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Welcome to The Moth podcast.
I'm Michelle Jalowski, your host for this week.
Whether it's black tie, business casual or business uniform,
occasionally you have to dress up in order to fit in.
But sometimes it's easier to look the part than it is to play the role.
Taken from our first storyteller this week, Jennifer Leahy.
Jennifer told this story at a GrandSLAM in Boston,
where the theme of the night was Growing Pains.
Heads up if you're squeamish, Jennifer’s story contains a reference to blood.
Here's Jennifer live at The Moth.
So the surgeon has just removed
a collection of cholesterol known as a plaque from our patient’s
carotid artery. That's the one that you need in the neck
when it sprays blood all over me.
I'm a third year medical student, and this is by far the coolest thing
I have ever seen.
I watch in awe as a surgeon manages the bleeding,
finishes the surgery, and overall, the patient's fine.
And it went well.
And I watch as they wheel him out of the operating room.
And I start thinking about, God, I'm so hungry,
and I go and find something to eat.
I am killing it.
No, not killing it.
I'm doing a really good job as a as a medical student.
And I'm rocking the O.R.
And I know that if they asked me, I would be ready to be a doctor
the next day.
So it seems only fitting that my dad calls me to tell me he's
been in the hospital because the doctors are worried about his heart.
I arrive the
next day, still in my hospital scrubs because, you know, they're cool.
And my dad beams at me.
My sister rolls her eyes.
I stand next to the cardiologist because, you know,
we're on the same team and
And he pulls the rug out from under me as he tells me that my dad needs triple
bypass heart surgery within the next week.
As a student, I learn everything I can about a surgery before I go in.
I could tell you the way it's done, and I could tell you the one
in a million chance of a complication.
I learned about the patient.
I learned about medical histories and surgical histories and allergies.
I actually never ask about a family because,
you know, it's not that I don't care, but they're just not useful for me.
They're not going to be on the test and attendings not going to ask me about them.
And when I'm in the O.R., they're definitely not going to help me out.
They're the last thing on my mind.
But as my sister
and I start thinking about my dad's surgery,
I realize we have a different way to prepare.
We start thinking about to do lists and schedules and about the recovery period.
You know, the surgery is just one day, but then I realize it's
going to be weeks or months before my dad's back to his usual self.
And I realize I never think about recovery.
I'm just there for the day of the surgery,
maybe like 6 hours at most, and maybe a quick hi at 4 a.m.
the next morning when everyone loves to see a medical student.
But otherwise, I could care less.
And I realize, Oh gosh, I don't know if we can handle this.
And then I have the conversation with my dad
that I know is so important to have, but I'm not ready for.
And that's what.
What does he want us to do
if something goes wrong, if his heart stops or he stops breathing?
I've done this exercise with myself, with my medical student friends,
kind of just as a class exercise.
But it feels different when it's in real life.
I'm listed as
a health care proxy because, you know, I'm in the medical field,
but I think, oh my gosh, I hope it doesn't come down to this.
And I think I at least have some medical training and I feel so overwhelmed.
And I wonder what my patients and my patients families think about
navigating through this unfamiliar territory.
It's the day of the surgery.
And my dad, you know, classically makes us arrive about an hour early
because he doesn't trust us to get on time.
And the hospital is that quiet,
you know, morning time that I, you know, typically love.
But I hate right now because I could really use some noise to distract me.
The anesthesiologist comes in, gives my dad
something for anxiety, and I think I could use something for my nerves.
And the cardiologist comes in,
I know how much he needs to get done before this surgery,
and he takes the time to talk to my dad.
And then he turns and talks to my sister and me.
And that's something I've never done.
Talk to the family before surgery and I'm so relieved
and just so grateful for this grace he's shown us.
My dad hands us his belongings.
We say our ‘I love yous’, and then he's wheeled out the door that says Employees only.
And I think about all the times
I've walked through that door and how I'm on the wrong side right now.
And I really don't like this side.
The only things I've looked up about
is surgery is like the short video that shows like a cartoon heart.
And our circulatory system as one big loop.
