancer is stillvery much with us, and one in
two men is diagnosed with cancer,one in three women are diagnosed with cancer,
the treatments for cancer in many caseshave progressed to a phenomenal degree.
(05:44):
And so somebody might have breast cancerthat would have been the end of them
thirty years ago, and now theylive for twenty years, for thirty years
and it never comes back. Okay, Obviously, there's some kinds of cancer
that have less good outcomes than others, but there are many kinds of cancer
that that there are treatments for thatjust didn't exist ten twenty thirty years ago.
(06:11):
I have a dear friend who recentlypassed away. He was eighty eight
years old. He'd had lung cancerfor eight years and was getting immunotherapy for
lung cancer, and he survived foreight years with very advanced lung cancer.
That's that that wouldn't have happened twentythirty years ago. So the idea that
(06:32):
cancer, that being a cancer patientmeans you have to go into battle to
some extent, that's changed in somefor many people, the terms of the
battle have changed. The the theammunition you need has changed, The treatments
have gotten better, and the outcomesare better. So I don't hear are
(07:00):
quite as much she died after along battle with cancer. I don't read
that quite as often. I thinkwe've we've demilitarized it a little bit.
Do you think that that's my sense? You know, Elizabeth, I often
wonder about the fear of knowing somethingversus actually knowing. You know it's confirmed
(07:25):
and from your perspective, what you'veseen and based on folks that you've spoken
to, your research and would haveyou when it comes to cancer, which
have you found is is worse?Is the is the fear of going through
the process of getting tested, waitingfor results, etc. Is that fear
(07:46):
greater than actually being told yes,you do have cancer? Without question?
All aspects of this situation are frightening, and I'm not sure I can pair
one kind of fear to another.The basic thing people want to know,
in my experience is am I goingto make it? Am I going to
(08:09):
live right? Right? That's thebottom line. And whenever you get a
hint that maybe you won't, youknow, you kind of fall into despair,
into despair. Whenever you get aglimmer that maybe you'll be okay,
you kind of bounce back. Andmy experience is that I might go through
(08:31):
that up and down like ten timesa day based on how I felt or
something I read or something somebody saidto me. So the fear is I'm
afraid, the fear is is Forme, it was pretty constant. I
know a lot of people who've beenthrough this who somehow are better at managing
(08:56):
fear, and my hat is offto them. My husband was, I
think, better at managing his fear, and we had a lot of conversations,
let's say, about his level offear versus my level of fear.
He's a much calmer person than Iam. But I think the fear it
(09:18):
is a scary situation, there isno question about it. And one of
the things to keep in mind isthat as scary as it is, the
most important thing is to get helpas soon as you can, and to
push to get help as soon asyou can. If your doctor says I
(09:39):
can't see you for two weeks,you go to an urgent care place,
or you go to an ear,or you say the doctor, no,
you need to see me today.This is an emergency. You don't don't
let doctors push you off and againgo to the urgent care or the er
if there's something that's going on thatreally concerns you and for some reason you're
(10:00):
doctor is not responsive. Okay,um, But you know, our our
level of fear is sort of likeit's like an engine running right and then.
But the medical system that we thatwe have to move through can move
very slowly. It sort of moveslike a turtle, you know, or
a snail, and it's very hardsometimes to match up, you know,
(10:24):
our level of fear and our levelof need for for answers with the medical
system which is very slow. SoI think I had to learn how slow
it was, and I had tolearn how much delay doctors introduce into this.
And also you know, when Ifinally was diagnosed at a major New
(10:48):
York hospital and I've been dealing withthis doctor for two months, he gave
me the diagnosis on a piece ofpaper and he said, call the head
of our foma treatment department. AndI called that man as soon as I
got home, and I was toldhis next appointment was in two months.
(11:11):
And I'd been a patient at thathospital in one capacity or another for two
months already, and it took threemonths for me to be diagnosed with something
that was in my armpit. Itwas not deep in the recesses of my
body, and nobody could find it. You could feel it. So that
was an example of I mean,I was just stunned when the woman said
(11:31):
his next appointment is in two months. I was very fortunate because somebody had
given me the name of another doctorwho had treated her mother, and I
called that doctor right away, andhe called me that night. And he
was a legendary doctor in the lymphomafield, and he called me that night,
(11:52):
and he at one point, Isay in the book, he called
me more often than my best frienddid he gave me his cell phone number.
