What almost dying taught me about living
-
0:01 - 0:04It was the spring of 2011,
-
0:04 - 0:06and as they like to say
in commencement speeches, -
0:07 - 0:10I was getting ready
to enter the real world. -
0:11 - 0:13I had recently graduated from college
-
0:13 - 0:16and moved to Paris to start my first job.
-
0:17 - 0:21My dream was to become
a war correspondent, -
0:21 - 0:23but the real world that I found
-
0:23 - 0:27took me into a really different
kind of conflict zone. -
0:29 - 0:31At 22 years old,
-
0:31 - 0:34I was diagnosed with leukemia.
-
0:35 - 0:38The doctors told me
and my parents, point-blank, -
0:38 - 0:43that I had about a 35 percent chance
of long-term survival. -
0:44 - 0:49I couldn't wrap my head around
what that prognosis meant. -
0:49 - 0:54But I understood that the reality
and the life I'd imagined for myself -
0:54 - 0:55had shattered.
-
0:56 - 1:01Overnight, I lost my job,
my apartment, my independence, -
1:01 - 1:05and I became patient number 5624.
-
1:07 - 1:10Over the next four years
of chemo, a clinical trial -
1:10 - 1:12and a bone marrow transplant,
-
1:12 - 1:14the hospital became my home,
-
1:14 - 1:17my bed, the place I lived 24/7.
-
1:18 - 1:22Since it was unlikely
that I'd ever get better, -
1:22 - 1:25I had to accept my new reality.
-
1:25 - 1:28And I adapted.
-
1:28 - 1:32I became fluent in medicalese,
-
1:32 - 1:37made friends with a group
of other young cancer patients, -
1:37 - 1:41built a vast collection of neon wigs
-
1:41 - 1:47and learned to use
my rolling IV pole as a skateboard. -
1:48 - 1:51I even achieved my dream
of becoming a war correspondent, -
1:51 - 1:54although not in the way I'd expected.
-
1:54 - 1:56It started with a blog,
-
1:56 - 1:58reporting from the front lines
of my hospital bed, -
1:58 - 2:02and it morphed into a column
I wrote for the New York Times, -
2:02 - 2:04called "Life, Interrupted."
-
2:05 - 2:06But --
(Applause) -
2:06 - 2:07Thank you.
-
2:07 - 2:09(Applause)
-
2:10 - 2:12But above all else,
-
2:12 - 2:15my focus was on surviving.
-
2:16 - 2:18And -- spoiler alert --
-
2:19 - 2:21(Laughter)
-
2:21 - 2:23I did survive, yeah.
-
2:23 - 2:28(Applause)
-
2:28 - 2:31Thanks to an army of supportive humans,
-
2:31 - 2:35I'm not just still here,
I am cured of my cancer. -
2:35 - 2:36(Applause)
-
2:36 - 2:37Thank you.
-
2:37 - 2:39(Applause)
-
2:39 - 2:44So, when you go through
a traumatic experience like this, -
2:44 - 2:45people treat you differently.
-
2:46 - 2:50They start telling you
how much of an inspiration you are. -
2:50 - 2:53They say you're a warrior.
-
2:53 - 2:54They call you a hero,
-
2:55 - 2:57someone who's lived
the mythical hero's journey, -
2:57 - 3:00who's endured impossible trials
-
3:00 - 3:03and, against the odds,
lived to tell the tale, -
3:03 - 3:07returning better and braver
for what you're been through. -
3:08 - 3:12And this definitely lines up
with my experience. -
3:12 - 3:15Cancer totally transformed my life.
-
3:15 - 3:18I left the hospital knowing
exactly who I was -
3:18 - 3:20and what I wanted to do in the world.
-
3:20 - 3:23And now, every day as the sun rises,
-
3:23 - 3:25I drink a big glass of celery juice,
-
3:25 - 3:28and I follow this up
with 90 minutes of yoga. -
3:29 - 3:35Then, I write down 50 things
I'm grateful for onto a scroll of paper -
3:35 - 3:39that I fold into an origami crane
and send sailing out my window. -
3:40 - 3:41(Laughter)
-
3:41 - 3:44Are you seriously believing any of this?
