Mission: Improbable: The Moth Radio Hour

Summary

Mission: Improbable – The Moth Radio Hour (June 2, 2026)

Episode Overview

This episode of The Moth Radio Hour, hosted by Jay Allison, centers on the theme of “Mission: Improbable”—personal quests and challenges that initially seem insurmountable or absurdly difficult. The five storytellers share moments where they confronted daunting tasks, ranging from training a cat for protection, to overcoming trauma and illness, to navigating the bewildering early days of medical practice, to battling personal inertia, all the way down to the slapstick futility of helping strangers move a refrigerator. The stories celebrate resilience, humor, unexpected connections, and, above all, the quiet victories found in simply trying.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Gabby Rome: Training a Cat to be a Guard Animal (02:13–07:58)

• Background: Gabby moves into a no-dogs-allowed apartment after a traumatic home invasion, seeking comfort—and security—through an emotional support animal.
• Challenge: Her landlord forbids dogs but offers her a kitten. Though unconventional, Gabby hopes to train this kitten, Ruby, to alert her to knocks at the door or even “attack” intruders.
• Journey:
  • Feeds orphaned kitten, begins associating knocks with treats.
  • Progress surprises her: Ruby responds to knocks.
• Climax: During a panic attack, Gabby is approached by Ruby—not out of empathy, but expecting her treat, humorously highlighting feline priorities.
• Realization: “I have a pet kitten. She’s not a guard dog. She’s not a security system. She’s a cat named Ruby and she is not going to fix me.” (06:37)
• Resolution: Accepts the need for therapy. Years of work lead to recovery and sleep, prompting her to marvel: “Anything is possible. I trained a cat.” (07:52)
• Memorable Moment: The juxtaposition of Gabby’s urgent need for emotional solace and Ruby’s oblivious but instrumental role in her journey toward healing.

2. Elliot Higgins: Skydiving for a Grade (08:48–15:39)

• Background: In 1975, as a long-haired pre-med hippie, Elliot needs an A for his GPA, finds a slot in Skydiving 101.
• Challenge: Fear and lack of preparation confront him as the reality of jumping from a plane hits.
• Key Characters: “The Leaping Leprechaun”—a stern, bearded instructor who doesn’t like hippies.
• Climactic Jump:
  • Pushed out of the plane before he’s ready.
  • Parachute deploys, but he’s packed the harness wrong, leaving him dangling painfully.
  • Disoriented upon landing, deploys his federally-packed reserve chute—“a serious no-no.”
  • Must repeat jumps to earn the coveted A and barely makes it into dental school.
• Notable Quote: “I was floating to earth on my testicles.” (13:04) / “Trying is a victory in and of itself, regardless of outcome.” (45:23, echoed later by another storyteller).
• Insight: Sometimes success, by the skin of your teeth, is victory enough.

3. Dr. Danielle Ofri: The Night Shift and the Limits of Training (19:21–31:34)

• Setting: Danielle’s first night as a medical intern—the infamous July 1 turnover day. She’s tasked with covering the caseload of four interns overnight.
• Challenge: Called to check for gastrointestinal bleeding in an elderly patient, Mrs. Rodriguez, Danielle finds herself with the family during the patient’s final moments.
• Escalating Confusion:
  • Family wants to stay during the exam.
  • Lacking supplies, Danielle scours the wards in the dead of night.
  • Mrs. Rodriguez passes away during the process.
  • Danielle is uncertain—never formally taught how to declare death. Her nerves and self-doubt spiral in front of the patient’s family.
• Memorable Interactions:
  • “We just need you to pronounce her dead, Doctor, and then we can take her home.” (24:56)
  • The grandson’s gentle clarity contrasts with Danielle’s overwhelm.
• Resolution: Realizing that “trying to figure out whether or not Mrs. Rodriguez was dead…How could I ever be a doctor if I couldn’t tell a dead person from a live one?”
• Reflection: “One of the things about becoming a doctor is that you need to open your eyes…our truest teachers are our patients and their families, whose lives and experiences we are so, so privileged to be a part of.” (31:20)
• Insight: The limits of training, the importance of vulnerability, humility, and the wisdom imparted by patients.

