Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: And welcome to the new time slot. The Carol Markowitz
Speaker 2: Show is moving to Wednesdays and Fridays, so you can
Speaker 2: get my non political podcast this show, The Carol Markowitz
Speaker 2: Show on Wednesday and Friday, and then normally the political
Speaker 2: podcast I co host with Mary Katherine Ham every Tuesday
Speaker 2: and Thursday. You only don't get me on Mondays. Sorry
Speaker 2: about that. So I got a DM from a listener
Speaker 2: who writes, Hi, Carol, I love the show and that
Speaker 2: you take questions. My daughter is sixteen, a junior in
Speaker 2: high school, and while she has friends that she sees
Speaker 2: in school, her calendar is completely open. She never has
Speaker 2: plans on the weekends or after school. She's mostly in
Speaker 2: her room and she seems lonely. What's interesting is that
Speaker 2: when I talk to friends, they say their kids also
Speaker 2: never see their friends outside of school. Is this normal?
Speaker 2: What do you suggest mean to say? These kids are
Speaker 2: having a completely different experience than I had as a teenager.
Speaker 2: I'd get home, spend five seconds doing my homework, and
Speaker 2: I'd be out the door to hang out with friends.
Speaker 2: It really has changed. I see that in the teenagers
Speaker 2: around me as well. I don't want to say the
Speaker 2: obvious social media destroyed our real life relationships, because while
Speaker 2: I think that plays a role, I don't think that's
Speaker 2: the whole story. And as I've written before, and I
Speaker 2: think I talked about on here, these teenagers are barely
Speaker 2: using social media anymore. They're really just watching TV on
Speaker 2: their phones, like they're not socializing. They're not commenting in
Speaker 2: each other's walls, they're not posting pictures, they're watching little
Speaker 2: videos and it's the equivalent of coming home from school
Speaker 2: and just sitting in front of the TV. But I
Speaker 2: also don't think that's the whole story. My mind also
Speaker 2: went to college prep for juniors, SATs and all that,
Speaker 2: but I very clearly remember hanging out with my friends
Speaker 2: in high school, even when we were studying for the SAT.
Speaker 2: So what has changed? I do think it's our phones again,
Speaker 2: in part, not social media specifically, but just the fact
Speaker 2: that our teens are in touch with their friends all
Speaker 2: the time and don't actually have to see them to
Speaker 2: have a connection. That's a huge change from our childhoods
Speaker 2: Putting aside that we didn't have, you know, cell phones
Speaker 2: with us all the time. I couldn't spend the afternoon
Speaker 2: on the phone my best friend. It just I would
Speaker 2: be tying up the house phone line. Even when I
Speaker 2: got my own line, which was a big, big deal,
Speaker 2: It's hard to imagine that our phone calls wouldn't be
Speaker 2: planned to see each other. My advice, more than anything else,
Speaker 2: and not just about this, but about a lot of
Speaker 2: problems that kids have, is to help your kids find community.
Speaker 2: That is really not easy to do, and I have
Speaker 2: struggled with this at different points in my life. You
Speaker 2: want to have kind of a built in people that
Speaker 2: you and your kids spend time with. Yes, that's not
Speaker 2: always the way it works out. Your kids could easily
Speaker 2: also hit their teens and not be interested in the
Speaker 2: community you fostered. I've seen that happen, but I still
Speaker 2: think that step one, what are you doing on the weekends?
Speaker 2: Are you seeing friends? You get together with friends who
Speaker 2: have kids your kids age, and you do something together,
Speaker 2: and that fosters a connection you probably have to host.
Speaker 2: It will take effort. The other thing is to encourage
Speaker 2: your kids into activities where they will see their friends.