-
3:44 - 3:46(Laughter)
-
3:46 - 3:48I don't do any of these things.
-
3:48 - 3:49(Laughter)
-
3:49 - 3:54I hate yoga, and I have no idea
how to fold an origami crane. -
3:55 - 3:57The truth is that for me,
-
3:57 - 4:02the hardest part of my cancer experience
began once the cancer was gone. -
4:04 - 4:07That heroic journey
of the survivor we see in movies -
4:07 - 4:10and watch play out on Instagram --
-
4:10 - 4:11it's a myth.
-
4:11 - 4:13It isn't just untrue, it's dangerous,
-
4:13 - 4:17because it erases the very real
challenges of recovery. -
4:18 - 4:23Now, don't get me wrong --
I am incredibly grateful to be alive, -
4:23 - 4:27and I am painfully aware
that this struggle is a privilege -
4:27 - 4:29that many don't get to experience.
-
4:29 - 4:32But it's important that I tell you
-
4:32 - 4:37what this projection of heroism
and expectation of constant gratitude -
4:37 - 4:39does to people who are trying to recover.
-
4:40 - 4:44Because being cured is not
where the work of healing ends. -
4:45 - 4:47It's where it begins.
-
4:48 - 4:52I'll never forget the day
I was discharged from the hospital, -
4:52 - 4:54finally done with treatment.
-
4:55 - 5:01Those four years of chemo
had taken a toll on my relationship -
5:01 - 5:03with my longtime boyfriend,
-
5:03 - 5:05and he'd recently moved out.
-
5:05 - 5:09And when I walked
into my apartment, it was quiet. -
5:10 - 5:11Eerily so.
-
5:12 - 5:15The person I wanted to call
in this moment, -
5:15 - 5:18the person who I knew
would understand everything, -
5:18 - 5:20was my friend Melissa.
-
5:20 - 5:23She was a fellow cancer patient,
-
5:23 - 5:25but she had died three weeks earlier.
-
5:27 - 5:29As I stood there in the doorway
of my apartment, -
5:30 - 5:31I wanted to cry.
-
5:31 - 5:34But I was too tired to cry.
-
5:35 - 5:37The adrenaline was gone.
-
5:37 - 5:39I had felt as if the inner scaffolding
-
5:39 - 5:42that had held me together
since my diagnosis -
5:42 - 5:43had suddenly crumbled.
-
5:44 - 5:51I had spent the past 1,500 days
working tirelessly to achieve one goal: -
5:51 - 5:52to survive.
-
5:53 - 5:54And now that I'd done so,
-
5:54 - 6:00I realized I had absolutely
no idea how to live. -
6:02 - 6:04On paper, of course, I was better:
-
6:04 - 6:06I didn't have leukemia,
-
6:06 - 6:08my blood counts were back to normal,
-
6:08 - 6:11and the disability checks
soon stopped coming. -
6:11 - 6:12To the outside world,
-
6:13 - 6:17I clearly didn't belong in the kingdom
of the sick anymore. -
6:18 - 6:22But in reality, I never felt
further from being well. -
6:23 - 6:27All that chemo had taken
a permanent physical toll on my body. -
6:28 - 6:31I wondered, "What kind of job can I hold
-
6:31 - 6:35when I need to nap for four hours
in the middle of the day? -
6:35 - 6:38When my misfiring immune system
-
6:38 - 6:41still sends me to the ER
on a regular basis?" -
6:42 - 6:45And then there were the invisible,
psychological imprints -
6:46 - 6:48my illness had left behind:
-
6:48 - 6:50the fears of relapse,
-
6:50 - 6:52the unprocessed grief,
-
6:52 - 6:58the demons of PTSD that descended upon me
for days, sometimes weeks. -
6:59 - 7:01See, we talk about reentry
-
7:01 - 7:05in the context of war and incarceration.
