Living With Uncertainty
When journalist Jonathan Gluck was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2002, he was given 18 months to 3 years to live. Now, over 23 years later, he tells how medical research, resilience, and hope have kept him going despite the myriad physical and emotional challenges he's faced. He explains how, for him, resilience means distraction, flow, and realistic optimism.
Stephen Calabria: [00:00:00] From the Mount Sinai Health System in New York City, this is Road to Resilience, a podcast about facing adversity. I'm your host, Stephen Calabria, Mount Sinai's, director of podcasting.
On this episode, we welcome Jonathan Gluck, a lifelong journalist who for over 30 years has battled multiple myeloma, a chronic and incurable blood cancer.
Mr. Gluck has just published a new memoir, titled A Lesson in Uncertainty, that details how he and his family navigated the rigors, trials, and lessons that come with a cancer diagnosis.
With June being National Cancer Survivors Month, Mr. Gluck's story is the perfect case study in resilience. We're honored to welcome Mr. Jonathan Gluck to the show.
Jonathan Gluck: My name is Jonathan Gluck, and I'm here because I've been a multiple myeloma patient for 20 plus years. And I've just written a book about my experience called an Exercise in Uncertainty.
Stephen Calabria: Now multiple myeloma, it is a cancer of the [00:01:00] blood, is that correct?
Jonathan Gluck: Yes. People sometimes refer to it as a bone marrow cancer, sometimes as a blood cancer, and either one is considered correct.
Stephen Calabria: How do you define resilience, both generally and in terms of surviving cancer?
Jonathan Gluck: Yeah, I would say in terms of surviving cancer resilience is a matter of just trying to take everything one step at a time, one day at a time. That's been my tactic anyway, and one that I have found has been reasonably useful.
That's not to say that I don't have days where I struggle to muster up the wherewithal to do that. A diagnosis like this is obviously very serious and can be difficult to deal with to say the least.
On any day where I'm not feeling resilient or any day where somebody else going through this isn't feeling resilient, I try to go easy on myself.