That's really how it is in real life, I swear.
And I know roughly how long the surgery is going to take,
so I know it's going to be a long day, but I am prepared.
We go and get breakfast, we start watching a movie.
We rearrange all the couches in the waiting room to be aesthetically pleasing.
And I realize only 30 minutes have passed
in the O.R.
4 hours can be gone in a blink of an eye.
I'm like, Oh, that happened.
But in the waiting room,
you know, one minute can stretch out to be an hour,
and I sit, and it's probably the one of the longest days of my life.
And a volunteer comes in,
and finally she tells us everything went okay.
Your dad's out of surgery, and there were no complications.
And a weight I didn't know I had feels suddenly lifted.
My sister and I
go and see our dad he’s paler than I've ever seen him.
But he complains about that, you know.
You know, calming chime music that they have in his room.
And I chuckle and it's just I chuckle of relief because I know that
even though we have a long road ahead of us, he's still him.
About two days later, I'm back in the O.R.
on my surgery rotation, and I'm prepping for an emergency gallbladder removal.
I know all about the surgery.
I know all about the complications.
I know my patient’s history, both medical surgery and allergies.
And I go with the team to go wheel the patient to the operating room.
And as we're leaving his room, I hear his wife tearfully say, “Be careful.”
He's precious cargo.
And I do something I've never done before.
I stop.
The team goes through the door and I turn to the wife.
I hand her a box of tissues
and I offer her a hug.
And I realize that every person that I am so privileged to take care of
is somebody.
Someone just like my dad was
mine.
And I tell her, we're going to take really good care of him.
And I tell her that when everything's
all done, I'm going to come back and tell her how he did.
And make sure she's okay, too.
Because I've been in her shoes
and he's precious cargo.
Thank you.
That was Jennifer Leahy.
Jennifer is a family medicine obstetrical physician just outside of Boston.
She is human mom to Zoe and cat mom to cubic on warm Saturdays
you can find them by the ocean playing in the waves.
Well, at least Jennifer and Zoe, the cat stays home
to see both masked and maskless photos of Jennifer.
Head to the extras for this episode on our Web site, themoth.org/extras
Our next storyteller is Sivan Schondorf.
Sivan told this at a storySLAM in Chicago,
where the theme of the night was impostor.
Here's Sivan live at The Moth.
And I'm wearing flats and I still tripped.
Got it. Got it, got it, Got it.
Okay, so when I was 25 years old and living in
La la land, my one of my best friends, Mary, called me up and said,
“Do you want to be in a full page spread
in Lucky magazine wearing wedding dresses?”
And I was like, “Hells
Yes” I was young.
I had just moved across the country from Chicago,
and I was excited and looking for adventure.
And this seemed like the perfect fit.
And so she said, “okay, so you have to send a headshot to the casting director.
She'll do some details with you. Okay.
And the only thing is that you actually have to pretend that we're real brides.
Okay Bye!”
And I was like, “Mary, I don't think I can do that.
You know, I'm terrible at lying.
And, you know, I don't think that's my thing.”
And she's like, “No, it'll be great.
We'll be in the lie together.
Nobody would care, so let's just do it.
And I do believe in safety in numbers.”
So I thought, okay.
Plus, I had been a real bride just the year before,
so I thought, okay, you know, maybe I can fake my way through this.
So I had a phone conversation with the casting director a few days
before or something, and she went through the details of the day with me.
And then she confirmed at the end of the conversation.
So you are engaged to be married, right?
And I was like, Yes, I am.
I'll see you there.
And so that's when I realized that we were going to be
at this bridal shoot with presumably other real brides.
And there was going to be probably wedding talk.
So we were going to need wedding dates.
We were going to need backstories, we were going to need engagement rings.
So the day before the shoot, I went to Claire's Boutique
and I got us a three pack of wedding rings.
And Mary picked the solitaire and I picked the three stone.
And we the day we went to the bridal shoot,
we practiced our stories for each other and we admired each other's rings.
And we were really just giddy and ready for the day.
And it was on the famous Robertson Boulevard.