Okay, So there's all kinds ofdifferent impediments that that we encounter as
patients, right, and but oneof them is being put off and being
an encountering delays. And then oncein a while you strike gold, you
(12:16):
find a doctor who is really therefor you. It's very unpredictable, but
there are those people. And thenthat's why it's important to have a support
group of friends or whoever you havein your corner that you go whom you
go to for support, encouragement andalso sometimes help. Like some you might
(12:41):
have a friend called the doctor,you might have a friend go with you
to a doctor's appointment. All ofthose things are very important. But as
far as the fear, I mean, that's a tricky one. I mean,
I don't know how that fear goesaway. The fear. I think
the fear is just it's part ofthe job of being a patient, is
you feel you feel fear. Well, first of all, what an experience,
(13:05):
my goodness, and I'm sure thatthat's common for people having to wait,
hurry up and wait and what haveyou, when literally you're experiencing something
that could very well extinguish your lifeunfortunately. So thank goodness for that friend,
and thank goodness for that friend's referral. That's that's a game changer,
(13:26):
that's a that's a lifesaver, literally, right, And that in that referral,
that friend was somebody I wasn't evenin touch with very much, and
she happened to call me because shethought I had called her and I hadn't,
and we hadn't talked to each otherin years, and she was the
one who ended up giving you thereferral. So there's a lot of luck.
Let me let me answer your question. There are a lot of resources
(13:52):
online to get information from. Andthere are a lot of websites and a
lot of instagram counts, And Iknow this sounds kind of silly, but
there are instagram is now I thinka very good place to get information and
get support about cancer. If yougo to Instagram, there are a number
(14:16):
of cancer patient sites where people sharetheir experiences. They're also a huge number
of forums, so you type inwhatever your illnesses and you can be in
touch with people all over the worldwho've had these illnesses, and people share
information, they share diagnoses, soyou can and it can be scary on
(14:39):
the one hand to hear about otherpeople experiences, but it can also be
encouraging and empowering. And there area lot of websites forums that where you
can get information, and there arethere are organizations like the American Cancer Society
(15:01):
that you can call and they havepatient sort of I don't know whether they're
hotlines, but you can call themand talk about what you're going through and
what kind of support you need,and they'll be able to direct you places.
And so there's the American Cancer Society, there's the lymphomus In Society,
and there are a number of cancerorganizations that help take people to appointments and
(15:26):
that give social services of various kinds. So please don't feel like if you're
doing this alone or with people whodon't know how to help you, go
to these websites, make the phonecalls. There are a lot of people
who want to help cancer patients.Even though it seems like you're on your
(15:46):
own. There are a lot ofwebsites, and again start with the American
Cancer Society or just you can googlesomething like cancer Patient Support, and they're
all kinds of organization that will supportthat help support cancer patients. We're talking
to mental health advocate, cancer survivorand author Elizabeth Benedict here On tell us
(16:11):
the truth. Elizabeth, I wonderhow does it feel to go from being
someone who went on this journey,had this personal experience and learned so much
along the way, to now beingsomeone who legitimately is a source for information,
(16:33):
a facilitator, and with this book, you are someone that can provide
such helpful information that you may infact extend lives, if not help save
lives. How does it feel tobe in this position now where you're literally
a source? Well, the funnyyou should ask that question. I'm a
(16:59):
writer. This is my book.I've also edited three other books where I
invited other writers to write about aparticular subject because I wanted to start a
public conversation about those things. SoI'm used to, I guess you would
say, starting conversations or being inconversations. I'm also a teacher a journalist,
(17:22):
so I'm used to communicating with people. And I wrote a book on
how to write about sex in Literaryfiction, and I did that twenty five
or thirty years ago, and soI'm used to people coming to me for
advice of all kinds, including abouthow to write a sexing. When I
was considering writing this book, itwas not I was very reluctant to write
(17:45):
about it. I was reluctant togo into all the detail about my body
and about my medical situation. Andit was a complicated story because I had
other medical issues that were being dealtwith and I didn't It wasn't like a
smooth a smooth story to tell,and I wasn't really sure how to do
it. And I also just wasn'tsure I wanted to expose myself and my
(18:08):
family. And I had a friendwho was a nurse practitioner who had really
helped me a lot during the process, and she said, you have to
write this book. You have towrite it because you need to to help
other people when they go through thisexperience. Because what happened to me was
(18:29):
I got dismissed basically in various waysfor three months before my lymphoma was diagnosed.
