Transcriber: Ariel Dempsey Reviewer: Tanya Cushman
(Instrumental music: "A Million Dreams")
(Applause)
I've got to catch my breath a second …
I'll tell you what, though, that is so much fun.
Really.
So the song I just danced to is called "A Million Dreams,”
and it’s from a movie I love, called "The Greatest Showman."
Sometimes we can see our dreams clearly,
but sometimes things aren’t so clear.
Can I really believe in this?
How do I know this is a risk worth taking?
What if I’m wrong?
For me, these aren't just abstract questions.
They’re questions I live with.
Let me share a bit about my background.
My name is Ariel.
I’m a fourth year medical student at Michigan State,
about to graduate with my MD
and do a PhD at Oxford in science & religion.
I want to become a palliative care physician
and walk alongside people at the end of life.
And I also want to be an academic theologian
and draw on the resources from our religious traditions
to reflect on healthcare.
And so as a student of both medicine and theology,
I’ve had an opportunity to reflect on two fields of inquiry
that face tremendous amounts of uncertainty.
In both medicine and religion,
there are times that we act,
even when we can’t see.
I’m going to tell you something tonight
that I’ve kept secret from many of my closest friends -
even friends that I've invited here tonight.
Though it's hard to talk about,
I’ll tell you my story.
(Deep breath)
In January of 2015,
I was flying to England.
I had just interviewed for medical school at Michigan State
and was returning to Oxford for studies in theology.
Suddenly, a great pain burst in my head,
I started vomiting incessantly,
my heart rate and blood pressure dropped dangerously low,
and I started drifting in and out of consciousness.
When the plane landed, I was rushed to the hospital,
and for weeks, I was too weak to sit up, to think or even stay awake.
For four months,
I lay in bed in a dark room in England.
The curtains were drawn,
the lights turned off,
and I wore sunglasses to make it darker because I couldn't bear any light.
Whatever happened on the plane
left me in physical shock,
but my MRI results shocked me in a different way.
My mother, who'd flown to England to care for me,
she was at my side
while the doctor explained the pictures of my brain.
He pointed to a black and bleeding spot at the core,
and he said,
"Ariel,
you have an active and unstable cavernoma,
or arteriovenous malformation.
It’s bleeding.
And once they start bleeding,
they frequently rebleed,
and each successive bleed can lead to progressive disability.
It’s also possible
that your cavernoma could spontaneously burst,
and if this happens,
you could die instantly.”
He gave me some dismal statistics,
and I asked how long I had left to live.
He said he didn’t know.
That night, in the dark,
my mother and I laid in bed,
and we cried,
and we just - we laughed at the horribleness of it all.
Loss of cognitive and physical abilities
or instant death.
Like, how much worse does it get?
I remember
laying there in the dark
with the room spinning and my sunglasses on,
and I literally could not see.
I could not see a future.
The life I’d dreamed was gone.
I woke the next morning in grief,
and as I prayed,
I realized something that changed my life.
I realized that
I am no different than anyone else.
Anyone who lives long enough
goes through loss of cognitive and physical abilities.
Everybody dies someday,
and nobody knows when that will be.
All of our lives are fragile and wrought with uncertainty.
I’m scared
but no more uncertain than anyone else.
So I was accepted to med school,
but if I could die in a year,
why even bother going?
My best friend came to visit,
and I asked him what I should do.
He said,
"Ariel,
live like you’re dying.
Try to experience as many things as you can
and as many pleasures as you want.”
But I knew that "living like I was dying"
could not be my way.
I wouldn’t be truly happy
closing my eyes to my diagnosis,
distracting myself with experience upon experience,
just trying to squeeze the pleasure out of life.
Besides,
have you ever really tried to live like you're dying?
It’s exhausting.
I’d rather live like ...
like I was living.
My priest came to anoint me,
and I asked him what I should do.
He said,
"Ariel,
I can’t tell you what to do,
but I can tell you this.
God is Sovereign.
