0:00

You know when you're really stressed or not

0:02

feeling so great about your life or

0:04

about yourself? Talking to someone who understands

0:06

can really help. But who is that

0:08

person? How do you find them? Where

0:10

do you even start? Talk space. Talk

0:12

space makes it easy to get the

0:14

support you need. With Talk space, you

0:16

can go online, answer a few questions

0:18

about your preferences, and be matched with

0:21

a therapist. And because you'll meet your

0:23

therapist online, you don't have to take

0:25

time off work or arrange child care.

0:27

You'll meet on your schedule, wherever you

0:29

feel most at ease. If you're depressed,

0:31

stressed, struggling with a relationship, or

0:33

if you want some counseling for

0:35

you and your partner, or just

0:37

need a little extra one-on-one support,

0:39

TalkSpace is here for you. Plus,

0:41

TalkSpace works with most major insurers,

0:43

and most insured members have a

0:46

$0 copay. No insurance? No problem.

0:48

Now, get $80 off of your

0:50

first month with promo code space

0:52

80 when you go to talkspace.com.

0:54

Match with a licensed therapist today

0:56

at talkspace.com. Save $80 with code space

0:58

80 at talkspace.com. I'm in terms

1:01

of life. It's the Breakfast Club.

1:03

The world's most dangerous morning

1:05

show. Hey! Angela E. is kind of

1:07

like the big sister that always picks

1:09

in the boy. That's not how it

1:12

goes. That's not how anything goes. Yeah,

1:14

me's really like a... The best

1:16

DJ ever, but leave that. Sean Lemon is

1:18

the wild card. And I'm about to give

1:20

somebody the credit they deserve for being

1:22

stupid. I know that's right. Listen to

1:24

the Breakfast Club weekday mornings from 6

1:26

to 10 on 106 7 the B.

1:28

Columbus is real hip-hoppping on MB. This

1:33

is Let's Be Clear with Shannon Doherty. Hi,

1:38

Let's Be Clear listeners. I'm...

1:40

to be here. I'm

1:42

Alex Dvorak. I'm a writer, director,

1:44

model and executive producer of

1:46

the film Bad Survivor. Today,

1:49

I'll be talking about my experience being

1:51

a cancer patient as a young person. I

1:53

was 19 when I got treatment

1:55

and there's so much to dive

1:57

into here, into the unique experience

1:59

of what us adolescents and young adults

2:02

go through when we're diagnosed. So

2:04

I want to talk about the

2:06

aftermath of remission and how I turned

2:09

pain into art. I'll

2:11

be discussing my modeling career and

2:13

my writing projects, which include

2:15

graphic novels, films, TV series, and

2:17

op -eds that all center around

2:19

teen rebellion with dark humor

2:21

and heart. So

2:23

I'd love to start today by talking

2:25

about my connection to Shannon Doherty. Of

2:28

course, the reason why we're all

2:30

here listening and tuning into her podcast,

2:33

I never met Shannon in

2:35

person. But her legacy has

2:37

touched my life, as I'm sure it has

2:39

touched all of yours. Growing

2:42

up, especially, I was a big fan

2:44

of the movie Heathers. The

2:46

hot movie in so many ways informed my

2:48

writing and my desire to show on

2:50

screen. And in all the mediums that I

2:52

write for, insanely strong

2:54

unapologetic female characters who maybe

2:56

subvert our normal expectations

2:58

of what we're used to

3:01

seeing women do on

3:03

screen. And I feel like

3:05

in real life, Shannon had such a

3:07

knack for speaking uncomfortable truths and

3:09

that's something I've always felt a

3:11

real kinship with her on. So

3:13

when I started my writing career,

3:15

I started really by publishing essays that

3:17

said everything that I was afraid

3:19

to say out loud to my own

3:21

family and friends. But for

3:24

some reason was courageous enough to publish it

3:26

out into the world. And

3:28

I wanted to write about all the taboo

3:30

topics surrounding a cancer diagnosis as a

3:32

young person. And that's, I

3:34

don't know, it's really been people like

3:36

Shannon who have spoken up and spoken

3:38

out, who have inspired me to do

3:41

the same. And

3:43

honestly, I was discussing the

3:45

other day with a friend of mine, what I

3:47

wanted to share on this podcast. And I just

3:49

loved what she said and I wrote it down.

3:51

She said, we grew up on the OC and

3:53

our older sisters grew up on 90210. And

3:55

it's so true. Like in

3:57

90210, of course, Shannon was You

4:00

know the symbol of like the California lifestyle

4:02

at least that's how it felt growing up

4:04

on the East Coast. And it

4:06

shows like 90210 and the OC

4:08

and the hills that really inspired

4:10

me growing up on the East

4:12

Coast like move to LA. So

4:14

I grew up in Washington DC

4:16

and I was just dreaming about

4:18

this Cali lifestyle. I went to

4:20

an all girls Catholic high school

4:22

with uniforms. It was very preppy.

4:26

I don't know, winters were really intense. It

4:28

was just east coast in all of the

4:30

ways. And I would sit and

4:32

watch the OC and think, like,

4:34

oh my God, these kids have

4:36

outdoor lockers. They're not concerned with

4:38

rain and their friends are these

4:40

surfer guys and there's palm trees.

4:42

And I just thought it was

4:44

really idyllic and wonderful. And I

4:46

would sit in my childhood bedroom

4:48

in high school and I would

4:50

dream about moving to California. That's

4:53

all that I wanted and that was

4:56

truly my focus. So I worked hard

4:58

in school to get a 4 .0 GPA

5:00

to like get into a

5:02

school out of state. And I

5:04

got into my dream school,

5:06

which was Loyola Marymount University, LMU

5:08

in LA right next to LAX

5:10

up on the bluff, you know,

5:12

overlooking all of LA and

5:14

Venice Beach and the Hollywood sign.