And what I went through, andI don't have this raging condemnation of
the medical system, but it wasjust a series of mishaps and misdiagnoses and
doctors who didn't want to consider thatI might have cancer, and doctors who
(18:52):
wanted to save money on tests,and all kinds of weird things went on.
So it took three months for meto have this thing diagnosed, which
it could have happened in a week. If it had happened in a week,
I don't think I would have hada book to write, because I
would have just gotten treated and thengone on with my life what I hoped
would be my life. But becauseI had all these encounters that were so
(19:17):
puzzling with doctors and doctor said,oh, I don't think you have cancer,
and I don't think you have cancer, and let's wait, and you
know, now I have to goon summer vacation and somebody will call you,
and just lots of being put off. Those experiences were really I was
going crazy. I mean I waslike a caged animal. I was just
(19:40):
so I wanted to write about howyou deal with those things or how you
don't deal with them, and alsogive people some courage to speak up for
themselves in ways that I couldn't.I thought I could, but it was
very hard for me because I wasso afraid of what I would hear.
I had a friend Dina Colbert,who's very much a figure in the book
(20:04):
and was a figure in my life. And she had survived cancer forty years
before when it basically had killed alot of people. So this was now
about forty five years ago. Shehad breast cancer that had spread to her
lymph notes and she survived, andshe became a life coach and a health
coach, and she was a veryclose friend. And she was somebody who
(20:26):
was very fearless, and she wouldgo to a doctor's office with twenty five
questions. And she kind of toldme to do that, and I couldn't
do it. I just I wastoo afraid. I just sort of but
I had her always in my headsaying, asked the questions, ask more
questions, find out what you needto know. And it was very hard
for me to do that. Andso and so I part of writing the
(20:52):
book was to show people how howmuddled this can be. I did every
thing right. I felt this lumpon my arm. I literally went to
the doctor twelve hours later when Igot up in the morning. I didn't
dawdle. I did everything I wassupposed to do. I did all the
tests. But these things kept happeningwhere I kept getting delayed and postponed,
(21:15):
and at one the first measurement ofmy lymph node was was inaccurate, which
I found out a month later,more than a month later. So all
kinds of weird things happened that patientshave to be aware of, and you
have to just realize that things arenot going to go smoothly and it's up
(21:37):
to you and maybe somebody in yourcorner who can help you, to advocate
for yourself. And so I wanted. I wanted to share that, and
I didn't. It's funny there werea lot of people I didn't tell that
I was sick too. There wererelatives and old family friends and many friends
(22:03):
I didn't tell I was sick.And unless somebody called me and they said,
oh, I'm about to come toNew York and you want to have
dinner, and I'd say, okay, I can't do that because I am
having chemo. But if they weren't, you know, in my immediate life,
I didn't talk to them, andso they don't know that I was
sick. And so it was veryhard for me to write the book and
(22:26):
realize that I would have to tellall these people that I was sick.
I really kept it a secret fromeverybody in my building. My neighbors had
no idea. I wore a hat. And then when I when my hair
was growing back and it was very, very short, one of my neighbors
(22:47):
said, wow, you have anew haircut. How come? And I
said, oh, I'm just tryingsomething different. So I just didn't tell
anybody when I went to the Whenmy hair was grown going in and it
was finally long enough to do somethingwith, I went to a hairdresser and
I didn't tell them I had beensick. I just said, do something
(23:08):
with my hair. You know.I never told any person who worked on
my hair that I had been sick. My sister kept telling me to go
to a beauty poller and maybe they'dhelp me lose my hair, you know,
give me a good way to losemy hair, and I just refused.