Speaker 2: I am a free range parent, I really am, and
Speaker 2: I get the argument that not every minute of the
Speaker 2: kid's day needs to be planned and scheduled, and they
Speaker 2: should just hang out together and just do nothing and
Speaker 2: kick rocks around. I agree, but that's not what the
Speaker 2: other kids are doing. A few years ago, I wrote
Speaker 2: that at a certain age, my kids at the playground
Speaker 2: would be the only kids there that age, because everybody
Speaker 2: else would be in after school activities or doing sports
Speaker 2: or something. It's also less awkward than making plans to
Speaker 2: have activities that they just go to. What do their
Speaker 2: friends do after school or on weekends? Motivate your kids
Speaker 2: towards that. I also think that every group of friends
Speaker 2: needs a cruise director who organizes them. Some group of
Speaker 2: friends don't have that, and I think that makes it
Speaker 2: a lot tougher to hang out. You can encourage your
Speaker 2: daughter to be the one to organize stuff a dinner, bowling,
Speaker 2: really anything. I wrote about teenage loneliness and the jump
Speaker 2: and depression a few years ago for The Post, I wrote,
Speaker 2: the lives of our modern youth should be pretty good.
Speaker 2: They have all the information in the world on devices
Speaker 2: they carry in their pockets. They have plenty of opportunities
Speaker 2: to make friends instantaneously, something the older generation finds increasingly difficult,
Speaker 2: and notwithstanding with the insurgent Democratic socialists to keep telling
Speaker 2: us this is a time of unparalleled prosperity. The unemployment
Speaker 2: rate is four percent. Most American families enjoy conveniences that
Speaker 2: would have been unthinkable to most human generations across across
Speaker 2: most of history. Life should be grand, but perhaps those
Speaker 2: very conveniences are the source of youth anguish. Well, the
Speaker 2: prosperity has decreased a bit since I wrote that, But
Speaker 2: the point stands, our kids have all these possibilities, but
Speaker 2: they don't always know how to capture them. We help
Speaker 2: our kids with so many things. I think teaching them
Speaker 2: how to socialize, especially since they have a phone standing
Speaker 2: in the way, is something parents should just definitely do.
Speaker 2: We need to teach our kids how to make friends,
Speaker 2: how to make plans, all of that before we send
Speaker 2: them off into the world and have them do it
Speaker 2: for themselves. And yes, you might think that sixteen is
Speaker 2: a little old to be doing that, but if the
Speaker 2: alternative is your kids sitting home alone, maybe step in
Speaker 2: and help. I'd love your questions and comments at Carol
Speaker 2: Maarkowitz Show at gmail dot com. That's ka rl mr
Speaker 2: kow Icz Show at gmail dot com. Coming up after
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Speaker 1: Today, Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: My guest today is Drew Holden. Drew is the author
Speaker 1: of the Holden Court substack and well known for his
Speaker 1: blistering Threads on X my favorite. Hi Drew, so nice
Speaker 1: to have.
Speaker 3: You on Carol the Pleasure's Mind. Thank you so much
Speaker 3: and for the kind words about the threads. Blistering. I
Speaker 3: think blistering sometimes fair in mild mannered guys. I hope
Speaker 3: I don't disappoint, but.
Speaker 1: Well, mild mannerd is what comes across, for sure. I
Speaker 1: think you're very thorough and that also come across like
Speaker 1: you do the work as they as the kids say
Speaker 1: these days. So how did you get into the concept
Speaker 1: of going to destroy the media with threads on X?
Speaker 1: Where did that idea come from?
Speaker 3: It's a funny question, you know. I was actually I
Speaker 3: remember it was probably four or five years ago. I
Speaker 3: was working in public affairs. I was coming back from
Speaker 3: a client meeting up in New York and I was
Speaker 3: on the AM track and the news broke that Don
Speaker 3: Imis had passed away, right, the famous radio commentator. And
Speaker 3: I remember I saw because I saw there was probably
Speaker 3: a Washington poster New York Times headline where they just
Speaker 3: trashed who like again he made a really awful racist
Speaker 3: comment about the Rutgers women's basketball team. He was a
Speaker 3: firebrand in general. But I always kind of thought, like,
Speaker 3: you know, when people died, they died, right, yeah, hould
Speaker 3: them up in kind of a charitable light, or at
Speaker 3: least not a not an overly critical light. And every
Speaker 3: single headline I went through just trash Iynus and thrashed Iynus.