4. Wendy Irwin: Hard Things, Mangoes, and Cancer (33:25–40:20)

• Background: Wendy, middle child of 11 in a Caribbean family, grows up amid joyful but disappointing mango feasts—and a family belief that “hard things” (like eating bad mangoes) define capability.
• Childhood Weight: Branded by an aunt: “If you can’t eat a mango means that you can’t do hard things.” (Approx. 34:00)
• Adult Parallel: A literal “hard thing” (a lump in her breast) arises. In classic fashion, Wendy ignores it, hoping it will resolve on its own.
• Turning Point: Diagnosis of breast cancer after weeks of avoidance and bargaining with “Ms. Mordie” (her nickname for the tumor).
• Transformational Fight: Undergoes treatment, including chemotherapy, which “leveled up the odds.”
• Resolution: Chemotherapy changes her taste buds and, in a symbolic end, she tries and enjoys a mango for the first time: “It tasted like joy and it smelled like the best part of summer…” (39:30)
• Notable Quote: “My name is Wendy Irwin. I can do hard things.” (40:09)
• Insight: Rewriting the internal script of self-doubt and avoidance; triumph not just over cancer but over inherited stories.

5. Brian Kett: The Refrigerator and Other Heavy Lifts (41:14–46:54)

• Backdrop: Brian, out of work and feeling defeated, finds himself helping two Russian-speaking strangers maneuver a giant refrigerator into a station wagon.
• Escalating Absurdity:
  • Multiple failed attempts to fit the fridge, followed by a comedic, wrench-wielding attack on its door hinges.
  • After chaos, back pain, traffic jams, and “pandemonium” with fridge shelves scattering into traffic, Brian is left feeling as if he’s failed these strangers, himself, and the whole point of the unplanned mission.
• Connection: As he sits in pain and frustration, the presumed fridge’s owner thanks him: “Thank you for trying. Means a lot.” (46:21)
• Turnaround: Those words help shift his mindset, inspire him to try again professionally.
• Notable Quote: “Trying is a victory in and of itself, regardless of outcome.” (46:28)
• Lessons: Sometimes the effort, not the result, is the true accomplishment.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Gabby Rome (about her cat):

  “She heard a knock and she would like her treat, please… She is not going to fix me… It’s taken the beautiful, perfect selfishness of this cat to show me I need to get some help.” (06:34–07:07)

• Elliot Higgins (on parachuting mishap):

  “My first thought was, wow, I’ve just been thrown out of a plane. My second thought was, I wasn’t ready.” (13:29–13:32)

• Dr. Danielle Ofri (on medical uncertainty):

  “How do you document the absence of something when its presence is defined by hunting until you find it?... Isn’t that what doctors do? Pronounce the time of death? How could I ever be a doctor if I couldn’t tell a dead person from a live one?” (25:19–26:15)

• Wendy Irwin (the family challenge):

  “If you can’t eat a mango means that you can’t do hard things.” (Approx. 34:00)

  And, triumphantly:

  “I ate that mango… My name is Wendy Irwin. I can do hard things.” (39:55–40:09)

• Brian Kett (on the value of effort):

  “Trying is a victory in and of itself, regardless of outcome.” (46:28)

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Important Timestamps by Segment

| Time | Story / Key Segment | Notable Quote / Event | |-----------|------------------------------|---------------------------------------------------| | 02:13 | Gabby Rome | “A baby kitten is probably the animal least capable of protecting me…” | | 06:37 | Gabby’s realization | “She is not going to fix me.” | | 08:48 | Elliot Higgins | “This story is a celebration of my… skydiving…” | | 13:04 | Parachute mishap | “I was floating to earth on my testicles.” | | 19:21 | Dr. Danielle Ofri | “The most ominous day of the year… is July 1.” | | 25:19–26:15 | Declaring death confusion | “How do you document the absence of something…” | | 33:25 | Wendy Irwin | “I just didn't like mangoes… I dare.” | | 39:55 | Wendy’s breakthrough | “I ate that mango... I can do hard things.” | | 41:14 | Brian Kett | “Every work opportunity I had would fall through…”| | 46:21 | Being thanked for trying | “Thank you for trying. Means a lot.” |

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Episode Takeaways

• Improbable missions are often less about dramatic external feats, and more about personal, emotional, or existential challenges.
• Trying, not just succeeding, is meaningfully transformative.
• Obstacles—be they trauma, illness, professional uncertainties, cultural identity, or sheer physical difficulty—are most powerfully met with humor, humility, and openness to new perspectives.
• The role of others—be they pets, family, patients, strangers—reminds us we rarely complete these journeys alone, even when we think we do.