5:16

And it was really this start

5:19

of my life. And I made

5:21

my best friends the first weekend of school. I was

5:23

there, you know, I didn't know anybody. I'd

5:25

been to LA once in my entire life. I

5:27

was a total newbie. And I

5:29

really, for the first time in my life felt like, ah,

5:31

this is where I'm supposed to be. This,

5:33

these are my people. I knew I wanted

5:35

to be an entertainment in some fashion, though I

5:37

had no clue in what capacity yet. And

5:40

I couldn't wait to explore that and

5:42

figure out where is my place in

5:44

life. And this was where all my

5:46

energy I was like, ah, in LA. It

5:49

was really the start of

5:51

my independence, my growing

5:53

up. And that's, of

5:56

course, sometimes when life likes to throw

5:58

you a curveball, as it does. So

6:00

it was the beginning of my sophomore

6:02

year. And I

6:04

went home to DC

6:07

for Thanksgiving break. And

6:09

my mom, the day before Thanksgiving, she was

6:11

like, I'm going to take you to the pediatrician.

6:13

You've been sick for a few months. Let's

6:15

figure out what's going on. And

6:18

so I'm waiting in the

6:20

pediatrician's office with my mom and the

6:22

doctor said something like, you know, I

6:24

can give you antibiotics or you can

6:26

get a chest X -ray. And

6:28

I said, no, no, no, I need a chest X -ray

6:30

and I'm not. Sure why I said

6:32

that I don't think I've ever gotten a chest

6:35

x -ray before But I had been given antibiotics

6:37

and in my school in LA and nothing was

6:39

working And I think I was just sort of

6:41

like just kind of get to the root of

6:43

it I don't know what the deal is like

6:45

I don't want to be sent home with pills

6:47

and come back next week And so they sent

6:49

me down the home to get sex right got

6:51

it done They gave me the results in this

6:53

big manila envelope that I'll never forget And

6:56

I walk back into the reception area

6:58

and my mom and I are

7:00

sitting there for hours. For

7:02

hours and there's toddlers, you know,

7:05

sneezing and being sick and their parents

7:07

all stressed out and one by

7:09

one, all these kids get seen and

7:11

leave and seen and leave. And

7:13

it was just at one point,

7:15

just my mom and I and the

7:17

secretaries start packing up to leave and

7:19

the nurses start packing up to leave

7:21

and I was

7:23

like, this is odd. So I, being

7:25

nosy as I am, take a peek

7:27

at the, what's in the envelope and

7:29

I consider myself an intelligent, capable

7:32

woman. But looking at the

7:34

sheet of paper, I had

7:36

no idea what was on it.

7:38

It was, it literally looked like a sheet

7:40

of paper that had just one long word

7:42

on it, you know, like an entire paragraph

7:44

of text. But I remember

7:46

seeing one word and it said like, lymphocyte

7:48

something. And I turned my

7:50

mom and I was like, mom, what's lymphoma?

7:52

And she said, oh, it's a type

7:54

of cancer. And I was like, oh, I've never,

7:56

I didn't know that. Like I've never heard that

7:58

before. And that

8:01

was it. And I put it back in

8:03

the envelope. And my mom, when I start

8:05

talking about Thanksgiving dinner, my mom's from Puerto

8:07

Rico. So we do a big Puerto Rican

8:09

Thanksgiving meal with like a roast pig and rice

8:11

and beans. And we had spent the entire

8:13

day in my pediatrician's office, so nothing was

8:15

prepared. And so we

8:17

were just talking about, you know, we

8:19

had to like pick up carrots on the way home

8:21

or something. Like we were just kind of

8:23

going through the usual day -to -day

8:25

routine as if I hadn't just

8:27

seen this result. I

8:30

suppose none of that had sunk

8:33

into either one of us.

8:35

And I remember turning to my

8:37

right to grab like a

8:39

tissue and turning back and my mom

8:41

had like scurried away into the doctor's office

8:43

and the door had closed. So

8:45

now I'm sitting alone in like a

8:47

half dark reception area. I

8:50

just remember thinking like this can't be

8:52

good. Like I don't, this doesn't

8:54

feel right. And

8:56

then my mom came out

8:58

like five minutes later with like red puffy

9:00

eyes and she sat down next to me

9:03

and just like stared straight ahead. Like no

9:05

one, she wasn't looking at me, which would

9:07

be the start of many people not

9:09

making eye contact when needing to tell me bad

9:11

news. turned out, but she

9:13

was staring straight ahead and she

9:15

said, you have lymphoma. And

9:18

I was like, no, no.

9:21

Cause like you said, that was cancer. And she was like,

9:23

yeah. And then I, I

9:25

don't think I cried. I don't think

9:28

we said anything. We just sort

9:30

of sat there. And

9:32

that thing happened in the

9:34

movies where you start to

9:36

see your life

9:38

flash forward. I

9:40

saw the graduation I was

9:42

never going to have and the

9:44

marriage and the kids and

9:46

the career and the success that

9:48

I always wanted and all those

9:51

things I was never going to get because I was going

9:53

to die at 19. I

9:56

don't know, we just sat there

9:58

and the doctor eventually came out. This

10:01

amazing, really kind man told me that

10:03

his son had had the exact same

10:05

Hodgkin's lymphoma, and he had always wished

10:07

that the doctor had allowed him to tell

10:09

his son, and he wanted to give me

10:11

that. And he did

10:13

look me in the eye, and he did tell me,

10:15

this will be terrifying, and you will live. And

10:18

he was like, go straight to

10:20

the hospital. Like, don't go

10:22

home. You can't go anywhere else. Go home.

10:24

Or excuse me, go to your new home,

10:27

to the hospital. Of

10:29

course, I didn't listen. I went home. I wanted

10:32

to shower and eat food and process. And then

10:34

we went and he was right. I was in

10:36

the hospital for a very long time after that. And

10:39

that's how I was

10:41

diagnosed. So I went to

10:43

Children's Hospital as he advised me to. Again,

10:45

this was my pediatrician. I was 19. And,

10:47

you know, when you're a teenager, you may

10:50

very well feel independent and like an adult

10:52

in so many ways. And like, you know,

10:54

everything about everything. But you're a

10:56

kid and also in so many ways. Maybe

10:59

I was allowed to vote, but I, I

11:01

don't know, wasn't paying rent. I

11:03

wasn't an adult. I wasn't an adult,

11:05

but all of a sudden was

11:07

being faced with a very adult diagnosis

11:09

and needed to make a lot of adult decisions.