-
7:05 - 7:06But we don't talk about it as much
-
7:06 - 7:11in the context of other kinds
of traumatic experiences, like an illness. -
7:12 - 7:16Because no one had warned me
of the challenges of reentry, -
7:16 - 7:19I thought something must be wrong with me.
-
7:19 - 7:21I felt ashamed,
-
7:21 - 7:24and with great guilt,
I kept reminding myself -
7:24 - 7:26of how lucky I was to be alive at all,
-
7:26 - 7:29when so many people
like my friend Melissa were not. -
7:30 - 7:34But on most days, I woke up
feeling so sad and lost, -
7:34 - 7:36I could barely breathe.
-
7:36 - 7:41Sometimes, I even fantasized
about getting sick again. -
7:42 - 7:43And let me tell you,
-
7:43 - 7:47there are so many better things
to fantasize about -
7:47 - 7:50when you're in your twenties
and recently single. -
7:50 - 7:51(Laughter)
-
7:51 - 7:55But I missed the hospital's ecosystem.
-
7:55 - 7:59Like me, everyone in there was broken.
-
7:59 - 8:03But out here, among the living,
I felt like an impostor, -
8:03 - 8:06overwhelmed and unable to function.
-
8:07 - 8:11I also missed the sense of clarity
I'd felt at my sickest. -
8:12 - 8:17Staring your mortality straight in the eye
has a way of simplifying things, -
8:17 - 8:20of rerouting your focus
to what really matters. -
8:21 - 8:23And when I was sick,
I vowed that if I survived, -
8:23 - 8:25it had to be for something.
-
8:25 - 8:28It had to be to live a good life,
an adventurous life, -
8:28 - 8:29a meaningful one.
-
8:30 - 8:32But the question, once I was cured,
-
8:32 - 8:34became: How?
-
8:35 - 8:40I was 27 years old
with no job, no partner, no structure. -
8:40 - 8:44And this time, I didn't have treatment
protocols or discharge instructions -
8:44 - 8:46to help guide my way forward.
-
8:47 - 8:53But what I did have was an in-box
full of internet messages -
8:53 - 8:54from strangers.
-
8:55 - 8:56Over the years,
-
8:56 - 8:59people from all over the world
had read my column, -
8:59 - 9:03and they'd responded with letters,
comments and emails. -
9:04 - 9:09It was a mix, as is often
the case, for writers. -
9:10 - 9:12I got a lot of unsolicited advice
-
9:12 - 9:16about how to cure my cancer
with things like essential oils. -
9:17 - 9:20I got some questions about my bra size.
-
9:21 - 9:23But mostly --
-
9:23 - 9:24(Laughter)
-
9:24 - 9:28mostly, I heard from people who,
in their own different way, -
9:28 - 9:31understood what it was
that I was going through. -
9:32 - 9:35I heard from a teenage girl in Florida
-
9:35 - 9:37who, like me, was coming out of chemo
-
9:37 - 9:41and wrote me a message
composed largely of emojis. -
9:42 - 9:47I heard from a retired art history
professor in Ohio named Howard, -
9:47 - 9:49who'd spent most of his life
-
9:49 - 9:52struggling with a mysterious,
debilitating health condition -
9:52 - 9:55that he'd had from the time
he was a young man. -
9:55 - 10:00I heard from an inmate
on death row in Texas -
10:00 - 10:02by the name of Little GQ --
-
10:03 - 10:05short for "Gangster Quinn."
-
10:05 - 10:08He'd never been sick a day in his life.
-
10:08 - 10:11He does 1,000 push-ups
to start off each morning. -
10:11 - 10:14But he related to what
I described in one column -
10:14 - 10:16as my "incanceration,"
-
10:16 - 10:20and to the experience of being confined
to a tiny fluorescent room. -
10:21 - 10:26"I know that our situations
are different," he wrote to me, -
10:26 - 10:30"But the threat of death
lurks in both of our shadows." -
10:32 - 10:36In those lonely first weeks
and months of my recovery, -
10:36 - 10:40these strangers and their words
became lifelines, -
10:40 - 10:43dispatches from people
of so many different backgrounds, -
10:43 - 10:45with so many different experiences,
-
10:45 - 10:47all showing me the same thing:
-
10:49 - 10:52you can be held hostage
-
10:52 - 10:55by the worst thing
that's ever happened to you -
10:55 - 10:58and allow it to hijack
your remaining days, -
10:58 - 11:01or you can find a way forward.