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For Further Exploration

• Photos and storyteller updates: themoth.org
• Pitch your story: Visit themoth.org or call 877-799-MOTH

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This rich tapestry of stories from The Moth embodies the notion that while some missions may be improbable, they're rarely impossible—and trying (and telling) makes all the difference.

Transcript

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[Wendy Irwin]

So what's next?

[Elliot Higgins]

I feel liberated.

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We're gonna take this city back over

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[Wendy Irwin]

They're hunting us. It's time we started hunting them.

[Brian Kett]

I can work with them.

[Dr. Danielle Ofri]

This should be tons of fun.

[Jay Allison]

Marvel Television's Daredev Born Again. Now streaming only on Disney. This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm your host, Jay Allison. Life is littered with obstacles pretty much every day. If you're like me, some days I glide over them. Other days I bang my shins pretty hard. Today I'm gliding, but not expecting that to last. Every once in a while, we're faced with a challenge that feels impossible or at least highly improbable. Maybe not as extreme as scaling the world's tallest building or jumping in between airplanes looking at you, Tom Cruise, but ones that feel like our own personal mission Improbable. Our first storyteller is Gabby Rome. She takes on the notoriously futile task of cat training. Here's Gabby to tell you all about it live at the mall.

[Gabby Rome]

It's 2011 and I'm walking down the hallway of my apartment building. I'm headed to the management office because I've decided I need to get a dog. I just moved into this apartment building and it is not pet friendly, but I've done my research. I know all the laws in Michigan about emotional support animals. I've saved a month of my rent as collateral against damages. If that doesn't work, I didn't put concealer over the deep purple bags under my eyes. It's about 88 days into me getting maybe three hours a night of sleep, and I'm just hoping my sob story tugs at my landlord's heartstrings. You see, about three months prior, I was robbed while I was home. It started with a knock on my Door, which in the grand scheme of things is a very courteous way to start a crime. A man told me to get on my knees and face the wall. I was robbed. I called the police. I filed a report. I moved apartments. I spent my nights vigilantly lying awake listening. And I spent my days having panic attacks Every time a friendly neighbor knocked on my door to introduce themselves with a dog, I could train it to listen for me and I could get some rest. My landlord was like, oh my God, no, absolutely not. I hate dogs. You can't get a dog. I don't care what letter you get from the state, if you get a dog, I'll poison it. But I'm not heartless. You can have a cat. Conveniently, his niece had just found some kittens behind the carport. And if I go to the sixth floor, I can have my pick of the litter. A baby kitten is probably the animal least capable of protecting me. And conventional wisdom tells you you cannot train a cat. But between my sleep deprivation and my desperation, I figure maybe I can defy the odds. Maybe I can train this cat to hear a knock and then hit a button that makes the sound of a dog bark. Or train it to launch itself at the heads of intruders. The orphaned neonatal 14 ounce cat I take home that day needs to be fed via syringe every two to four hours. Which is fine because I'm not sleeping anyways. This kitten and I, I decide we're going to go to work. I knock and then I feed her. And as she gets older, I knock and then I throw a treat at the door. Weirdly, it's working like she's responding to the knocks. And one day, after a few hours of training, I'm standing in my kitchen making some waffles in the toaster and just watching the freezer burn melt off under the hot orange coils. Daydreaming about when I used to feel safe enough to have pizza delivered and how at my old apartment there was this great pizza place, this like mom and pop wood fired place that would get the cheese to crust.

[Brian Kett]

Pop.

[Gabby Rome]

The toaster startles me and I go into full fight or flight. I can't breathe, I'm shaking, I'm hyperventilating. I fall to my knees, my cheek pressed against the cold tile of the kitchen floor. And I'm thinking, oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God. And I wonder, can I die from a panic attack? When I feel a tap on my forehead. And through the tears I. I see this little four pound cat looking at me and I think, oh my God. Did all those nights of bottle feeding actually create like a close emotional bond where she's like checking on me and then she taps me again?

[Lisa Stump]

No.