Speaker 3: And I thought, man, who is who is someone who
Speaker 3: we could both look at and say, this person is worse? Right,
Speaker 3: setting aside politics, setting aside, you know, all the issues
Speaker 3: of the day. Who could be worse? And so I
Speaker 3: went through and found a couple of terrorists, right, so
Speaker 3: how By Dottie was one of them, and then there
Speaker 3: were a couple others. Sky put yeah exactly, And so
Speaker 3: I put them side by side on Twitter. I was
Speaker 3: using Twitter very rarely. I get into to kind of
Speaker 3: keep tabs on the news, and I put them side
Speaker 3: by side, same outlets, same headlines, and it for whatever
Speaker 3: I had like maybe twelve hundred followers or something, and
Speaker 3: it just it blew up I had. I had all
Speaker 3: of this engagement, and all these people were really to me,
Speaker 3: I think there's something here, And I think what what
Speaker 3: kind of occurred to me is even in this kind
Speaker 3: of silly sort of example, it's very obvious to people
Speaker 3: when you put these things side by side that something
Speaker 3: doesn't have that's something here is a miss right. And
Speaker 3: I didn't think anyone was doing that, or at least wasn't.
Speaker 3: They didn't have as many screenshots in their phones as
Speaker 3: I did. Right even before that, I would see these things.
Speaker 3: I'm just kind of I guess I'm I'm kind of
Speaker 3: a hoarder or maybe a clutter shot. I yeah, I have.
Speaker 3: I had to clear up some space before I joined
Speaker 3: this podcast actually because I just have too many screenshots.
Speaker 3: I could do not have too many screenshots on my phone,
Speaker 3: and so I thought, I was like, I think there's
Speaker 3: something here, right, And this was you know, this is
Speaker 3: this was the you know, during Trump's time in office, right,
Speaker 3: the media I think was having a moment.
Speaker 4: To put it mildly, I was yeah, and I was like,
Speaker 4: you know, if nothing else kind of in like an
Speaker 4: archaeological sort of sense, I would like to capture this,
Speaker 4: like I think I think these things are going to
Speaker 4: look really bad.
Speaker 3: It's not right now today, the certainly down the road,
Speaker 3: and in general, I don't think it takes I think
Speaker 3: you can just show people these things. They'll be able
Speaker 3: to connect the dots that again, something here just isn't
Speaker 3: quite right. Right.
Speaker 1: Do you get a lot of pushback?
Speaker 3: I don't. One of the weirdest things I was talking
Speaker 3: to push on.
Speaker 1: That's why I ask.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's fair. I don't want to toot
Speaker 3: my own horn here too much. But I'm always kind
Speaker 3: of flummoxed at the fact that I don't have more
Speaker 3: people who are hating on me, right, because I.
Speaker 1: Definitely maybe after this show, maybe well yeah.
Speaker 3: Maybe you've got some good haters on the internet, so
Speaker 3: maybe they find their way to me. But I think
Speaker 3: I think it's probably two things. One is, I think
Speaker 3: that when you hold up the examples and the screen shots,
Speaker 3: it's really really hard to dispute one. Two, And I
Speaker 3: think I think it deserves pointing out. I'm also shooting
Speaker 3: at a target that probably isn't inclined to shoot back. Right.
Speaker 3: It's not just like a policy fight or something where
Speaker 3: I have a disagreement with someone the press, as much
Speaker 3: as I may malign them, you know, in terms of
Speaker 3: the way that they cover certain things, I think is
Speaker 3: a noble enough institution where the idea, in most cases,
Speaker 3: of getting in a shooting war with this random guy
Speaker 3: on Twitter probably doesn't appeal to the sensibilities of most people.
Speaker 3: I did one time, the only time that sticks out
Speaker 3: to me when I actually faced like real meaningful pushback,
Speaker 3: was an editor at the Washington Post, and one of
Speaker 3: my threads that I did probably four years ago now
Speaker 3: commented and disputed the way I had categorized a piece
Speaker 3: because I called it news and she said it was
Speaker 3: actually analysis. And to me, all question does is highlight
Speaker 3: the problem with news analysis as built by places like
Speaker 3: the Arty to Post. Right, If you're saying it is
Speaker 3: analysis as something distinct from news, why is analysis categorizing
Speaker 3: your news pieces? Right?