11:13

So I was treated in a

11:15

children's hospital here in Washington,

11:17

DC. And

11:19

I was treated alongside toddlers and

11:22

little kids. And then there

11:24

was me. As a teenager,

11:26

it's a very strange

11:28

experience being the only

11:30

teen because these kids are, you

11:33

know, they really inspired me in a

11:35

lot of ways. They were always in the

11:37

coloring room and hooked up to their

11:39

chemo and their parents, you know, of course,

11:41

right by their side. But they're smiling

11:44

and they want to play. And

11:46

they are very much still kids,

11:48

which I thought was always really

11:50

cool. But as

11:52

a teen, you know, Unfortunately,

11:54

or fortunately, I'm not sure, very

11:57

much understand what's happening,

12:00

what's going on to your body

12:02

and what your odds really are. And

12:05

that can be a very

12:07

difficult burden. And

12:11

so I was admitted into the

12:13

ICU and started surgeries and

12:15

chemo full -time. My chemo schedule

12:17

was Monday through Friday, like at

12:19

9 a .m. to 6 p

12:21

.m. sort of deal. And

12:24

I remember my first nurse, he

12:26

was amazing, Sean, I will never forget

12:28

him. He was this like amazing gay man

12:30

that I just immediately bonded with. And in

12:32

the ICU, I was his only patient that

12:34

was awake and conscious. So I think he

12:37

just was really chatty and wanted to talk

12:39

with me all night. And I loved that

12:41

about him. And I remember him closing my

12:43

blinds one day and saying, oh,

12:46

you know, it's like, he was like, oh, where do you go to

12:48

school? I was like, oh, hell I'm you, you know, and I lit

12:50

up talking about LA and my life in LA. And

12:52

he was like, oh, it's a shame you're gonna have to drop out of school. And

12:55

I was like, oh, I'm,

12:57

but I'm not, what do you, I'm never

12:59

gonna drop out of it. mean, like

13:01

this is no. And he was like, oh,

13:03

okay, you know, and I think he

13:06

gave me the time I needed to process,

13:08

but I will never forget that moment.

13:10

So was like, oh, I'm, I'm not going

13:12

back to my life. Actually, this, this

13:14

is my, my life. And you

13:16

have to understand this happened over the course

13:18

of several hours. So a life can, can

13:21

throw you curveballs. But

13:24

I don't know, I've always felt like the sooner,

13:26

you know, the sooner

13:29

you're able to accept, I'm a

13:31

planner. So the sooner I'm

13:33

able to like accept and learn

13:35

as much as I can, then I

13:37

can make a plan and move

13:39

forward. And even if it's difficult for

13:41

me, like education and understanding, you know,

13:43

I was given like a cancer binder

13:45

and I studied it every day. like

13:47

a total weirdo, but it really gave

13:49

me a lot of reassurance in some

13:51

way to understand what was happening inside

13:53

my body, even if it was horrific. And

13:56

so, you know, the

13:59

tumor that was in my

14:01

chest that showed in that original

14:03

X -ray was large and weighing

14:05

on my heart and lungs. They

14:07

weren't able to operate on

14:09

it, but luckily the chemo really

14:12

shrunk it. fairly

14:14

quickly actually, I mean, of course

14:16

it doesn't feel that way

14:18

in treatment, but in hindsight, treatment

14:20

did work.

14:22

It was effective for me,

14:24

thankfully. And,

14:27

you know, there is something

14:29

I wanted to touch on here, which was,

14:33

and I don't know if this is everyone's

14:35

experience in treatment or a lot of

14:37

people's experience, or is it just sort of

14:39

this teenage age that I was, but

14:41

I found that many

14:44

times I wasn't spoken to directly, right?

14:46

So for instance, like my care

14:48

team would be speaking to my parents

14:50

out in the hallway about something

14:52

that was about to happen to my

14:54

body or, you know, a surgery

14:56

I was allowed to go into or

14:58

a procedure or what the next

15:00

step was. And I found that very

15:02

odd because it was happening to

15:04

me and I was, you know, I'm

15:06

a teenager, but you, you're your own

15:09

person enough at that point. And

15:11

I really worked hard, though I

15:14

for sure lost this at some point

15:16

in treatment, but I did work

15:18

very hard in the beginning of treatment

15:20

to advocate for myself and speak

15:22

up. And I did in an

15:24

odd way sometimes have to tell people to look

15:26

me in the eye and like give it to

15:28

me straight often. Sometimes I would

15:30

have a doctor that would have to do that when

15:32

my parents left. Like there were certain things they wanted

15:34

to tell me not in front of them. It was just

15:36

a really, I was always kind of navigating. This

15:40

experience of wanting to be taken

15:42

seriously wanting to be taken seriously

15:44

as an adult though being in

15:46

a children's hospital and they're obviously

15:48

Used to treating treating children and in

15:50

a different way of course

15:52

children are going to need a

15:55

different level of care than teens

15:57

need And something I just want

15:59

to mention a tangent that feels like

16:01

incredibly important I've

16:03

been working really closely with Teen

16:05

Cancer America, and they're

16:07

this incredibly wonderful organization, and

16:10

they're really doing the real

16:12

work. They're creating facilities and programs

16:14

within existing hospitals right now

16:16

to help treat teens and help

16:18

meet their needs that right

16:20

now are really not being met,

16:23

and teens really do need

16:25

something different than the grown adult

16:27

and the elderly. They need

16:29

something different than... and the kids in

16:31

treatment. It just feels really important

16:33

to mention. So please check out

16:35

Teen Cancer America. They're doing such

16:37

wonderful things. I'm really honored to

16:39

be working with them and an

16:41

advocate for them. You

16:52

You know when you're really stressed or not

16:54

feeling so great about your life or

16:56

about yourself? Talking to someone who understands

16:58

can really help. But who is that

17:00

person? How do you find them? Where

17:02

do you even start? Talk space. Talk

17:04

space makes it easy to get the

17:06

support you need. With Talk space, you

17:08

can go online, answer a few questions

17:10

about your preferences, and be matched with

17:12

a therapist. And because you'll meet your

17:14

therapist online, you don't have to take

17:16

time off work or arrange child care.