[Gabby Rome]

This cat does not care about me or my emotional breakdown. She heard a knock and she would like her treat, please. Silently she's urging me, can you just get over it already? I feel my heartbeat slow and I have this moment where it dawns on me. I have a pet kitten. She's not a guard dog. She's not a security system. She's a cat named Ruby and she is not going to fix me. I reach for the container of Frisky's party mix. Yums. And I realize I've been working on this internal issue with external solutions. It's taken this beautiful, perfect selflessness of this cat to show me I need to get some help. I need to see a doctor.

[Lisa Stump]

And I do.

[Gabby Rome]

It takes me years of therapy and hard work to get over it. But now I sleep great. In fact, sometimes I'm amazed that I sleep so well and that it's even possible. But then I remember anything is possible. I trained a cat.

[Jay Allison]

That was Gabby Rome. Gabby told this story at a moth grand slam event in Detroit where we partnered with public radio station wdet. Gabby lives in Detroit and has simple loves gardening, riding her bike and drinking coffee. She told us that Ruby the cat has passed on, but there were zero robberies under her watch. Next up is Elliot Higgins. Elliot told this story at an open mic story slam in Denver where we partner with public radio station kunc. Here's Elliot.

[Elliot Higgins]

Hi everybody. My name's Elliot and this story is a celebration of my 25 or no my 45th year of anniversary of jumping out of an airplane in order to get into dental school. Now let's go back to 1975 and I am a prince hippie at University of Oregon and I'm a junior spring term and I desperately need another hour of A to pad my gpa. Now a spring or a pre med hippie has. I had huge hair, I had a bitchin hippie bead necklace and super cool bell bottom corduroys and a let's party attitude. So I was desperate for this A and all of the easy courses like bowling 101 were taken. So what am I supposed to do? And so out of the blue a miracle manifests itself by U of O's first ever offered Skydiving 101 for college students. And so yeah, I mean what's to think about? I sign up Immediately. What's the big deal, man? You get a parachute. So I. So our jump master was. He looked like Gimli from Lord of the Rings. He was a burly fella, about five foot one, bushy hair, bushy beard, beady eyes, and he did not like. He was a serious man, and he did not like hippies. And we called him the Leaping leprechaun. So class. Our class met every Tuesday and Thursday night, and we'd meet at the wrestling gym and jump off of bleachers and practice our landing on the mats. So I'd go pretty high and just have a fricking blast. And, you know, I'd pull off some really nice landings, tuck and roll, and come up pumping my hand, and go, airborne all the way, sir. And I would salute the leprechaun and then go, head back in the back of line. And I thought I was hilarious. So Wednesday afternoons, we met in the same gym, and we practiced folding our parachutes. And these are the parachutes you're going to fold. It's going to be on your back, and you're going to jump with it. So those were no weed Wednesdays. So now, after six weeks of our intense training, it's time to jump out of an airplane. So as a new jump cadet, you have to go up for an observation ride to make sure it's a good idea for said cadet. And so they pile me in the back of a small plane. We get up to jump height, about 3,000ft, three people pile out of the airplane. That's when reality hit this hippie in the face like a pie. I'm going, holy shit, man. I want to go back to the gym and just jump off of the bleachers again. And so we land, and I just sprint to the jump shack, and I call my father on the payphone. I go, dad, I mean, I'm in a pickle here. And so I listen, or he listens. And there's a fatherly pause. And my father says very clearly, son, you get your ass on that plane and out of that plane, no excuses. And I mean, that was like, well, no help here. And just. Just then the leprechaun comes up to me and goes, well, are you. Well, Mr. Airborne, are you gonna jump? Are you chicken? And I go, oh, yeah,

[Brian Kett]

I want

[Elliot Higgins]

to be first out. I don't watch. It freaks me out. He goes, all right, get your shoot and let's go. You're holding up the show. And so I struggle into my chute and I waddle after the leprechaun. And I pile into the plane last because I'm going to be first out. And we are at 3,000ft, way sooner than I want to be. There's a bunch of yelling, they cut the engine. And a leprechaun turns to me and just goes, put your feet out, get out and go. Well, I've never done this before, and it's windy out there, you know. And so I turn to the leprechaun and I say, sir, I'm having.

[Brian Kett]

And boom.