Speaker 1: Why isn't it in the opinion section? That would make
Speaker 1: sense there?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, So I that was kind of the one
Speaker 3: example where I really think about someone someone from the
Speaker 3: you know, from within the cathedral kind of pushback, and
Speaker 3: I think maybe did not avail herself of the best
Speaker 3: tact to do so.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, that's a that's really interesting that you decided
Speaker 1: that there's a separate category called analysis that doesn't somehow
Speaker 1: go into the opinion section. But if I think all
Speaker 1: of its opinion, I think they should just be more
Speaker 1: honest about it. And journalists don't love when I say that,
Speaker 1: but I think it's true. I think we're all writing
Speaker 1: our opinion, and some of us are honest about it
Speaker 1: and some of us aren't.
Speaker 3: So Yeah, Unfortunately, I think there's there's quite a bit
Speaker 3: to be extrapolated from the confluence of news and analysis,
Speaker 3: And I would love to sit down with like the
Speaker 3: editorial newsroom and be like, how do we think about
Speaker 3: these things? Yeah? What what is? What should news be? Right?
Speaker 3: What should the thing you are presenting to regular readers
Speaker 3: is removed from opinion? At? Really? Look like I think
Speaker 3: they have a really fascinating one.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So you've had a tumultuous few years. I think
Speaker 1: that for anybody who doesn't know your story, can you
Speaker 1: tell us a little about it?
Speaker 3: Yeah. So, you know, back in early twenty twenty, probably
Speaker 3: I started getting these thakes, and you know, it was
Speaker 3: twenty so there's a part of me that was like,
Speaker 3: you know, it's it's probably this is just what approaching
Speaker 3: thirty is like I'm getting older, my body is changing.
Speaker 3: I just I've just got to kind of make peace
Speaker 3: with that. And so I, you know, at first it
Speaker 3: just started I.
Speaker 1: Love that thirty was like You're like, well, this is
Speaker 1: this is where it all goes.
Speaker 3: Down here, you know, Hey, I mean I was I
Speaker 3: should have been the wiser, but I wasn't. But yes,
Speaker 3: an uncharitable perhaps a description of my age at the time.
Speaker 3: So I was, you know, I started getting these headaches,
Speaker 3: and then it was I'd get these headaches and I
Speaker 3: would be dizzy and have balance issues and I couldn't
Speaker 3: quite figure out for a couple of months what all
Speaker 3: was going on. And you, my then girlfriend now fiance,
Speaker 3: had pushed me a lot to say, you should go
Speaker 3: see a neurologist, like it's it's not normal that you
Speaker 3: can't wake up without taking etc. Before you go to
Speaker 3: work to be able to get out of bed. Like this,
Speaker 3: I get. You don't love doctors, you don't love hospitals,
Speaker 3: which admittedly I didn't, and so I just kind of
Speaker 3: bit the bullet and tried to be a man, be
Speaker 3: tough and YadA, YadA, YadA, and so I pushed it
Speaker 3: off I pushed it off, and then eventually, I, you know,
Speaker 3: the headaches got worse, the symptoms got worse, and I
Speaker 3: told her, you know, mostly to kind of like, you know,
Speaker 3: address her concerns and address my mother's concerns and plenty
Speaker 3: of other you know, people in my life I talked to.
Speaker 3: I was like, okay, I'll go to the eye doctor.
Speaker 3: Right the eye dot. Maybe it's an issue in my contacts.
Speaker 3: We'll see, We'll see how it plays up. So I
Speaker 3: go to an eye doctor as a new one. God
Speaker 3: blessed me. He did a really excellent job, and I
Speaker 3: told him I've been having these headaches. So he took
Speaker 3: a look behind my eye and the are kind of lighthearted,
Speaker 3: banter dropped. He gave me more specific instructions to look
Speaker 3: this way, look that way, and then eventually he flipped
Speaker 3: around the screen he was looking at, which is a picture,
Speaker 3: and he said, you're hemorrhaging around your own nerves. Said
Speaker 3: He's like, you need to go to see a doctor,
Speaker 3: like you need to go to the hospital yesterday about this.
Speaker 3: There's there's something very wrong. I didn't know anything about
Speaker 3: the healthcare system. I was like, can you write me
Speaker 3: a can you write me a script or referral so
Speaker 3: I can go. He goes wait in the waiting room.
Speaker 3: This might be over dramatic, but I'm going to call
Speaker 3: you an ambulance and they're going to take you to Astor.