17:18

You'll meet on your schedule, wherever you

17:20

feel most at ease. If you're depressed,

17:22

stressed, struggling with a relationship, or

17:24

if you want some counseling for

17:26

you and your partner, or just

17:28

need a little extra one-on-one support,

17:31

TalkSpace is here for you. Plus,

17:33

TalkSpace works with most major insurers,

17:35

and most insured members have a

17:37

$0 copay. No insurance? No problem.

17:39

Now, get $80 off of your

17:41

first month with promo code space

17:43

80 when you go to talkspace.com.

17:46

Match with a licensed therapist today

17:48

at talkspace.com. Save $80 with code space

17:50

80 at talkspace.com. also

17:59

talked to some of the hottest country stars of today,

18:01

and we like to share some good news

18:03

with that's what I like. Because Lord knows

18:05

that's hard to find. When you're done

18:07

podcasting your podcast, listen to us

18:09

at 92 .3 WCOL. Set your preset on

18:11

your radio right now and don't forget you can

18:13

listen to us online on the I Heart Radio

18:15

app. So

18:21

in my family of four. As

18:23

I mentioned, my mom is from

18:26

Puerto Rico. My dad is from

18:28

Prague. And I have my big sister,

18:30

who's one year older than me. And

18:33

the four of us, you know, of course,

18:35

our families are far away and in different places

18:37

all over Europe and in Puerto Rico. And

18:39

it's the four of us in DC, like

18:41

this close little unit. And

18:44

my sister is a

18:46

hypochondriac and was very afraid to visit

18:48

me in the hospital, though she

18:51

definitely conquered her fear and did it.

18:53

But I bring this up because

18:55

I remember feeling like, okay, when I

18:57

was diagnosed, I immediately felt like,

18:59

okay, of the four of

19:01

us, this makes

19:03

sense. I'm glad it's me. I'm the

19:05

one that can do this. I

19:08

can handle this and I don't

19:10

think I could handle seeing any one

19:13

of them go through it. And

19:16

I used

19:19

my competitiveness, I always grew up

19:21

as an athlete, to

19:23

help me through treatment in

19:25

so many ways. So

19:28

for instance, I used

19:30

this point system. I

19:33

would use this point system

19:35

in my mind to survive treatment.

19:38

I would play these games with myself.

19:40

So for instance, when I

19:42

was receiving radiation, I'm,

19:45

you know, you're laying down in a bed and they're

19:47

stropping you in and I had a radiation mask

19:49

to make sure that, you know, my neck and shoulders

19:52

and head weren't moving, of course, to make sure

19:54

that they're radiating the right area. And

19:56

right before they're putting on the

19:58

mask and things and they're sort of belting

20:00

you in place there, the nurses come in and they're

20:02

like adjusting me. And so I would play this

20:04

point system. Like if they had to adjust me. twice

20:07

than I lost points. If

20:09

they didn't have to just me at all, I got a

20:11

certain amount of points and I would have this point system

20:14

and at the end of the day, I would rank in my

20:16

own head. I never told anybody this,

20:18

but I would rank all my points to

20:20

see if did I win. And

20:23

I know that the journey is

20:25

important, not necessarily winning or losing, but

20:27

that's just not how my brain

20:29

works. I love to win things. I

20:31

love to score goals and winning

20:33

helps me and I like competing with

20:35

myself. And so I

20:37

did a point system

20:39

with just about anything and

20:41

everything. And it

20:43

helped me get

20:45

through treatment. And

20:47

I have written a young

20:49

adult graphic novel about Called

20:52

chemo kids and it's about a girl

20:54

teen girl named Alex who is being

20:56

treated at a children's hospital and the

20:58

kids at night come alive with this

21:00

fantasy world and they teach her how

21:02

to play games mind games that win

21:04

her points and it helps her cope with

21:06

her Daytime like it's

21:09

just something I find fascinating now

21:11

the mind games I played

21:13

to survive because it's something I

21:15

don't think I was necessarily

21:17

Aware of I think in the moment I thought I

21:20

am so painfully bored that

21:22

I have now created this odd

21:24

fantasy life. But looking

21:26

back now as an adult,

21:29

I'm realizing, wow, that

21:31

was really... That took a

21:33

lot of ingenuity. That's

21:35

fascinating to me what the mind

21:37

can do to get you

21:39

through something really dark. You

21:42

know, finding something light

21:44

and playful and... I've always been

21:46

a person that like I

21:48

need a finish line. And

21:50

of course with something like cancer,

21:53

there's not always, you know, you don't really

21:55

know what's going to come at you

21:57

hour by hour, day by day or month

21:59

by month. So I needed to sort of

22:01

set this finish line at the end

22:03

of each day to show

22:05

something for myself, you know,

22:07

to really continue. And,

22:11

you know, the day that

22:13

I was told I was cancer free,

22:16

It was interesting. I was 20. And

22:20

my doctors pulled

22:22

me into this room. I knew

22:24

every single inch of my hospital

22:26

wing, of course. When

22:28

they brought me into this room, I'd never seen

22:30

before. It was like a door that felt like it

22:32

just appeared. And they brought

22:34

me in and it was like a

22:36

computer room. I had all these wires

22:38

and they sat me and my parents

22:40

down and we were in these office

22:42

chairs with the wheels on them. and

22:45

you have to understand at this

22:47

point I'm on so much medication

22:49

and you know I very much

22:51

felt like there was chemo in my

22:53

system though I was just finishing

22:55

chemo and moving on to radiation and

22:57

you know sleeping pills and anti

22:59

nausea meds and anti anxiety meds and

23:01

morphine and just so much going

23:03

on in my body and I'm staring

23:06

at these wires for some reason

23:08

and Maybe I'm a little OCD and

23:10

needed it. I don't know. I was just

23:12

like, what is this? I just really

23:14

did not know what they were gonna tell me. And

23:17

they brought up on one of the screens

23:19

my scans. And I had

23:21

sort of an obsession with scans.