Don’t let this diagnosis bend you out of shape."
In that moment,
I decided to continue on the path that I'd felt called to before.
I decided to do what I would do
if I didn’t have the diagnosis.
If my life's a play
and I'm backstage,
the curtain may come up at any moment
and I will be found playing my part well.
I found courage to act.
But my body was slower to act than I was.
I’d been a lifelong athlete -
I ran track at University of Michigan;
I played varsity soccer at Oxford.
But now, I felt betrayed by my body,
like I couldn’t trust it to work.
Although I was weak, I acted as though I were stronger than I felt.
And so,
I did old lady yoga -
just like this -
and did it every day,
even if just for a few minutes.
I couldn’t do much,
but I could lay on the floor and do that one stretch,
I could read that one page,
I could find that one glimpse of beauty and joy.
And sometimes I pressed too far.
But slowly, I was able to stretch farther
and laugh harder
and love deeper.
I clung to a meditation from the Book of Common Prayer.
It says,
“Today is another day, O Lord,
I know not what it will bring forth.
But make me ready, Lord,
for whatever it may be.
If I am to stand,
help me to stand bravely.
If I am to sit,
help me to sit quietly.
If I am to lie low,
help me to lie patiently.
And if I am to do nothing,
let me do nothing gallantly.
Make these words more than words,
and give me the spirit of Jesus.
Amen.”
By God’s grace,
I started medical school the following fall.
Med school wasn’t easy.
On the first day,
my best friend from high school drove me to school
because I couldn’t yet drive,
and I walked into orientation
wearing my sunglasses.
Because of the brain injury,
reading was difficult
and I couldn’t think clearly or study like I used to.
On days that I felt sick
and just sick of studying,
I’d ask, "Why am I doing this if I could die tomorrow?"
But you know,
what medical student doesn’t ask that question at some point?
(Laughter)
Medical school constantly reminded me of my uncertainty.
From MRI’s to cadaver lab.
In the ICU,
I cared for a girl my age who had a bleed in her cavernoma.
She was paralyzed and cognitively five years old.
I kept my diagnosis a secret from most
because I didn’t want to be defined by it.
But at times,
my secret was lonely
and the uncertainty was dark and awful.
Slowly, though, I grew stronger.
Don’t get me wrong - it wasn't straight and smooth.
It was lots of ups and downs.
But, in time, old lady yoga
turned into actual yoga
and acroyoga
and aerial yoga
and aerial silks.
Aerial dance became for me a symbol of the beauty redeemed from my darkness.
It became a reminder
of the joy and gratefulness
that lights up my life,
and something like an image of resurrection.
So medically, where do I stand today?
I don’t know.
I know I have the cavernoma.
I know it’s bled in the past.
I don’t know if it will bleed again.
Maybe I’ll live 80 years,
with a full and healthy life.
Maybe I won’t.
I still hold onto that meditation from the Book of Common Prayer,
and I live into the uncertainty.
I resonate deeply
with the advice that Sir William Osler, the Father of Modern Medicine,
that he gave to his medical students.
He said,
"Our task is not to see what lies dimly at a distance
but to do what lies clearly at hand."
What does doing what lies clearly at hand
and seeing the future dimly
feel like?
I think it feels like dancing on the silks with a blindfold on,
like twirling through the air,
not exactly sure where you are.
What lies clearly at hand?
I can wrap this way.
I can tie this much.
I can release like this.
I cannot see,
but I can act -
dancing into the uncertainty.
Whether we're talking about medicine or religion
or relationships or school or jobs
or our dreams
or even the time of our death itself,
we all live into uncertainty.
My diagnosis reminds me that life isn't certain.
But maybe,
life doesn't need certainty
in order to be lived.
We all see but dimly,
and as the good doctor Osler reminds us,
we can all still do what lies clearly at hand.
Maybe
we can act,
even
when we can't see.
(Instrumental music: "A Million Dreams")
(Cheers)
(Applause)