Speaker 3: And he's like, doctor, but you know that doesn't make sense.
Speaker 3: But it's like, here, I haven't paid enough attention to
Speaker 3: the people who probably know better on this than I do.
Speaker 3: Why didn't I just sit down and shut up for
Speaker 3: like the first time probably in my medical history. And
Speaker 3: so flash forward. I go to the doctor. They realized
Speaker 3: that I was indeed emerging around my optic nerve. The
Speaker 3: reason was that I wasn't reabsorbing cerebro spinal fluid back
Speaker 3: into my brain, and so it was building up in
Speaker 3: the back of my head and putting pressure on my
Speaker 3: optic nerve. They recommended surgery, which went as well as
Speaker 3: you could have hoped. I had basically a burhole drilled
Speaker 3: in my brain to at least the pressure and thought
Speaker 3: that would be everything. That was in maybe May of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty two, and so I thought, Okay, we're set,
Speaker 3: We're done. I had this brain surgery really weird, but
Speaker 3: you know I was I was back in the gym.
Speaker 3: I was getting ready to go back to work. I
Speaker 3: was running and I went in for my thirty follow
Speaker 3: out to that surgery and surgeon neurosurgeon who done surgery
Speaker 3: originally called me and he said, hey, we do and
Speaker 3: there's a ship. It turns out that shoto that was
Speaker 3: a brain tumor.
Speaker 1: It was the day for my Wow, So what is
Speaker 1: what happened then?
Speaker 3: That resolved? Yeah, you know, obviously the tough news to hear.
Speaker 3: Talked to doctor Johns Fonpkins, who I've been working with Baltimore.
Speaker 3: They determined a course of chemo, so I you know,
Speaker 3: they took a look at it. They realized it was inoperable.
Speaker 3: It was like right smack in the center of my brain,
Speaker 3: and so they sat down and kind of talked me
Speaker 3: through what chemo would look like. I had a port
Speaker 3: put into my chest so I could have an IV
Speaker 3: line straight through there, and then I did probably four
Speaker 3: months of chemotherapy, which you know, thank god, it worked
Speaker 3: and my body was super responsive to the chemo. The
Speaker 3: tour was super responsive to the chemo, and my body
Speaker 3: actually handled it quite well relative to you know, the
Speaker 3: horror stories you hear about chemo and then I started radiation.
Speaker 3: I did that for about two months and that also
Speaker 3: worked really well. By the end of it, I was
Speaker 3: declared cancer free. So as of now a year in
Speaker 3: a remission, uh those signs of tumor, no signs of cancer.
Speaker 3: I still get to go back and get check ups.
Speaker 3: You know, there's still a lot I'm working on. I
Speaker 3: had to go through physical therapy to kind of figure
Speaker 3: out how best to walk normally. Again, my extemporaneous ability
Speaker 3: to kind of speak off the cuff isn't what it
Speaker 3: once was. But I'm I think I'm back around a
Speaker 3: year later to a point where most of my intellectual
Speaker 3: and balanced shortcomings are my own, as opposed to be
Speaker 3: induced by the cancer, which I'm fably fortunate to.
Speaker 1: Meaner about it. Thank you jokes about brain cancer.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's you know, that's that's fair. You know,
Speaker 3: I did. I did find throughout the process. And again
Speaker 3: I don't want to I don't want to say this
Speaker 3: as in like, oh, I'm just a you know, I'm
Speaker 3: uniquely tough about these circumstances, like I got a really
Speaker 3: really positive prognosis relative to you have an inoperable brain
Speaker 3: tumor right from the jump. They thought it would be
Speaker 3: really responsive to chemo, and thankfully it was. But I
Speaker 3: I did find considering those things that it helped me
Speaker 3: a lot, and I think probably helped the people around
Speaker 3: me to be able to talk about it in a
Speaker 3: way that was a little more lighthearted. Right and particularly
Speaker 3: now that it's a little bit further in the rear
Speaker 3: view mirror. I'll never be out of the rear view mirror,
Speaker 3: but now that's a little bit further downfield. I kind
Speaker 3: of have an arsenal of new jokes that I use
Speaker 3: because I want to. I don't want it to mean
Speaker 3: anyone else who's in similar circumstances. But I got to say,
Speaker 3: as someone who talks too much, the idea that I
Speaker 3: had a brain tumor maybe informing some of my terrible
Speaker 3: opinions is like really easy fodder, right like right, yeah,
Speaker 3: And this is why I don't want to say I'm
Speaker 3: disappointed that I don't have more haters. But one of
Speaker 3: the things I always think about is one of these days,
Speaker 3: I'm going to say something really dumb and someone's going
Speaker 3: to use this as a cudgel, and I'd rather going
Speaker 3: to get try and get ahead of that. The Internet's
Speaker 3: a mean place. I might as well get ahead of that,
Speaker 3: and the best way I can.
