Surviving
After getting through a recurrence of lymphoma that damaged the base of my spine, I’m left pondering the concept of survival and how it's not as easy as it seems. In a series of interviews with people who have experienced all kinds of life-changing disease and trauma, I explore what it means to survive and perhaps, at some point, live happily ever after.
Episodes
14 episodes
Jacky Grossman: Keeping alive the stories of Holocaust survival
Every year, Jacky Grossman talks on social media about her family--and how so many lost their lives in the Holocaust.In this episode, Jacky talks about the stories of how her parents and grandmother survived--and the special emphasis th...
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Season 1
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Episode 14
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46:51
Dustin Watson: After fleeing a military coup, trying to find normal again
"...As we were headed towards the airport, a large convoy of military personnel in armored vehicles were entering the city. I looked out the side window to my left, looked out to my right, where my wife was sitting, and I said, 'this doesn't lo...
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Season 1
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Episode 13
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40:00
Tomika Holmes: The gift of giving back, despite it all
The trauma is forgotten, but a single act of warmth and kindness provided a lifetime of giving back. That's how Tomi Holmes lives her life after passing through the foster care system when she was little. She is an inspiration for how to live a...
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Season 1
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Episode 12
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37:11
Saurabh Chowdhry: Not letting MS stop him
Multiple Sclerosis has sent Saurabh Chowdhry on several career detours, but he views each experience as a triumph. From medical student to science teacher to scientific writer to inspirational author, he keeps pressing onward and refusing to le...
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Season 1
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Episode 11
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25:02
Uvistra Naidoo: First XDR-TB, now long-haul COVID
It took Uvi Naidoo, a South African pediatrician, three long years to get through extensively drug resistant tuberculosis. Now, he's working through long-haul COVID symptoms, after contracting the infection twice. But even though he still needs...
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Season 1
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Episode 10
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36:14
Woo Jin Ho: Surviving the Mets (April Fools Edition)
Baseball season this year starts on April Fools Day, which is a perfect metaphor for Mets fans. Seeing as how this episode is launching the same week, my good friend Woo Jin Ho joins me to take a look at what it's like to survive as a fan of th...
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Season 1
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Episode 9
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33:55
Connie White: The cancer triple crown and three lines in the sand
In November of 2019, Connie White bought a pair of maternity tights by accident--she wasn't actually pregnant. In trying them on though, she fell down the rabbit hole of tests, cancer diagnosis and treatment. What's worse, most of her journey w...
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Season 1
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Episode 8
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39:22
Ashoka Mukpo: Ebola wasn't as bad as the media hullabaloo
The last time the world freaked out about a global pandemic, it was 2014. The Ebola virus devastated Liberia and two other West African countries, but only about a dozen people were treated in Europe and North America. Ashoka Mukpo...
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Season 1
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Episode 7
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45:18
Dan Powers: Redefining luck, cardiovascularly speaking
When Dan Powers relocated to Truckee, California, he was not expecting to test out the emergency room at the local hospital so quickly. But when he woke up with chest pain shortly after the winter holidays, he needed medical help. While the inc...
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Season 1
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Episode 6
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27:14
Adam Zagoria: COVID came for him, then the sports world
The start of the COVID-19 pandemic put a new wrinkle into March Madness, the most frenzied month in the college basketball season. Adam Zagoria, a journalist who covers college hoops and other sports, attended a concert one night and the Big Ea...
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Season 1
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Episode 5
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24:58
Paul Tewksbury: Death only lasted 35 minutes
At the end of July, 2017, Paul Tekwsbury wasn't feeling so great. One month later, he learned he had leukemia; one month after that, the chemotherapy that was treating his cancer left him dead of a heart attack--but only for 35 minutes. His per...
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Season 1
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Episode 4
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33:07
Debbie Salamone: Trying to save the shark that bit her
When Debbie Salamone was bitten by a shark, she had no idea how much it would transform her life. After recovering, she went back to school to get her master's degree and changed her career from journalism to advocacy. She organized a group of ...
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Season 1
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Episode 3
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27:15
Vicky Tauli-Corpuz: Decades later, they're still calling her a communist
Victoria Tauli-Corpuz began advocating for Indigenous rights as a teenager and still hasn't let up, first working to improve the health and welfare of her Kankanaey Igorot community in the Philippines and then for Indigenous communities around ...
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Season 1
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Episode 2
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37:21
Peter Dykstra: "What else do you have for me?"
Peter Dykstra is an accomplished environmental journalist, advocate, and, on a personal level, a dear mentor of mine. In a few short months, from the end of 2016 to early 2017, he lost his eldest son to suicide, the results of the presidential ...
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Season 1
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Episode 1
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33:05