-
11:03 - 11:07I knew I needed to make
some kind of change. -
11:07 - 11:10I wanted to be in motion again
-
11:10 - 11:14to figure out how to unstuck myself
and to get back out into the world. -
11:15 - 11:19And so I decided to go on
a real journey -- -
11:20 - 11:23not the bullshit cancer one
-
11:23 - 11:26or the mythical hero's journey
that everyone thought I should be on, -
11:26 - 11:29but a real, pack-your-bags
kind of journey. -
11:31 - 11:34I put everything I owned into storage,
-
11:36 - 11:39rented out my apartment, borrowed a car
-
11:39 - 11:44and talked a very a dear
but somewhat smelly friend -
11:44 - 11:45into joining me.
-
11:45 - 11:47(Laughter)
-
11:47 - 11:53Together, my dog Oscar and I
embarked on a 15,000-mile road trip -
11:53 - 11:55around the United States.
-
11:55 - 12:00Along the way, we visited some
of those strangers who'd written to me. -
12:01 - 12:02I needed their advice,
-
12:02 - 12:05also to say to them, thank you.
-
12:05 - 12:10I went to Ohio and stayed with Howard,
the retired professor. -
12:11 - 12:14When you've suffered a loss or a trauma,
-
12:14 - 12:17the impulse can be to guard your heart.
-
12:17 - 12:21But Howard urged me
to open myself up to uncertainty, -
12:21 - 12:26to the possibilities
of new love, new loss. -
12:27 - 12:29Howard will never be cured of illness.
-
12:29 - 12:33And as a young man, he had no way
of predicting how long he'd live. -
12:33 - 12:35But that didn't stop him
from getting married. -
12:36 - 12:38Howard has grandkids now,
-
12:38 - 12:41and takes weekly ballroom dancing
lessons with his wife. -
12:42 - 12:43When I visited them,
-
12:43 - 12:47they’d recently celebrated
their 50th anniversary. -
12:48 - 12:50In his letter to me, he'd written,
-
12:50 - 12:53"Meaning is not found
in the material realm; -
12:53 - 12:57it's not in dinner, jazz,
cocktails or conversation. -
12:57 - 13:01Meaning is what's left
when everything else is stripped away." -
13:03 - 13:07I went to Texas, and I visited
Little GQ on death row. -
13:08 - 13:11He asked me what I did
to pass all that time -
13:11 - 13:13I'd spent in a hospital room.
-
13:14 - 13:19When I told him that I got
really, really good at Scrabble, -
13:19 - 13:22he said, "Me, too!" and explained how,
-
13:22 - 13:25even though he spends most of his days
in solitary confinement, -
13:25 - 13:29he and his neighboring prisoners
make board games out of paper -
13:29 - 13:32and call out their plays
through their meal slots -- -
13:33 - 13:39a testament to the incredible tenacity
of the human spirit -
13:39 - 13:43and our ability to adapt with creativity.
-
13:44 - 13:46And my last stop was in Florida,
-
13:46 - 13:50to see that teenage girl
who'd sent me all those emojis. -
13:51 - 13:54Her name is Unique, which is perfect,
-
13:54 - 13:58because she's the most luminous,
curious person I've ever met. -
13:59 - 14:02I asked her what she wants
to do next and she said, -
14:02 - 14:04"I want to go to college and travel
-
14:04 - 14:07and eat weird foods like octopus
that I've never tasted before -
14:07 - 14:08and come visit you in New York
-
14:08 - 14:10and go camping, but I'm scared of bugs,
-
14:10 - 14:12but I still want to go camping."
-
14:14 - 14:16I was in awe of her,
-
14:16 - 14:21that she could be so optimistic
and so full of plans for the future, -
14:22 - 14:23given everything she'd been through.