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Speaker 1: So, what is your You mentioned before we started doing
Speaker 1: the show that you you did a run. What's what's
Speaker 1: your run all about?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So, one of the things that I didn't get
Speaker 3: to do because as I was going through chemo, that
Speaker 3: I've talked about doing since before I moved down to
Speaker 3: DC eight years ago is the Army ten miler, which
Speaker 3: is just like the name sounds like, it is a
Speaker 3: ten mile run. I don't really like running, Carol, I'll
Speaker 3: be honest.
Speaker 1: But anybody likes it. I think anybody says.
Speaker 3: That they like it or just saying I talked to
Speaker 3: some runner. I talked to a runner last night, and
Speaker 3: he was like, you know, if you get more in
Speaker 3: the habit of it, you'll enjoy it. And I actually
Speaker 3: don't believe that. I hope that's true. I hope you're right,
Speaker 3: but I'm a very hard time believe in that. But
Speaker 3: so I you know, I look at it a little bit.
Speaker 3: I'm Catholic, and so I look at it almost as
Speaker 3: like a physical penance that like you know, if I
Speaker 3: haven't been eating well during the week, I haven't been
Speaker 3: working out as often as I should, at least I
Speaker 3: can kind of grab my running cat of nine tails
Speaker 3: and go for it once a week and push myself
Speaker 3: to do it. And so I saw after, you know,
Speaker 3: after I finished treatment, I was like, okay, I want
Speaker 3: to get back to running a five k, right, I
Speaker 3: want to get back to running a little bit. I
Speaker 3: want my one of my goals as I'm going through
Speaker 3: physical therapy to be I want to run a five
Speaker 3: k and do it out in public and be able
Speaker 3: to have the little metal at the end of it
Speaker 3: and say, look, I did this thing right. It's a
Speaker 3: little it's like a gold star on my refrigerator kind
Speaker 3: of thing. And so I did that and it went
Speaker 3: better than I expected. And so I ran another five
Speaker 3: k and then I ran a ten k, which is
Speaker 3: about six miles, probably three months ago or so. And
Speaker 3: after the ten k, I felt really good. You know,
Speaker 3: I know I'm saying I want to breakfast and yeah,
Speaker 3: and I said to myself, I was like, you know what,
Speaker 3: you've been talking with this Army ten for eight years.
Speaker 3: Every year and new excuse, I tweaked the cav the
Speaker 3: first year, and obviously that the brain tumor.
Speaker 1: Excuse.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a little more thorough of an excuse, I
Speaker 3: would say. But I was like, you know what, you're
Speaker 3: up for it. You can do this, and the training
Speaker 3: process will be good for you. It'll help get you
Speaker 3: back in shape, and it will help you feel. You know,
Speaker 3: I could feel a little bit like I'm back to normal,
Speaker 3: doing had as second on physical aspirations. And if you
Speaker 3: had told me that a year and a half whatever,
Speaker 3: maybe I had a hard time believing that. Certainly would
Speaker 3: be very grateful if you knew the future. And so
Speaker 3: I signed up for the Army ten mile or I
Speaker 3: got up to about nine miles before, so I had
Speaker 3: some degree of confidence I could do it. The race
Speaker 3: was a week and a half ago, and I did it.
