Podcasts That Help Me Pull Through

I feel like shit.

There, I said it.

Its rough watching you only surviving parent suffer and wither away.

Every time I kiss and hug him before I leave, I fear it will be the last time. My dad’s in this weird limbo between life and death and I feel like I’m driving with the handbreaks up.

So along with watch Family Guy and Bob’s Burgers, there are some podcasts I’ve been listening to that have given me some perspective over the shitty situation I’m in. I highly recommend you tune in to them.

They’re free, unpretentious, and even kinda funny. Because there’s nothing funny about cancer and death, so we need to inject as much “funny” into them to make them semi-bearable.

Podcast: Radiolab

Episode: Famous Tumors (Season 7, Episode 4)

I heard this yesterday on my way to visit my dad. It was kinda scary but fascinating.

Can I just say that science normally sounds like gibberish to me. But Radiolab is miraculously capable of making everything “scientific” understandable to me.

Ever since my mom and my dad got diagnosed with cancer, I considered myself pretty informed about cancer. But this podcast REALLY helped me understand cancer. It validated that cancer is indeed fucking terrible but it also showcased examples of cancer that’s actually not harmful, but surprisingly somewhat positive. Without spoiling anything, I’ll just give you an example of those “positive” tumor stories about a man that had a tumor that made him orgasm every time he saw safety pins.

Weird. Could you imagine what his porn collection looked like???

 

Listen to it here.

 

Podcast: This American Life

Episode: “Slow to React”

This episode’s theme was about “slow reactions” in people’s lives. What really moved me was the last story of episode. The story featured a woman who was diagnosed with stage 4 terminal breast cancer. The doctors gave her about six months to live and she carried out the following six months preparing to die. Making all the arrangements, living each day as if it were her last. But six months passed, and then another six, and another, and she’s still alive today. 19 years later, and she’s still here. Its a very moving story and I suggest you at least skip to the end of the episode to hear it if you don’t want to listen to the entire hour.

Listen to it here.

 

Podcast: Snap Judgment

Episode: “The Other Side” (Snap #307)

First of all, if you haven’t heard of “Snap Judgment”, I suggest you get on that. Its not as famous as Radiolab and This American Life but it should be. Anyhow, this episode aired recently and it was eerily appropriate for what I’m going through. All the stories were good in this episode about death and “the other side”. But the coolest story was the story of the ICU nurse who talks about her experience trying to keep people alive. It also made me 100% sure that I don’t want to be an ICU nurse as I would hate to pronounce people’s deaths.

Listen to it here.

 

Has a podcast, tv show, movie, or book helped you deal with something in your life? Do you have a favorite podcast (I’m always looking for new ones to download).