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 Jennings Part 2 |
Short Credits |
| Thanks/Goodbye |
Key: Culture |
| Web Promo |
Key: Media |
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| Jennings Part 2 |
Short Credits |
| Thanks/Goodbye |
Key: Culture |
| Web Promo |
Key: Media |
| Jennings Part 2 Return to index of stories... |
, "That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be" by Carly Simon and, yes, "It's My Party" by Lesley Gore. Not only was I temporarily menopausal, but it appeared that I was also turning into a teenage girl from the early 1970s. BITE: JENNINGS PRESENTATION DISK 16:51:59 There were other side effects, too, like headaches and fatigue. But when I started drinking Diet Coke for the first time in my life, my son Owen couldn't take it anymore. He said, "Dad, are you turning into a chick?" Bite: Jennings Interview Disk 15:23:11 "ANOTHER AREA YOU SORT OF EXPLORED IS SORT OF THE CONTRADICTIONS IN MEDICINE. WHERE YOU HAVE TO TAKE POISON IN ORDER FOR THE POISON THE HELP. I LIKE THE WAY THAT YOU EXPLORE THAT." 15:23:23 "It's one of the strangest things about going through this whole process is…I found out two years ago I had prostate cancer but I had no symptoms. It was detected through the PSAtest. The things that hurt me were the treatment. My surgery was a radical open prostatectomy because I wasn't a good candidate for the procedure they call robotic surgery. And it was major surgery. It was twenty five staples up the middle of my gut. Hormone therapy just totally screws up your chemistry. I still have a lingering after effect from the hormone therapy of still getting very tired. My chemistry is just messed up." 15:24:28 "Radiation, besides killing cancer cells, is also killing healthy cells. It makes you tired and feel really strange. ***It's as if you're accepting these weapons attacking the cancer within the body and you're the battlefield. And we all know what happens to battlefields: they don't stay pristine."*** 15:25:03 Bite: Jennings in Class 14:52:39 I have this persona of being a redneck Jew. I'm the guy at my synagogue where if people want to talk about country music, stock car racing, squirrel hunting. It's like, "Well let's ask Dana." Bite: Jennings Interview Disk 15:38:21 "YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT YOUR CONVERSION TO JUDAISM. WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THAT? 15:38:41 Bite: Jennings Interview Disk 15:38:41 "It's funny. My wife is Jewish. We married in 1981. She never imagined that I was going to convert. The only question she asked me was, 'When we have children, I'd like to raise them as Jews.' I said, 'Sure.' I'm kind of one of those half-hearted, swap Protestant. I had no deep religious conviction. As often happens, as I got older, I became more active in our synagogue. Both my sons were bar mitzvahed. I found that to be a really powerful thing for me even though at that time, I wasn't Jewish. I realized in the early 2000s that Judaism had become really important to me. I decided to convert. One of the really valuable things when I got sick is that Judaism really was one of the ways that I could look at my cancer, and it let me ask a really crucial question, which is also a journalistic question but it's like "what can this cancer teach me?" and I found that by asking myself that question, it made it easier to be ill. Because you know trying to think of it as an occasion for learning about yourself made it a little more acceptable. Bite: Jennings Interview Disk 15:43:40 SO OFTEN WE READ THINGS LIKE, "MR. SMITH DIED YESTERDAY AFTER A LONG COURAGEOUS BATTLE WITH CANCER." YOU CALL THAT ONE OF THE "CLICHÉS" OF CANCER. I THOUGHT THERE'S A LOT MORE. 15:43:51Yeah, you know, we love that… For whatever reason when it comes to serious disease, and I guess it's because we're struggling to try to articulate what's happening to somebody we use that war imagery. Bite: Jennings Interview Disk 15:44:10 I MEAN YOU NEVER HEAR OR READ "A SHORT POINTLESS FIGHT WITH." 15:44:15 Right. You know, "the poor guy died of cancer" and I really dislike the idea of fighting. One of the best realizations I had thinking about it is: We're the battlefield, so when you're the battlefield, you're not fighting, you know, it's the cancer here and it's the doctors and their tools there and they're engaging each other in your body. Bite: Jennings Interview Disk 15:44:45 SO YOU'RE WHAT'S FOUGHT OVER. 15:44:48 Yeah. I mean you're not fighting, you're where the action is happening and that brings me to the word courageous. I believe in having a good attitude, but I also believe in you know, if you feel like hell on a given day, you can just pout and turn away