A special episode from Before We Go

TED Health

TED

Health & Fitness, Fitness, Shoshana Ungerleider, Medicine, How To Be Healthier, Ted Shoshana, Ted Talks Health

4.2 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 10 December 2024

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

TED Health's very own Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider has a new podcast Before We Go. You heard the first episode earlier this year so we wanted to share the second episode in the series -- if you'd like more from Before We Go, check it out wherever you are listening to this.

Before We Go follows Shoshana's personal and emotionally charged journey after her father was diagnosed with terminal cancer in the summer of 2022. His doctors were encouraged when testing showed that the cancer was related to a BRCA genetic mutation, which meant that it might respond to new, targeted therapies. But that also meant that Shoshana and her sister were also at risk for developing life-threatening cancers. With the help of renowned experts and some of the professionals who helped her along the way, Shoshana tells her story of love, loss, family, mortality, and the unexpected paths we take to find meaning and purpose in the face of life's greatest challenges.

In this episode, Shoshana reflects on the death of her paternal grandmother, Joy Ungerleider, who died of the same cancer Steven now faces. The family learns that Steven's cancer is BRCA-related, and hope rises with the possibility that targeted therapy may offer him many months, if not years, of quality life. But he would first need to endure several months of harsh chemotherapy. See behind the scenes and join the conversation on Instagram @beforewegopodcast.

Transcript

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0:00.0	TED Audio Collective.
0:06.2	This is TED Health, a podcast from the TED Audio Collective.
0:10.5	I'm your host, Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter.
0:13.9	Today, we're going to do something a little different.
0:16.8	I'm going to share the second episode of a podcast called Before We Go. Before We Go is the story
0:23.7	of my father's cancer, the surprising diagnosis that threatened my own health, and the unexpected
0:30.5	paths I took to find meaning and purpose in it all. We shared episode one with you back in mid-October,
0:39.7	but it's been a while. So I'm going to remind you of some of the important things that happened in that episode. It started in the
0:45.6	summer of 2022 with a phone call. It was on a weekend, and I often talk to my dad, certainly on the weekend.
0:58.7	So when I got the phone call from him, I thought we would just be catching up about my recent trip.
1:05.8	But I could tell that there was something different about his voice.
1:09.2	He sounded just kind of worried.
1:14.7	He said, shosh, there's a mass in my pancreas.
1:19.1	You told me that you were scared because, given everything that had happened in your family,
1:26.7	that was a real possibility.
1:28.9	That's my husband, Ed Aiton.
1:31.6	I think I was overwhelmed and felt like there was going to be a really bad road ahead,
1:38.2	and that I knew enough about pancreatic cancer to know that this was a one-way street.
1:47.4	It took a few weeks, but eventually my father's diagnosis was confirmed.
1:53.0	Stage four pancreatic cancer, meaning that the cancer was inoperable and would most likely kill him.
2:03.6	The morning after the diagnosis was confirmed,
2:06.6	my dad and I sat in his primary care doctor's office,
	...

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