I didn't want to tell anybody Iwas sick. And there was a
(23:29):
lot of you know, embarrassment andshame and all kinds of things that are
very I know, are very unhealthy, but that's how I felt, and
I think that's how people feel.So so, but now that the book
is out, I'm actually very happyto be offering this advice. I didn't
realize I'd have so much advice tooffer because my book is not a self
(23:53):
help book. You know, ifI'd written a self help book, I
would have expected, you know,to be asked a lot of questions,
how do you deal with this?How do you deal with that? But
the book is really a memoir anda meditation and reflections on what it means
to be sick and metaphors and familyand things like that. But now that
(24:15):
I'm here, I'm happy to offerwhatever advice I can to people dealing with
this. And one interesting thing isa lot of times somebody will read my
book a friend and say, Iknow, I have a friend I need
to give this to who's going throughthis, you know, And there's always
somebody going through this, right becausecancer is so prevalent. So I'm happy
(24:40):
that it can be some company forsomebody going through this. They can say,
oh, yeah, this is thisis what happened to me too,
and she And the other thing thatI like, and that of course I'm
happy about in every way, isthat I'm okay now. And you know,
there are a lot of cancer booksthat we can read where people we
(25:02):
read them posthumously right, we readthem after the author has died. But
this is a book that you're you'renot reading posthumously. The author is alive
and fine. So I like tothink that that's something that's encouraging to people
who are going through this. Youknow, that is so interesting to hear
(25:22):
you bring up hair and talk aboutit in this regard because I got to
tell you, you know, andtell us the truth. One of the
things that I do is I'll grabquotes and you know, maybe I'll put
some music behind it, but Igrab photos of whoever the guest is and
we'll put it on a carousel,and that's part of how we promote the
(25:45):
episode. And as I was collectingphotos of you, one of the things
that stood out was your hair,and I say to myself, Wow,
Elizabeth has great hair. So it'sit's really interesting to year you talk about
your experience in this way when yourhair is something that absolutely jumps out in
(26:07):
photos and anyone can google Elizabeth Benedictand you'll see exactly what I'm talking about.
Your hair is a major statement piece, and I think for a lot
of people it's a major statement piecejust in general. It's part of your
identity, right, Interesting, didn'tyou write a book about hair? Wasn't
there something in relation to that?Yeah, I edited a book. I
(26:32):
edited a book of essays where Iasked women to write about why they were
obsessed with their hair. And Iwrote an essay too, but I edited
it, and I, you know, I was the promoter of it.
Yes, and so I very interestedin why we're so obsessed with our hair.
Thank you for the comment about myhair. I would have to say
(26:52):
that it's kind of funny because Ithink when I would get my picture taken,
and I knew I'd have to getmy picture taken, and I would
do something with my hair so itlooked good. But I think day to
day, if you if you justsaw me walking down the street, you
wouldn't say, oh, she hasgreat hair. You'd say, oh,
poor lady. You know she needsto you know, comb her hair.
But but so it's nice that I'veat least projected this image of somebody,
(27:18):
you know, with good hair,but um, but no hair hair is
a friend of mine who's a breastcancer doctor, said that some of the
women she deals some of the womenshe deals with, they're more upset about
losing their hair than they are abouthaving breast cancer. So the hair is
a really important facet of our ofour identities, right, and it conveys
(27:41):
a lot of messages. It putsout a lot of messages. It Uh,
it says a lot about who weare and sometimes who we want to
be. Um. So when whenwe're faced with losing our hair, it
can be very traumatic. And againI mean I I was happy that I
was being treated with chemo in Octoberbecause when my hair felt out, it
(28:03):
was almost winter and so I couldjust wear winter hats and nobody nobody had
to say, how can be wearinga hat? You know, So I
really did it. I was verydedicated to hiding the fact that I was
sick from as many people as possible. Not everyone feels that way. I
(28:25):
mean, I'm not sure whether that'sa good way to be or not,
but that was sort of how Ifelt. But I people have very different
you know. One of the otherthings about cancer related to whether it's a
battle or whether it's a war.In the old days or in the times
(28:47):
before most recently, if you ifyou told your boss you had cancer,
they might fire you because they thoughtyou might not survive, and it was
a very dangerous thing to tell youremployer or people around you, because the
people would shun you, or youwould lose your job, or you know,
(29:07):
they would dismiss you because they figuredyour end was near. And I
think and I have many friends,I mean, Nora Ephron was a famous
example of that. She told noone she was sick, even people who
thought they were her closest friends.And one of the reasons, and that's
been sort of a mystery about herlife and her death, is why she
(29:29):
didn't tell people. But one ofthe reasons was that she was making a
movie, and she was making themovie Julie and Julia, and she didn't
want to tell people she had cancerbecause they might not have funded her movie,
you know. And so that's millionsand millions of dollars at stake here,
right. But there have been andthere sometimes are good reasons to tell
(29:52):
people that you're not sick. I'msorry that you are sick. They are
good reasons to tell people, goodreasons to to hide. This is what
I'm saying. Because people might say, what kind of cancer do you have?