23:23

It really felt like something real

23:25

and tangible that I

23:27

could see and like

23:29

measure progress. And so

23:31

they opened up a scan, which I thought

23:33

looked really cool. And I'm trying to figure out what's

23:35

on it. the doctor showed

23:38

me that my tumor had shrunk

23:40

into such an extent that it

23:42

was dead and now considered scar tissue.

23:45

And the cancer that was on

23:47

the other parts of my

23:49

lymph nodes were all gone and

23:51

it hadn't spread to my

23:54

bone marrow and I was now

23:56

cancer -free. And

23:59

my parents were in tears

24:01

and hugging me and kissing

24:03

me and so joyful and

24:05

relieved that their daughter was

24:07

gonna be okay. And I

24:09

just sat there staring at the

24:12

cords. And

24:14

I had no idea

24:16

what to say. And I

24:18

felt my doctor staring at me

24:20

sort of waiting for something. And

24:23

I will never forget one

24:25

of my doctors saying, this

24:28

is the... where you're supposed to be happy. And

24:31

I wasn't happy.

24:34

And I didn't believe them.

24:37

I don't know if that's odd to say,

24:39

but I was like, you

24:41

know, someone's telling me you're healthy,

24:43

but this is not, this is

24:45

not healthy. Like I know how

24:47

that I'm not, I feel terrible.

24:49

I look, you know, I mean,

24:51

I look very much ill. And

24:55

I remember just sort of arguing

24:57

actually a little bit and being

24:59

like, but if I'm cancer -free, why

25:01

am I going into radiation? And,

25:03

you know, I'd had friends who

25:05

had cancer and it came back.

25:07

And so I just wasn't trusting

25:09

and I certainly didn't feel happy.

25:11

I felt very confused and a

25:14

bit ashamed that I wasn't happy

25:16

and a bit ashamed that I

25:18

wasn't maybe throwing the parade

25:20

or thinking them as I

25:22

probably should have. been or could

25:24

have been, but I wasn't

25:26

feeling those emotions. And

25:28

I hope that

25:30

anyone listening who has felt

25:33

that way before can release some

25:35

of that shame. I know

25:37

that you're not alone. If you

25:39

don't immediately

25:41

feel what others are expecting

25:44

you to feel, and it's okay,

25:46

it's okay, right? Of course, now looking

25:48

back, I can say, I

25:50

was in the midst

25:52

of intense trauma and it

25:54

is okay that I

25:56

wasn't smiling or laughing or didn't feel

25:59

relieved yet. That actually kind

26:01

of tracks. That makes

26:03

sense. And I sort of felt like

26:05

the relief in the celebration was for

26:07

my family to feel, not me, because

26:09

I kind of felt like, well, I

26:11

still have this burden. I kind of

26:13

still felt like I still have all

26:15

this to go through and to, I was

26:17

still in the midst. And,

26:20

you know, I don't

26:22

think I realized

26:24

I was going to

26:26

live until after

26:28

radiation. And I

26:30

went home, home for real home,

26:32

like to my childhood home. And

26:36

I had never really been left

26:38

alone for so many months, right?