And we tried on Wedding dresses we had.
Oh, that's okay.
You know, not going to be on the radio, I guess no I'm just kidding.
And then we had
we had wedding dresses picked out
and we had our jewelry and accessories.
And then all we had to do was wait.
And the wedding
in the wedding trailer in the trailer to get our hair and makeup done.
And that's when I was cornered by the most interrogated,
loquacious bride of all.
And she proceeded to ask me a lot of questions as I got
my hair and makeup done.
So when are you getting married?
Oh, no date set.
Just playing it by ear.
Oh, how come?
Well, my fiancee, David, is in med school in New York,
and so we're a long distance,
so we're just going to wait till we're in a more subtle state.
Oh, let me see your ring.
And it quickly flashed through my ring, realizing.
Do you like my $2 ring?
Oh, my God. It looks so overly sparkly.
And then she proceeded to ask me about how did he propose?
And you see, having been a real bride before,
that's when my unresolved issues about having had this failed engagement
started to come up and I was going to be found out.
Now as a fraudulent bride again.
And the thing is, I had a real wedding dress,
except it was sitting in a box in my parent's garage in Chicago, and I
had had a real engagement ring except I had given it back to my ex-fiancee,
whose name was not David, and he was not in med school in New York.
And I had a real back story, except my back story was a lot
more heartache and a lot less Hollywood glamor photo shoots.
And I started getting red and perspiring.
And I thought about how, you know, they say the saying, always a bridesmaid,
never a bride.
And it's not like my goal
was to be married, but it wasn't to be constantly engaged.
And I was starting to think I was going to be called always a bride, never a wife.
And I was dripping sweat and my makeup was coming off
and Mary was giving me a hold it together look.
And that's when they called my name
and I went to get my modeling on.
And I have to tell you, I felt very special
for the day, as phony as I was totally fake.
And when the magazine came out, I was very proud.
And yes, people did call my parents and say “Is Sivan engaged again?”
And they were like, “No, it's fake.”
And later that month I met this guy and partly
because I thought it would impress him and also because it was,
you know, preemptive damage control.
I told him about the photo shoot in the magazine
and he was like, “Well, can I see it?”
And I said, “Yes, but I emphasize it's totally fake.”
And so he saw it.
And then he noted to me
that, you know, at the bottom it says her own engagement ring.
So I didn't know how that played.
But apparently a few weeks later he was at a friend's house
and the friend's girlfriend had magazines all over the table
and his friend was like, Well, tell me about this new girl you're dating.
And he's like, Well, hold on a second.
And he grabbed the magazine.
He opened it up to my page and he showed him and a couple of years
later, I put on my third wedding dress as a bona fide bride.
Thank you.
That was Sivan Schlöndorff.
Sivan is a speech pathologist, and her family knows her as a lifelong talker.
She advocates for those with the BRCA mutation
who are high risk for breast or ovarian cancer.
As a recently turned 40 year old with three kids,
Sivan was called a cool mom by a stranger while dancing on a catamaran tour.
She values that stranger's opinion above anyone else's.
To see some photos of Sivan in both real and staged wedding scenes.
Head to our website.
Themoth.org/extras
That's all for this week.
From all of us here at The Moth, have a story worthy week.
Michelle Jalowski is a producer and director at The Moth, where she helps
people craft and shape their stories for stages all over the world.
This episode of The Moth podcast was produced by Sarah Austin Jenness,
Sarah Jane Johnson, Julia Purcell and me Davy Sumner.
With assistance from Jason Richards.
The rest of the Moth leadership team includes Catherine Burns, Sarah Haberman.
Jenifer Hickson, Meg Bowles. Kate Tellers.
Jennifer Birmingham.
Marina Klutse, Susanne Rust, Brandon Grant, Inga Glodowski and Aldi Kaza.
All moth stories are true as remembered by storytellers.
For more about our podcast information on
pitching your own story and everything else, visit our website.
themoth.org
The Moth podcast is presented by PRX,
the Public Radio Exchange helping make public radio more public.
At prx.org