And then they might go to theinternet and say, oh, you
know, twenty seven percent of thosepeople die within five years and then they
fire you. So it's not alwaysa great thing to share, and it's
(30:17):
a very individual decision. And theInternet is sort of a garbage can of
information, right What you find onthe Internet may have nothing to do with
your life and nothing to do withyour medical situation. We can scare ourselves
to death right reading about illness onthe internet, and the one hand,
(30:40):
there's a lot of information that canbe helpful. On the other hand,
it may not have anything to dowith our lives, even though it looks
like it does. So I wouldcaution people to limit internet diagnoses and self
diagnoses and don't read everything that's therebecause it can really scare you, and
(31:04):
you might go to a doctor whotells you something dramatically different from what's on
the internet. You know, Elizabeth, you have your own personal experience being
someone who is a cancer survivor,and you took it upon yourself to publish
Rewriting Illness, a view of myown. During the journey of researching and
(31:29):
putting this book together, reflecting backon your own experience, was there anything
that stood out that surprised you atall? Like, Wow, I didn't
expect that I didn't see that coming. One of the interesting things about publishing
this book that I wasn't expecting isbecause I kept everything a secret for so
long. And then I've written topeople to invite them to events I'm doing
(31:53):
and so forth, and many ofthem say I had cancer too, And
I'm shocked, right, And theysay, oh, yeah, I had
I had cancer last year. OhI had cancer two years ago. Oh
I had cancer. I mean,the number of people who've had cancer and
survived is quite remarkable, and Iwant to pass that on to people also,
(32:16):
you know, the outcomes are sodifferent from what they were even a
decade ago, right, or certainlytwo decades ago. But every year,
there are breakthroughs in cancer every year. And I obviously I'm not a doctor,
and I can't and I'm not goingto give a list of you know,
(32:37):
good cancers not so good. That'sbut that's beyond my you know capacity.
But they are breakthroughs every year incancer. And I met a cancer
doctor like when I was in mytwenties who worked at the NIH and he
said, I think his wife saidto me, and he was a very
(32:58):
senior guy, and his wife saidto me, my husband is going to
work until he dies to try tofind a cure for cancer, you know,
and so they're you know, thereare people who really who really literally
devote their lives to cancer research,and they they're the heroes of you know,
for all of us. And Iknow there are other illnesses that are
(33:22):
serious and deadly and so forth.But you know, there is a huge,
huge, huge body of people allover the world who do cancer research,
and they're they're my heroes, andthey're working really hard on this stuff.
And even since I had lymphoma intwenty seventeen, there are new treatments
(33:44):
for recurring lymphoma. My mind neverrecurred Touchwood, but I spoke to my
original doctor and he said, ifit comes back, there are treatments we
can do. They might be morecomplicated than just getting chemo, but I
know people who've had recurring lymphoma,and she's just doing other interesting treatments that
(34:09):
are developed every year. So there'sa phenomena. I want to encourage people
to feel hopeful about pursuing you know, if they feel they have a problem,
go to the doctor. The otherthing that I think is really important
(34:29):
as a practical matter, if youlive in a medical center. If you
live in New York or Boston andyou have access to first rate cancer centers
like Dana Farber or Memorial Sloan Hettering, that's great. Go to those places,
you know, But if you don't, and you can go to your
(34:50):
local doctor, and you can andif you get a diagnosis, you can
get a second opinion at these places. They have whole programs for people to
get second opinion, and you don'thave to travel to them. I believe
you can send them your medical records. So these are places that are doing
high level, cutting edge medical researchand so and you have the ability as
(35:15):
a as a just an ordinary personto get a second opinion at these places.
And I encourage people to do that. Excellent advice there, and I
agree with you absolutely get a secondopinion if need be here. Don't just
allow yourself to be to be stuck, especially if something doesn't seem right.
(35:37):
That's just great advice, regardless ofwhat kind of medical issue you're dealing with.
There, good stuff there, Elizabeth. Why don't you let everybody know
what's the best way that they canget a copy of the book. You
can go to any online bookstore,Amazon, Barnes, and Noble Bookshop dot
org, which focuses on independent bookstores. You can go to any of those
(35:59):
places and you can get the kindleimmediately, the Cobo immediately, and you
can download it and start reading itin ten minutes. You can also go
to your whatever your favorite local bookstoreis. If they don't have it,
they can order it. I loveindependent bookstores. In Boston, there's the
Harvard Bookstore, there's Porter Square Books. In New York, there's the Strand
(36:25):
and Book Culture. But there area lot of places to get the book
and get it very quickly. Youcan also go to my website, Elizabeth
Benedict dot com, and you canread about more about the book. You
can read an excerpt from it,you can read some articles I've written about
how I came to write the book, and you can also get links to
(36:50):
these bookstore pages. So it's Ithink it's pretty easy to get right now.