26:40

Like you have your care team

26:42

and your doctors and your nurses

26:44

and you're always being poked and

26:46

prodded and you know my parents

26:48

like watching me like a hawk

26:50

and I was never alone and

26:53

like truly not even to go

26:55

to the bathroom and and I

26:57

was in my kitchen and I was

26:59

left alone for a few minutes and and we

27:01

always cook family dinner and my mom had

27:03

asked me to like make the salad and I

27:05

was cutting into this tomato

27:08

and I just started crying

27:10

and I felt like I felt

27:12

like I had I

27:14

I was supposed to die

27:16

or something and here I

27:19

was cutting this tomato and

27:21

I was still alive enough

27:23

to like cut this beautiful,

27:25

perfect tomato that came out

27:28

of the earth. And I

27:30

just felt this insane moment

27:32

of relief and gratitude

27:34

for this tomato. And

27:37

I guess how interesting,

27:39

right, that maybe that was a reaction someone

27:41

had wanted me to have months prior. And

27:45

now it was truly hitting me. And who knows,

27:47

maybe it was all the morphine that had finally

27:49

wore off and now emotions could come to the

27:51

surface. I don't know. But

27:53

I just remember this beautifully perfect

27:55

tomato. For the rest of my

27:57

life, I will forever remember this

27:59

tomato. And, you

28:02

know, I think it's important to speak

28:04

a bit about remission. I

28:07

think there's a moment in

28:09

time where Our

28:11

community is able to rest easy

28:13

and kind of check the box

28:15

of, she's okay. And

28:18

sort of like the casserole stopped coming

28:20

to the door and care packages kind

28:22

of stopped and the letters and

28:24

you know, and it's quiet and now

28:26

you're home and

28:28

may very

28:30

well be addicted to the meds you've been on

28:32

for so long and your doctors are sort of

28:34

like, see you in three months and you're like,

28:36

what? I see you every second of

28:39

every day, like, we're in this for life. I

28:41

truly remember feeling like my doctors broke up with me

28:43

the day they told me I was cancer -free. And

28:45

that is why I made

28:48

the film Bad Survivor, which is

28:50

in film festivals right now. And

28:53

it's really about

28:55

the feeling of

28:57

being a terrible

28:59

survivor. I always

29:01

in my mind for some reason told

29:03

myself, wow, I'm a pretty bad

29:05

survivor, you know, and

29:08

And I grew up watching the movie,

29:10

A Walk to Remember, not just watching,

29:12

like Idolite, being obsessed with the movie, A

29:14

Walk to Remember. And still, I

29:16

think it's like beautiful and iconic. But

29:20

being obsessed with it prior to getting

29:22

cancer as a teenager and then getting cancer

29:24

as a teenager is wild because I

29:26

really, truly thought, well, when

29:28

I'm bald, you know, like the hottest guy in

29:30

school is gonna fall in love with me

29:32

and I'll, you know, just like gently pass on

29:34

with like long braided hair. After

29:37

like our summer of love and

29:39

that is not whatsoever what happened,

29:41

you know like little kids would

29:43

scream and run the other way

29:45

when they saw me on the

29:47

street because they were scared of

29:49

my bald head and certainly no

29:51

one fell in love with me

29:53

and I was definitely not an

29:55

inspiration and I you know

29:57

Wasn't in I wasn't raising millions of

29:59

dollars for cancer research. I wasn't

30:01

talking about my experience I

30:04

wasn't brave though everyone called me

30:06

that I was a total

30:08

top mess. I was processing

30:10

survivor's guilt in

30:12

so many ways. I

30:14

had so many people

30:16

around me die of cancer

30:19

and I was like the

30:21

last one standing. And

30:23

that concept didn't make sense

30:25

to me because like, why? That

30:28

doesn't, that does not make

30:30

sense to me. So my friend

30:32

Jocelyn, Was

30:34

like my cancer

30:36

Mentor or like very godmother something though she

30:39

would hate for me to say that

30:41

but she grew up in the house next

30:43

to me and she was just a

30:45

few years older than me when she got

30:47

cancer and She had been in remission.

30:49

It had come back had been remission and

30:51

had come back and When I got

30:53

cancer I was very isolated and home alone

30:55

and in my bedroom and

30:58

wouldn't really let visitors in the house

31:00

and would just tell my, you know, at

31:02

one point when I was incredibly sick

31:04

and, you know, just like a shut door

31:06

kind of energy. And if

31:08

Jocelyn showed up, I was like, oh my God, yes, go, go,

31:10

yeah, bring her in, please bring her in. And she was

31:12

the only person I would talk to and the only person I

31:14

would listen to and. you know,

31:16

she taught me what mouthwash to use because

31:18

you know, this chemo meds gonna give you mouth

31:20

sores and someone had brought flowers and she

31:22

was like, no, no, you can't have these flowers

31:24

because of this allergy. And she just knew

31:26

all the things I didn't know. Like no one

31:28

taught me how to have cancer. I didn't

31:31

know what I was doing. I didn't know how

31:33

to do this. And there are certain things

31:35

that your doctors tell you and there's a lot

31:37

of things that they don't. And you kind

31:39

of learn the hard way how to get used

31:41

to this cancer life and thank

31:43

God for... because she just

31:45

taught me so much and

31:47

she was the only person

31:49

I felt like I could be

31:51

in the same room with and like

31:53

my shoulders could kind of relax

31:55

and I wasn't being judged I could

31:57

just be me despite being cancer

31:59

me now you know because cancer me sort

32:01

of seemed to trigger a lot of

32:03

people and but not Jocelyn like it could

32:05

just it was okay to be me. You

32:15

You know when you're really stressed or not

32:17

feeling so great about your life or

32:19

about yourself? Talking to someone who understands

32:21

can really help. But who is that

32:23

person? How do you find them? Where

32:25

do you even start? Talk space. Talk

32:27

space makes it easy to get the

32:29

support you need. With Talk space, you

32:31

can go online, answer a few questions

32:33

about your preferences, and be matched with

32:35

a therapist. And because you'll meet your

32:37

therapist online, you don't have to take

32:39

time off work or arrange child care.

32:41

You'll meet on your schedule, wherever you

32:43

feel most at ease. If you're depressed,

32:45

stressed, struggling with a relationship, or

32:48

if you want some counseling for

32:50

you and your partner, or just

32:52

need a little extra one-on-one support,

32:54

TalkSpace is here for you. Plus,

32:56

TalkSpace works with most major insurers,

32:58

and most insured members have a

33:00

$0 copay. No insurance? No problem.

33:02

Now, get $80 off of your

33:05

first month with promo code space

33:07

80 when you go to talkspace.com.

33:09

Match with a licensed therapist today

33:11

at talkspace.com. Save $80 with code space

33:13

80 at talkspace.com. When

33:20

things were really dark in

33:22

treatment, I was

33:24

on the couch and I couldn't get up from

33:26

the couch for a long time. came

33:29

over to me as i was laying down

33:31

and she was like okay this is good that

33:33

you have the tv on just you know

33:35

have something on that's funny it doesn't matter if

33:37

you laugh whatever just let it play it's

33:39

gonna help pass time and take up space and

33:41

she was like see the clock under the

33:43

tv you need to live in 10 minute increments

33:45

you're thinking too far ahead you need

33:47

if you convince yourself that it's 10

33:49

10 a .m right now okay and

33:52

if you get to 10 20 a .m

33:54

that means you live and then when

33:56

it hits 10 20 you will Make

33:58

it to 1030. If you make it to

34:00

1030, you will live. And so for

34:03

a while, I was living in 10 minute

34:05

increments. And

34:07

when they said, you're

34:09

going to live a long life,

34:11

my doctor said to me, I

34:13

did not know how to process

34:16

that. And I thought, that's

34:19

crazy. I live in

34:21

10 minute increments. What do you mean you

34:23

want me to live to 90 plus? if

34:26

this is life I don't think

34:28

I can do 90 plus you know

34:30

and so I at some

34:32

point started to get

34:34

good scans back and back

34:36

and back and I thought

34:38

oh no why maybe I

34:41

am gonna live a long

34:43

life and you know everyone else

34:45

has passed away and I have

34:47

to figure out why I'm still here

34:49

or maybe not why if

34:52

that's something even you can figure

34:54

out but how to make

34:56

the most of this like i

34:58

can't sit and wallow at

35:00

the old life that i no

35:03

longer have and lost you

35:05

know and the friendships lost and

35:07

the school and the new life

35:09

lost like i'm going to have

35:11

to accept where i am today

35:13

and. move forward with

35:15

some type of new self.

35:18

If truly I'm gonna have a

35:20

long life, I've got to

35:22

figure this out. And so really

35:24

accepting and rebuilding

35:26

for me looked

35:28

like attempting to gain some type

35:30

of control back. So

35:33

there was a time

35:35

where I would walk into a Barnes

35:37

& Noble and that whole self -help section where

35:39

they have the shelves, they have the table

35:41

of it all laid out. I

35:43

had read every single book

35:45

in the self -help section more

35:47

than once, mind you. And

35:50

I was actually a little annoyed at

35:52

one point because I was like, we need

35:54

to publish some new, I'm devouring these,

35:56

I need more, I need to learn everything.