-
14:24 - 14:26But as Unique showed me,
-
14:26 - 14:31it is far more radical
and dangerous to have hope -
14:31 - 14:33than to live hemmed in by fear.
-
14:35 - 14:39But the most important thing
I learned on that road trip -
14:39 - 14:43is that the divide between
the sick and the well -- -
14:43 - 14:45it doesn't exist.
-
14:45 - 14:47The border is porous.
-
14:48 - 14:50As we live longer and longer,
-
14:50 - 14:54surviving illnesses and injuries
that would have killed our grandparents, -
14:54 - 14:55even our parents,
-
14:55 - 15:00the vast majority of us will travel
back and forth between these realms, -
15:00 - 15:03spending much of our lives
somewhere between the two. -
15:04 - 15:07These are the terms of our existence.
-
15:08 - 15:12Now, I wish I could say
that since coming home from my road trip, -
15:12 - 15:15I feel fully healed.
-
15:15 - 15:16I don't.
-
15:17 - 15:19But once I stopped expecting myself
-
15:19 - 15:23to return to the person
I'd been pre-diagnosis, -
15:23 - 15:28once I learned to accept my body
and its limitations, -
15:28 - 15:31I actually did start to feel better.
-
15:31 - 15:35And in the end, I think that's the trick:
-
15:35 - 15:39to stop seeing our health as binary,
-
15:39 - 15:41between sick and healthy,
-
15:41 - 15:42well and unwell,
-
15:42 - 15:44whole and broken;
-
15:44 - 15:48to stop thinking that there's some
beautiful, perfect state of wellness -
15:48 - 15:50to strive for;
-
15:50 - 15:54and to quit living in a state
of constant dissatisfaction -
15:54 - 15:55until we reach it.
-
15:57 - 16:02Every single one of us
will have our life interrupted, -
16:02 - 16:05whether it's by the rip cord
of a diagnosis -
16:05 - 16:09or some other kind of heartbreak
or trauma that brings us to the floor. -
16:10 - 16:16We need to find ways to live
in the in-between place, -
16:16 - 16:20managing whatever body
and mind we currently have. -
16:21 - 16:27Sometimes, all it takes is the ingenuity
of a handmade game of Scrabble -
16:27 - 16:32or finding that stripped-down
kind of meaning in the love of family -
16:32 - 16:34and a night on the ballroom dance floor,
-
16:34 - 16:37or that radical, dangerous hope
-
16:37 - 16:41that I'm guessing will someday
lead a teenage girl terrified of bugs -
16:41 - 16:43to go camping.
-
16:44 - 16:46If you're able to do that,
-
16:46 - 16:50then you've taken the real hero's journey.
-
16:50 - 16:54You've achieved what it means
to actually be well, -
16:54 - 17:01which is to say: alive, in the messiest,
richest, most whole sense. -
17:01 - 17:03Thank you, that's all I've got.
-
17:03 - 17:06(Applause)
-
17:06 - 17:07Thank you.
-
17:07 - 17:10(Applause)
- Title:
- What almost dying taught me about living
- Speaker:
- Suleika Jaouad
- Description:
-
"The hardest part of my cancer experience began once the cancer was gone," says author Suleika Jaouad. In this fierce, funny, wisdom-packed talk, she challenges us to think beyond the divide between "sick" and "well," asking: How do you begin again and find meaning after life is interrupted?
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 17:23
Brian Greene edited English subtitles for What almost dying taught me about living | ||
Oliver Friedman edited English subtitles for What almost dying taught me about living | ||
Oliver Friedman approved English subtitles for What almost dying taught me about living | ||
Oliver Friedman edited English subtitles for What almost dying taught me about living | ||
Camille Martínez accepted English subtitles for What almost dying taught me about living | ||
Camille Martínez edited English subtitles for What almost dying taught me about living | ||
Camille Martínez edited English subtitles for What almost dying taught me about living | ||
Ivana Korom edited English subtitles for What almost dying taught me about living |