from whoever wants to talk to you. But I don't feel like it's courageous. Because I think, you understand it's your life and we're trained to do what we can to preserve our lives. Bite: Jennings Interview Disk 15:37:15 "I'm leading a post-cancer life right now. I couldn't be up here in Durham, New Hampshire this week, speaking to college classes if I didn't feel that I was in a post-cancer moment. That does mean that I'm unrealistic, there are other-there's always the statistics about the recurrence states and such. But really, I'm with Charlie Brown in the famous Charlie Brown script where someone is reciting how bad Charlie Brown's baseball team is and Charlie Brown says, "Tell your statistics to shut up." That's the way I feel about statistics. ***Statistics are valuable but they're general and I'm me and I'm not a statistic." 15:38:21 Bite: Jennings Interview Disk 15:50:10 WHAT'S NEXT FOR DANA JENNINGS? 15:50:14 I'm actually in the process of writing a proposal that will collect the cancer columns, so I'm hoping a publisher will want to do that, you know, its always tricky collecting work that has already been published, the title of the book is going to be, "My Brief Life as a Woman, One Man's Dispatches from the Front Liners of Prostate Cancer". 15:50:49 DANA JENNINGS, THANK YOU SO MUCH. Bite: Jennings Presentation Disk 16:57:44 Here's my post from today's well-blog. Here's what I'm thinking right now: "After Cancer, Everyday Miracles." "It has been two years since I learned that I had prostate cancer, and a bit more than a year since I had any treatment for what I eventually learned was an aggressive Stage 3 cancer. Being from the sticks of New Hampshire, I'm reminded of a woods that has burned. There is still plenty of scorched earth and charred deadfalls, but, more important, the green scrub and optimistic wildflowers of normality are creeping back. Jennings Presentation Disk 16:58:23 I'm in pretty good shape these days. I live from PSA test to PSA test - every three months - and so far, so good. I still get more tired than I would like because my body chemistry is still in ferment from hormone therapy. And, to get an erection, I have to inject my penis with Cavereject, which stimulates blood flow. Jennings Presentation Disk 16:58:48 But those are just physical details. I'm more interested in what I've learned from my cancer, how it has actually - and unexpectedly - changed me. Cancer is a hard teacher, but a teacher even so. More than ever, I know that I am blessed in sons and my marriage. That on a cold winter's night a pint of porter in the company of a good neighbor is a bounty in this uncertain world. Postcancer, I love who and what I love more deeply than ever. And I keenly feel in my bones the sheer evanescence of our existence. END OF INTERVIEW Post Note over video of dog: In November, 2010, DoubleDay Press will publish "What a Difference a Dog Makes", Dana Jennings' book about Bijou de Minuit. |
| Thanks/Goodbye Return to index of stories... |
In November, 2010, DoubleDay will publish "What a Difference a Dog Makes", Dana Jennings' book about Bijou de Minuit. ADDITIONAL VIDEO COURTESY OF THE NEW YORK TIMES |
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ADDITIONAL VIDEO COURTESY NY TIMES |
| Key: Culture Return to index of stories... |
NEW HAMPSHIRE OUTLOOK Air Date/Time: 6/18/2010 HOST: Richard Ager Length: 26:09 Dana Jennings is a self-professed "small-town boy" who made it in the big city. Raised in Kingston, NH, he became a reporter and editor at The New York Times. He has written about many subjects, but the most memorable has been his ongoing series of columns about his fight against prostate cancer. Written with utter candor, Jennings’ blogs have been a regular feature of the Times’ Wellness Section. Jennings sat down with NH Outlook’s Richard Ager during a recent visit to New Hampshire, and gave a revealing interview. PRODUCER/REPORTER: Richard Ager NAME OF PARTICIPANTS: Dana Jennings\Author |
| Key: Media Return to index of stories... |
NEW HAMPSHIRE OUTLOOK Air Date/Time: 6/18/2010 HOST: Richard Ager Length: 26:09 Dana Jennings is a self-professed "small-town boy" who made it in the big city. Raised in Kingston, NH, he became a reporter and editor at The New York Times. He has written about many subjects, but the most memorable has been his ongoing series of columns about his fight against prostate cancer. Written with utter candor, Jennings’ blogs have been a regular feature of the Times’ Wellness Section. Jennings sat down with NH Outlook’s Richard Ager during a recent visit to New Hampshire, and gave a revealing interview. PRODUCER/REPORTER: Richard Ager NAME OF PARTICIPANTS: Dana Jennings\Author |