35:58

And I really became a student

36:01

of finding people, often

36:03

successful people because they were

36:05

easier to find, to research. I

36:08

wanted to find people who had been through

36:10

traumas worse than mine. My dad

36:12

always taught me like, never feel sorry

36:14

for yourself. There's always someone

36:16

worse off. There's always someone going through

36:19

something worse, which is absolutely always true

36:21

for me. That's how I feel. And

36:24

so, you know, how

36:26

I wanted to learn how someone

36:28

else had gone through something worse

36:30

than me and transformed their life.

36:32

Like I want to learn how

36:34

was someone joyful after trauma and

36:37

not just joyful, but like full.

36:39

Like how did someone rebuild

36:41

their life. How

36:43

did they re -enter

36:45

society? How did they have a full life?

36:47

How are they successful? How did they go after

36:49

what they wanted? How did they pursue their dreams? Again,

36:52

when at the time I was afraid to like

36:54

walk outside, I thought a piano would fall and

36:56

hit me in the head. I really

36:58

was scared of life.

37:00

Very, very scared. And

37:03

I had this goal

37:05

of, you know, I

37:07

wanted no one. I

37:10

wanted people to see me, to meet

37:12

me, someone brand new. I wanted to

37:14

walk into a room and I

37:16

wanted someone to meet me and have

37:18

no idea I had ever been

37:20

through trauma. That was my goal, was

37:22

to be such a light in

37:24

the room that someone's saying, oh, she's

37:26

probably had such an easy life

37:28

and a perfect child. That still makes

37:30

me smile. I honestly think that

37:32

is the best. compliment ever

37:35

and then I I wanted to have sort

37:37

of like this like the secret in the

37:39

back of my mind just for me to

37:41

be like I've been hella back, but

37:43

no one has to know that I

37:45

really felt during treatment I if

37:47

I walked into a room I was

37:49

sort of this like darkness I'm

37:51

not knowing never on purpose without having

37:53

said it saying a word I

37:56

was sort of like reminding people of

37:58

death and I Lowered the energy of

38:00

the room and people got really shifty and wanted

38:02

to leave and If I said a

38:04

sentence, if I even mentioned the word, can't, you

38:06

know, forget it. Like, so I

38:08

wanted the opposite. I wanted the

38:10

opposite. I wanted to be a

38:12

literal ray of sunshine and be bigger

38:14

than life. And I would study

38:16

people like Audrey Hepburn because I

38:19

would watch her movies all night. I

38:21

was an insomniac. I couldn't sleep.

38:23

So I had spent all night

38:25

watching Audrey Hepburn movies and she

38:27

seemed so like she floated on screen

38:29

and she was light and airy

38:31

and no one knew. all

38:33

this trauma she had been through

38:35

war and had a really

38:38

difficult childhood and and people see

38:40

this starlet on camera and

38:42

I just thought she brings me

38:44

joy when I watch her

38:46

and I wanted people to feel

38:48

that way when they met

38:50

me or watched me in some

38:52

way or read my writing

38:55

or and so I was finding

38:57

all these tools to take little

38:59

bits and pieces of what had worked

39:01

for other people. So I

39:04

started to see a ton of

39:06

healers because it's not just obviously, you

39:08

know, celebrities and well -known people who

39:10

have something to offer us, though

39:12

they may, right? But

39:14

it is truly, anyone I've

39:16

met, I wanted to learn what

39:18

worked for them in life. Like,

39:20

why were they happy? How did

39:23

they get too happy? Like, how

39:25

does one do this, right? And

39:28

so, for instance, I went to get

39:30

a massage and this masseuse was just like,

39:32

she actually changed my life in so

39:34

many ways, I saw her for a long

39:36

time. And I told

39:38

her once, I shared with her before a session,

39:40

I was like, you know, everyone keeps telling

39:42

me everything's gonna be okay, everything's gonna be okay.

39:45

And God has a plan for you and everything's gonna be

39:47

okay. And I kept thinking like, no, it's not, how

39:49

do you know everything's gonna be okay? Like, why are you

39:51

telling me it's gonna be okay? I

39:53

kind of found it, Difficult

39:56

and she said to me

39:58

well, maybe everything could be okay

40:00

You know like maybe it

40:02

could and just that one sentence

40:04

kind of change my life

40:06

I was like okay like let

40:08

me allow some room for

40:10

could and I just found these

40:12

little bits and pieces from

40:15

healers and friends and celebrities and

40:17

anyone I could to start

40:19

changing my mindset and I

40:21

was able to really start to

40:23

rebuild my life. It's crazy

40:26

to say. I transferred to

40:28

a school in DC and I graduated

40:30

while doing all of this studying

40:32

on my own about life and joy.

40:34

And I moved to New York.

40:36

I got an internship at Seventeen Magazine,

40:38

which was like my dream to

40:40

be in the fashion closet of Seventeen

40:42

Magazine. And one

40:45

day I was watching this model.

40:47

We were styling a model for

40:49

an editorial photo shoot. And

40:51

of course, on behind the

40:53

camera, she's in front of the

40:55

camera and she was really

40:57

in charge of her body and

40:59

like taking ownership and so

41:01

beautiful and wonderful and moving just

41:03

like just in full confidence. And

41:06

I just remember thinking like, I

41:08

want to do that. I

41:10

want to feel that.

41:13

And that was the start of

41:15

my modeling career. I got

41:18

signed in New York and I

41:20

Milan and LA and I

41:23

started to travel the world

41:25

to get paid to model. And

41:28

this was the, this

41:30

was what I always wanted, right?

41:32

Like this life where no one knew

41:34

what I had been through and

41:36

I was starting to really fulfill it,

41:38

right? Like I was on the

41:40

runways and like quite literally having just

41:42

come from, you know, a scan

41:44

and I was keeping it a secret

41:46

and I wasn't telling anyone. And

41:48

I wanted to define myself by

41:50

something other than my cancer diagnosis.

41:54

And that worked for a while.

41:56

It worked for several years.