Speaker 3: I ran the whole race. I ran it slowly, but
Speaker 3: I ran it faster than any ten mile run I've
Speaker 3: ever done. I beat my pre cancer time by fifteen
Speaker 3: seconds a mile. It's amazing, which felt almost like exercising
Speaker 3: a demon A little bit right to be able to
Speaker 3: say like, Okay, I may never fully be back from
Speaker 3: this cancer experience, but I was able to do this
Speaker 3: thing and that feels really good. Yeah, And I think
Speaker 3: far more importantly what I did as part of the
Speaker 3: run was I raised some money. And so I'm familiar
Speaker 3: with a charity called Undue Medical Debts. Some of your
Speaker 3: listeners may be familiar with it. They buy up medical
Speaker 3: debt that people have that is a burden over their
Speaker 3: heads that some studies put the amount of medical debt,
Speaker 3: which is money that people owe publicly or privately because
Speaker 3: of the care that they need. Something like forty percent
Speaker 3: of Americans based on some survey, have medical debt. Wow.
Speaker 3: I was really fortunate during my experience to have really
Speaker 3: excellent insurance, and so I don't have medical debt. But
Speaker 3: I remember looking at the price tag on the original
Speaker 3: brain surgery, and I wouldn't have had six figures to
Speaker 3: shell out if I didn't have insurance, or if I
Speaker 3: didn't have really excellent insurance, right, And so it it
Speaker 3: struck me that there are millions and millions of people
Speaker 3: living under this burden, that it's them from making the
Speaker 3: financial decisions they want to, from owning a home, from
Speaker 3: putting their kids through college, right from buying groceries for
Speaker 3: some people, and so undo medical debt what they do
Speaker 3: is they buy up that debt so that they can
Speaker 3: then privately forgive it rather than try and go through
Speaker 3: the government or anything, which I think is a super
Speaker 3: noble and super important effort.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so as as part of this run, I
Speaker 3: encourage people to donate to a fundraiser I was doing,
Speaker 3: which you can still donate to. I haven't I haven't
Speaker 3: buttoned it up yet, but I've been able to raise
Speaker 3: about twenty five hundred dollars for them that I think
Speaker 3: is going to go to the website. Yeah, so I've
Speaker 3: got a link at fundly. If you search on fundly,
Speaker 3: it's I think it's Drew's Army ten miler run. But
Speaker 3: if you just search Drew hold and fundly, you can
Speaker 3: find it. Or you can donate directly to undo medical
Speaker 3: Debt there at undomedical Debt dot com.
Speaker 1: Excellent. So you've been through this, you know, obviously really
Speaker 1: traumatic experience. You've come out on the other side, you know, thankfully,
Speaker 1: and you're doing these amazing things and accomplishing things that
Speaker 1: you've wanted to do.
Speaker 3: What do you worry about now? Have your worries changed? Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's a good question. I think I worry about my
Speaker 3: health a lot more than I did right for obvious reasons.
Speaker 3: But I think one of the things that the experience
Speaker 3: has taught me, or it gets encouraged in me, is
Speaker 3: to be more attenuated to my body and my surroundings
Speaker 3: and also like the body and surroundings of my friends. Right.
Speaker 3: I've had a lot of people since I shared my
Speaker 3: story who have come who have called me or texted
Speaker 3: me or come up to me and said, hey, like,
Speaker 3: I'm having these dizzyness issues, like I have trouble with light,
Speaker 3: Like what do you think? And so I think trying
Speaker 3: to be more attenuated to those needs, both my own certainly,
Speaker 3: but in my friends and family and loved ones as well.
Speaker 3: And I think this is probably because you know, the
Speaker 3: downstream implications of the metod the healthcare system in this
Speaker 3: country are deeply problematic in many ways, but I think
Speaker 3: the logistics stress me out in a way that they
Speaker 3: didn't before. I think, like the you've got to be
Speaker 3: like for radiation, So I did radiation every morning at
Speaker 3: six thirty for like two months, and if I missed
Speaker 3: a slot of radiation like their books solid right, and
Speaker 3: it would be it would be a huge impediment to
Speaker 3: my ability to recover, and so I think they're like,
Speaker 3: I'm much more punctual on the backside of this thing.
Speaker 3: But I think as a thing that leads to the
Speaker 3: punctuality is that I worry a lot more about logistics
Speaker 3: and time details. Some of that's healthy, maybe maybe some
Speaker 3: of it not so much.