And what about keeping up with you? I mean, you're an author,
this isn't your first book, andyou're a writer in general, so
you always have something going on.I know that you're going to be on
a book tour promoting Rewriting Illness,which is fantastic so you know, when
(37:10):
folks hear this, it may bea little later than some of your events,
but regardless, especially if they're availableto view after the fact, why
don't you let everybody know the bestway they can keep up with you in
general? Absolutely, I'm doing twoonline interviews with two really interesting women and
(37:30):
you can read about them on mywebsite Elizabeth Benedict dot com and under the
events section. I'm doing an interviewon June first with the writer Caroline Levitt
that's going to stream. At thebeginning of COVID, when they are all
these writers who had books to promoteand there were no more bookstores, this
group of really smart, interesting womenstarted an online platform called a Mighty Blaze
(37:53):
that I'm sorry that streams. Theystarted up an organization that promotes authors online.
So I'm doing that on June first, and on June seventh at seven
pm, I'm doing an online conversationwith documentary filmmaker Betsy West, who was
the co director of the film RBGabout Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And you can
(38:17):
find out all of these these eventson my website, Elizabeth Benedict dot com.
Well, Elizabeth, I want tothank you for all of the hard
work that you've done providing more awarenessabout cancer, providing more awareness about how
a person and their loved ones cango about the process of hopefully, you
(38:42):
know, evolving into a survivor ofcancer. Very important. And you know
you speak in your writing and alsoeven here in this interview, you're not
speaking above everybody's head. Very relatable, very clear, and this is just
valuable information and that everyone can relateto. And it's it's really a breath
of fresh air because this is anemotional topic. It's a challenging topic,
(39:08):
but the way that you handle itis just excellent. And I'm so appreciative
that you took the time to joinus. So thank you for telling us
the truth. Well, thank youfor giving me this chance to talk.
It's it's been really an interesting conversationand I hope that it gives someone somewhere
(39:30):
some comfort and some maybe some reliefas they go through this. What a
fantastic conversation there with Elizabeth. AndI got to tell you, folks,
cancer is a tough, tough subject. We all know that, and I
don't really know. I don't thinkI know anyone who doesn't have some type
(39:52):
of story about cancer, whether theypersonally have experienced it, or they have
loved ones who have survived or evensuccumbed to cancer. So this is this
is a pretty emotional topic. Andagain I love the way that Elizabeth goes
about explaining everything and making it relatableenough so that we can really get an
(40:15):
education and really understand how to proceedforward. God forbid if we ever have
to experience waiting to find out ifin fact you are positive for cancer,
and then even beyond that, theprocess of going through overcoming cancer. I
(40:36):
mean, it's it's a lot,it's a it's a tall order. It's
just it's great that we have folkslike Elizabeth who you know, can break
it down for us. I've mentionedbefore, I have a one of my
dear friends, Anne Giordano. Sheunfortunately had succumbed to cancer, and I
(40:59):
believe that was her third about withit. So she had long stretches of
being in remission and cancer free asfar as folks knew. I think her
longest stretch was about ten years shewas about cancer free, but then unfortunately
it came back, and you know, ultimately she passed away. And this
(41:22):
is someone who I had worked withand developed a fantastic friendship with just incredible,
incredible conversations and experiences. And youknow, and is old enough to
be my mom. And you know, she's this white Italian lady. But
(41:43):
nonetheless of all, we here callingher my little sister. And a funny
story. We were out after awork meeting and we were just catching up,
grabbing a bite to eat, grabbinga beer, and I ordered us,
say, hey, can you I'llhave a such and such and you
know, and and my little sisterhere will have a such and such.
(42:06):
And the bartender is looking at melike, what the hell you know?
Here? I am this this obviousblack guy, and here we have this
uh, you know, fairly paleItalian lady here, and she's my little
sister. And she's, by theway, she's much older than me.