41:58

It felt empowering until I realized

42:00

I'm covering up my port

42:02

scar. I'm maybe

42:04

covering up the old me and

42:06

that I don't I felt this

42:09

sense of like, I don't deserve

42:11

that. Like let me let me

42:13

reintegrate both sides of my

42:15

life, my cancer journey and this

42:17

new fresh life in Manhattan that I

42:19

was having. And

42:21

so I started to write and

42:23

I started to pour this

42:25

into an essay for the Huffington

42:27

Post that I published, which

42:29

was really like my coming out

42:31

with the truth story. And

42:33

I was able to share with

42:35

my My agents at the

42:38

time, my new friends in Manhattan,

42:40

no one knew I was a cancer

42:42

survivor and what I was going

42:44

through as, you know, through these

42:46

many years in remission. And

42:48

it was incredibly, incredibly

42:50

liberating. And I highly

42:52

suggest to anyone listening to

42:55

find ways to pour your

42:57

trauma and what you've been through, if possible,

42:59

into art. That can be anything, painting, writing, and

43:01

you don't have to share it with anyone.

43:04

I chose to at one point because that felt

43:06

empowering for me, but you don't have to.

43:08

It can be in a diary, but

43:10

allow yourself to tell

43:12

yourself your own narrative.

43:15

And for me, this full, full

43:17

circle moment of turning my

43:19

pain into art is my film

43:22

Bad Survivor. It's

43:24

this story about a girl broken

43:26

up with by her doctors who

43:28

has to come home to her

43:30

multicultural family, just like I did, and

43:32

put the pieces of her life

43:35

back together. And what was

43:37

most satisfying about this film is,

43:39

well, in an odd way, playing the

43:41

main character, you know,

43:43

I wrote it, directed it and starred

43:45

in it. And this main character gets

43:47

to turn to camera and say all

43:49

the sassy, naughty things that she never

43:51

got to say in real life. And

43:54

it is an incredibly therapeutic,

43:56

really funny moment. It's really bringing

43:59

dark humor to a day that

44:01

was actually probably had no humor

44:03

for me in real life, you

44:05

know, but I'm able to bring

44:07

back to it all of

44:09

the hilarious things that I was

44:11

actually thinking in my head, all

44:13

those mind games that I

44:15

used to play. And one

44:17

thing I want to touch on, which

44:19

I find really important and interesting is

44:22

that screening bad survivor at

44:24

film festivals now getting a sense

44:26

of are people able to find the

44:28

humor in a cancer story, right?

44:30

I think we're used to seeing the

44:32

sort of over romanticized young people's

44:34

version of cancer stories where they fall

44:37

in love and then maybe the

44:39

really melodramatic sort of adult versions and

44:41

this is that in between that

44:43

teen story, right? Like that angsty

44:45

teenager who's going through all the same

44:47

things, who probably just wants to lose

44:49

her virginity and make it through finals.

44:51

But she has all of these intense

44:54

life and death decisions to make at

44:56

the same time. And in film festivals,

44:58

I'm finding that in the first

45:00

punchline, the audience is a little

45:03

like, are we okay? Is it okay to

45:05

laugh at this? And by the second

45:07

and the third one, they're realizing the main

45:09

character is laughing at herself. It is

45:11

okay to laugh. It is just because she's bald does

45:13

not mean she doesn't have a sense of humor. And

45:15

people really rest and

45:17

relax. And the biggest laugh

45:19

that shocked me, honestly, was

45:22

when the title Bad Survivor in huge

45:24

capital letters is just thrown on screen.

45:26

And there was like a roar of

45:28

laughter. And I was

45:30

like, oh, wow, how interesting people find

45:32

bad survivor. The title funny. That's

45:34

just something I've been calling myself all

45:36

of these years. Bad survivor,

45:38

the film is truly just the

45:41

start of something bigger. It's the

45:43

start of the TV series that

45:45

I'm developing. So I

45:47

just want to say, you

45:49

know, if anyone out there is

45:51

listening and they feel they're in

45:53

treatment or in remission and I

45:55

don't know, you may be bold

45:57

and weird and sarcastic and certain

45:59

friends may no longer be around

46:01

and it might feel like no

46:04

one gets you but I do.

46:06

I do and we do and

46:08

there's this community of us and

46:10

I feel like our stories really

46:12

do deserve to be told. Thank

46:15

you so much for tuning in

46:17

today. It's been an absolute treat

46:19

to get to share the same

46:21

airwaves as Shannon Doherty and her

46:23

legacy absolutely lives on. And I

46:25

so appreciate you all for listening.

46:29

If anyone is interested in watching

46:31

my short film and learning more

46:33

about it, Bad Survivor, please feel

46:35

free to check out badsurvivor.com to

46:37

see when we'll be screening in

46:39

a city near you. And

46:41

to follow me and see all the latest

46:43

on all my projects, you can go

46:45

to alexdawork.com. Or go ahead

46:47

and follow me on Instagram. My handle

46:49

is at it's alexdivorek. And

46:51

of course, if you Google my name, all of these will

46:53

come up. So no worries. I'm easy to find. If

46:56

this podcast resonated with you in any

46:58

way, I'd love to hear from you.

47:00

Please feel free to reach out. I

47:02

love you all. Thank you. When

47:14

you're really stressed or not feeling so

47:16

great about your life or about yourself,

47:18

talking to someone who understands can really

47:20

help. But who is that person? How

47:23

do you find them? Where do you

47:25

even start? Talk space. Talk space makes it

47:27

easy to get the support you need. you

47:30

can go online, answer a few questions about

47:32

your preferences, and be matched with a therapist.

47:34

And because you'll meet your therapist online, you

47:36

don't have to take time off work or

47:38

arrange child care, you'll meet on your schedule,

47:41

wherever you feel most at ease. If

47:43

you're depressed, stressed, stressed, stress, No

47:58

insurance? No problem. Now, get $80

48:01

off of your first month with

48:03

promo code space 80 when you

48:06

go to talkspace.com. Match with a

48:08

licensed therapist today at talkspace.com. Save

48:10

$80 with code space 80 at

48:13

talkspace.com. .com.