Speaker 1: What advice would you give your sixteen year old self,
Speaker 1: having again survived something like this, Like, you know, what
Speaker 1: would you want him to know?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I would tell him to listen to
Speaker 3: the women in your life about everything good one but
Speaker 3: particularly thank you, but particularly about help. Right, Like I
Speaker 3: almost lost vision and water both eyes because I didn't
Speaker 3: listen to my again, my fiance. If I would have
Speaker 3: just listened to her when she was like, you should
Speaker 3: go see a neurologist, it would have saved me months
Speaker 3: of pain, maybe made my chemo course easier, and certainly
Speaker 3: have you know, have avoided some of the really bad
Speaker 3: symptoms that I had. I think there's obviously a lesson
Speaker 3: there about like listen to your body and more set
Speaker 3: particularly for men. I think there's also the reality for
Speaker 3: men that our desires to ourselves or to the world
Speaker 3: that were so tough that we don't need help, particularly
Speaker 3: help from loving and caring women, is often misguided and
Speaker 3: should be the sort of thing that we we don't
Speaker 3: entangle with a manliness because I just don't think that's
Speaker 3: right and it doesn't help anyone.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that's true. But I would just say, as
Speaker 1: somebody who hates going to the doctor and who puts
Speaker 1: off everything as long as possible, who has a husband
Speaker 1: who is like, dude, you've been coughing for two months,
Speaker 1: like you have to go handle this, I would tell
Speaker 1: you it's not all gendered. But yes, I feel like
Speaker 1: women in general do go to the doctor like they'll
Speaker 1: they'll they'll be much more likely to like, just do
Speaker 1: it right, and I think men are less likely. But again,
Speaker 1: it doesn't always work out that way because I am
Speaker 1: the absolute worst at it.
Speaker 3: And yeah, you're right, I think I think there is
Speaker 3: a wisdom element.
Speaker 1: I lack the wisdom.
Speaker 2: Maybe some more coming up in a moment. But first,
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Speaker 1: Well, I've enjoyed this conversation so much. I've been a
Speaker 1: fan of yours for so long. I think you do
Speaker 1: such fantastic work, and I'm so glad that you're on
Speaker 1: the other side of this, and i hope you stay
Speaker 1: healthy and keep growing and keep doing great things. And
Speaker 1: us here with your best tip for my listeners on
Speaker 1: how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 3: This is time too, So first off, thank you for
Speaker 3: your words. I'm a huge fan of yours and it
Speaker 3: really fills my market. You say maybe two charitable things. No,
Speaker 3: thank you, thank you for saying some. So my somewhat
Speaker 3: counterintuitive tip would be to put the phone down, close
Speaker 3: the computer, and spend more time. You know, I was.
Speaker 3: I think I was forced into this when I was
Speaker 3: going through treatment. But spend more time to the people
Speaker 3: who matter to you in your life, your loved ones,
Speaker 3: your family, your friends, your spouse, your significant other. You know.
Speaker 3: I think it's It can feel a little bit trite,
Speaker 3: but when when you are presented with a kind of
Speaker 3: a moment of impending mortality, it's really easy to say, oh,
Speaker 3: I should have spent my time better. I get a
Speaker 3: little flash of that, I think from my experience, and
Speaker 3: I think one of the things that I try and
Speaker 3: do as someone who admittedly still spends way too much
Speaker 3: time online, right, one of the reasons I can have
Speaker 3: these screenshots exactly. One of the reasons I have all
Speaker 3: these screenshots is I spend too much time reading things.
Speaker 3: But I think I would encourage folks to find a
Speaker 3: healthier balance, and particularly when you're spending time with that
Speaker 3: significant other, with your spouse, make that meaningful quality time.
Speaker 3: Don't make that Twitter time or Twitter time together. Yes,
Speaker 3: and what that means and what that looks like can
Speaker 3: be all sorts of different things, but prioritize that cherish that.
Speaker 1: I love it. Thank you so much, Drew Holden. Check
Speaker 1: out his substack hold in Court. He's really great.
Speaker 3: Thanks so much, Drew, Carol the Pleasures Mind, thanks so
Speaker 3: much for having me.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for joining us on the Carol Marcowitch Show.
Speaker 2: Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.