But that's the kind of fun thatwe had and just really really um an
(42:30):
incredible, incredible relationship. I learneda lot from Anne. You know,
at the time, we were ina sales environment, and she was coming
from a corporate structure excellent at recordsretention and back of the house things,
and I just was not skilled atthat stuff. Here I am this college
(42:51):
kid, Um, you know,although I'm studying political science, you got
to pay the bills. I'm workingin retail. I'm a manager. She's
a manager, and we were workingside by side and at one point where
actually I was put in charge ofa business and she was my assistant,
and I could do the sales allday long, and I can train staffs
(43:15):
and how to do the sales allday long. When it comes to talking
to people, when it comes todeveloping trust with another party, when it
comes to getting them to purchase theright thing. You know, it was
something that I was trained well atand therefore I was skilled at, but
I had no clue about the backoffice stuff. And fortunately that was where
(43:37):
Anne was coming from. She hadcompletely switched careers because she was for a
long time in the financial industry,and after surviving cancer, she switched careers
and wanted to do something a littledifferent. So that's how she got into
sales and sales management more importantly,and had she stabilized. I start back
(44:00):
office in terms of paperwork and thingsof that nature, and then proceeded to
teach me how to get better atthat, and in return, I taught
her how to do sales and howto excel at sales, not just be
functional, but how to be verygood at sales and then be able to
teach others. And I'm not goingto say, however, became very good
(44:23):
at the back office stuff. Butwhat she taught me I still utilized to
this day, and it's been invaluable, you know what I mean. Not
because she was an excellent teacher.I just wasn't that great of a student
there. It was. It tooka lot, took a lot of discipline
to sit down, learn how tokeep records properly, learn how to stay
(44:43):
organized, learn how to balance booksand things like that, and keep it
going. Because I don't care howgood of a salesperson you are. If
you're if you're paperworking right, ifyour back office and right, if you're
not keeping up with your inventory levelsand things of that nature, then you're
missing out on sales. You're missingout on money, which has a direct
impact on the bottom line there.So Anne was just a gift, you
(45:07):
know, she was a blessing inthat regard. Anne eventually became the manager
of her own store, and thenI ended up taking over another store,
so we were probably about thirty fiveminutes away from each other. And I'll
never forget. It was a blizzard. Not just a snowstorm. It's a
blizzard going on here in Massachusetts.And it's also during inventory, and I
(45:30):
had just finished my inventory from mystore, which took all day, right
and Anne calls me up and shetells me that she wasn't satisfied with the
inventory prep that her team had doneat the time, you know, because
they know you're also having to stayopen, you're doing sales at the same
(45:50):
time. And she was in chargeof a specialized store too, so her
inventory is a little different. Andshe was, you know, she was
really concerned. So I said,you know something, kid, don't worry.
I'll be there soon. And Iliterally left my inventory. I worked
all day, drove through a blizzard, got there for Annie, and we
just looked at each other and justlaughed. And I proceeded to Annie and
(46:13):
myself we did the inventory for herwhole store, and in the end,
and this is a crazy part,her inventory ended up being more accurate than
my inventory at my store. AndI had a whole team. But here's
the thing. There were many timesbefore and even after that, when you
(46:35):
know, I was just influx ofmerchandise and things like that and needed help
getting it organized. And Annie wouldcome and help me organize my store boom,
just like that. She was excellentat it, fantastic at it.
Take a look at my books tomake sure all that stuff was in line.
And we were two of the higherperforming managers in the entire company with
(46:58):
over three hundreds almost four your stores, so that bond. And there were
a couple other people involved as well. You know, God Arrest is soul
Alan Friedman, I've mentioned him onthe on the show before. Um,
you know still with this, Darlin, Vesscis and Alan Rowa. I can
go down the list, God Arrest, his soul, Vinnie Bonano, who's
(47:19):
one of my assistants. There.We had a great crew of people who
supported each other and learned from eachother and were very very close. And
we had some a mix of youknow, older folks, you know,
younger folks, and even younger folkswho even hired some high school kids at
the time who have grown grown andbecome you know, various lawyers and elected
(47:43):
officials and folks working for the federalgovernment and all kinds of interesting things there.
Um, shout out to all ofyou if you're listening here. But
I got a call. First ofall, Annie and I had had been
talking, and by this time,I'm back and working in government. I'm
out of the sales management stuff.And Annie had stuck around in that world
(48:07):
and she was still doing her thing. And then she found out that the
cancer came back. And we hadwent out and grabbed lunch, like we
do. You know how to beerone beer, great conversation lunch. We
went to Patriot Place, which youknow Foxboro Stadium. They also have a
(48:28):
shopping center there called Patriot Place.Grabbed lunch there and she told me she's
gonna fight this thing, She's gonnabe all right in etc. And I
say, yeah, damn right.And you know, a couple of months
went by and we had made plansto grab lunch again, and unfortunately,
I randomly got a call and itwas her daughter, Kristen, and she
(48:53):
told me, you know, mymom has taken a turn, unfortunately,
and they don't think that she's goingto have much more time. So I
literally dropped everything that I was doingand I hopped in a car and I
(49:14):
drove. I drove over an hourto get to that hospital, and I
called some of our friends from thatcrew that we had that we all worked
with at this point, you know, everyone had gone their separate ways,
different industry and etc. Etc.But I called everybody and let them know.
Unfortunately, they weren't able to getaway like I was able to get
(49:35):
away. I think I was ona day off, so it just worked
out that way. But I madeit to the hospital and within in less
than forty five minutes from the timeI made it to the hospital, Annie
had taken her last breath, andI was able to be there and let
(49:59):
her, you know, one lasttime, you know how all of us
from our crew of friends felt abouther, cared about her, loved her,
and she was able to hear thatas she took her last breath and
transitioned into heaven. And it wasan honor to be able to represent our
(50:24):
crew of friends who were very,very close. It was an honor to
be able to be the person tobe there for Annie and those last moments
and let her know how we felt, and to be there in her family
to see that and know that havethat comfort in those last moments. And
(50:45):
it was just an incredible experience tosee someone take their last breath, it
just Jesus. And unfortunately that wascancer that did that. And this it's
tough woman here who had she hadbattled this thing three times old, and
(51:10):
she took all that it had andshe gave it back and she and she
was able to overcome it and didall that she could, and she lived
in a hell of a life.That experience has never left me. That
experience is something that I carry withme every day. And I see Annie's
(51:30):
face every day. I'll be atthe grocery store and someone looks like her,
and it's it's overwhelming. I seemy friend's face everywhere, which you
know, I've I've come to acceptthat as a blessing because every time I
see her face is like, allright, well she must be here.
We used to watch American Idol together, even when we weren't working together anymore.
(51:52):
We would still call each other orlive Facebook what's happening in American Idol?
Loved American Idol, Love country music. I always talk about country music
together. So to this day,when I watch American Idol, it's not
just about me enjoying the program personally, but I'm doing that because I know
my friend Annie is up in heavenwatching American Idol with me. I'm sharing
(52:16):
this information, folks, just tolet you know from my personal experience with
cancer through a very close loved one, close friend of mine. And I
know that everyone listening here you,I'm sure you have similar experiences. It
is tough, man, and there'sa lot I don't understand. It's terrifying.
(52:39):
So again, somebody like Elizabeth writingthis book, it's been comforting.
It's a heavy read, but it'sbeen comforting. And that's why I encourage
all of you rewriting illness a viewof my own. Grab yourself a copy.
(52:59):
I share with other lovel and sharewith young people. It's just great
perspective, it really is. Andum, to all that we've lost to
cancer, and to all that arestill here because they've been able to overcome
cancer, because they've been blessed,to all that have contributed to the research
(53:21):
and the advancements in helping folks overcomecancer, I thank you, I thank
you, I thank you, Ithank you, and I'm thinking of you
everyone, everyone in the whole linethere. I just named. Tell us
the Truth on Facebook, on Twitter, tell us the Truth dot duke at
(53:45):
gmail dot com. You're welcome toshare some of your experiences, even in
the comments in the episode, sharesome of your experiences if you so choose.
I know it's it's personal, it'semotional. I'm I'm a mess right
now, tears and all that goodstuff. But you know it's therapeutic to
talk about this stuff. Man.Wow. Happy Juneteenth to everybody, Happy
(54:09):
Pride to everyone, mental health awareness, all the good stuff. They're happy,
happy, happy. I hope youand your loved ones continue to be
safe and you know, find areason to smile every single day, because
every single day that we are here, it certainly is a blessing. Okay,
(54:32):
till next time, be kind toyourselves and be kind to others.
This is E. Duke Bennett andyou've been listening to tell Us the Truth.
Tell Us the Truth is produced inBoston in association with iHeartMedia and WBZ
News Radio.
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