[Elliot Higgins]

He stiff arms me out of the plane. And you know, my first thought was, wow, I've just been thrown out of a plane. My second thought was I wasn't ready. And my third, there was no third thought. My personally packed parachute deployed beautifully. Oh, no. I had it wrapped wrongly around my. Around my testicles. And it's like I'm floating to earth on my testicles. And so what's a hippie to do? I pull up on those risers and I'm doing a pull up and I'm flying that chute everywhere. And I am zooming. And so just then, the leprechaun comes flying by in one of those really cool parafoil shoots, the modern one. And all I heard was, what the hell are you doing? And all he heard was, my ball. And so things are happening pretty fast. And so now mother earth is rushing up to caress me in her womanly bosom and I have. I mean, my balls are killing me and I am, I am not going. I've abandoned all training. I'm flying the chute and I just plant this baby. And so instead of a five point landing, tuck and roll, I did feet, knees, helmet. And I mean, I had my bell rung so badly, I was seeing stars. And I'm struggling to get up and I'm trying to manage my shoot and get out of my. And I deployed my federally packed reserve chute. That is such a. No, no. And the leprechaun comes roaring up and goes, well, Captain, airborne, it looks like you don't get an A. You're gonna have to. You're gonna have to jump two more times to get that A. So I did. And I barely got into dent.

[Jay Allison]

That was Elliot Higgins. Elliot says that he got into dental school by the skin of his teeth. And upon graduation, he was recruited to go to Southeast Asia and serve the expatriate community, which was a whole new world of friends and opportunities. He says 1982 to 1995 was a blast. And things continue to be a blast. In a moment, a medical intern finds herself in over her head when the Moth Radio Hour continues. The moth radio hour is produced by atlantic public media in woods hole, massachusetts.

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[Jay Allison]

This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Jay Allison. In this episode, we're hearing stories of people facing down challenges that seem insurmountable. My current insurmountable challenge may be shared with some of you is finding ways to bridge divides. This didn't used to be that difficult. Being friends or family or neighbors took precedence over our differences. But we have been transformed, mostly intentionally, by outside forces, into focusing on our differences. The challenge is remembering that humanity should come first. And even though that seems obvious, it's a struggle to find our way back to it. That's the improbable mission I'm on every single day. If you're on it too, good luck to us. I'll say one thing, listening to other people's stories is a big help. So with that, our next story of obstacles comes from Dr. Danielle Ofri. Here she is live at a show we produced in partnership with the World Science Festival in New York City.

[Dr. Danielle Ofri]

The most ominous day of the year, if you're becoming a doctor, is July 1. On July 1, everything turns over in the medical world. So medical students become doctors. They're now interns. Interns become residents, Residents are now fellows. Fellows become attendings. You're not supposed to remark on the bizarreness of being ratcheted up a notch at the stroke of midnight. No, on July 1st, you walk into your untested role, cool as a cucumber. And you act as though the world of June 30th and before never existed. Or as the interns say, when in doubt, pretend. And so, on June 30, I was a measly medical student. And on July 1, I was now one of those interns. I had been scheduled to start internship on night float four weeks straight of night shift only at 10 o' clock at night, I walked down First Avenue in the pitch darkness for my first day of internship. Now, night float is supposed to be the direct continuation of medical care from the day teams, but as a night float intern, I had the patient load of four other interns, so this wasn't possible. My beeper never stopped. Mr. Rivera in 19 south needs a new IV. Mr. Soto in 16 east is having chest pain. Mrs. Ahmed in 17 north has a fever. Mr. Halal's daughter's here, wants to talk to a doctor. Mrs. Rashid fell out of bed. Mrs. Kwan's refusing her meds. Mr. Nolan's having a blood transfusion reaction. Mr. Rivera's IV is out again. And so night float turned out to be 10 hours of damage control. I raced from one ward to the next, patching things up, putting out fires, just hoping to keep everyone alive until the sun came up over the east river and the day teams came back. So, one night in my second week of night float, I get paced by my resident. Around 3, 4 o' clock in the morning, Elba Rodriguez's blood count just dropped 13 points. Get over to 16 north, do a rectal, see if she's bleeding from her gut. Now, you should know that in the human body, there are only a few places where you can bleed briskly enough to drop your hematocrit 13 points. And the GI tract is the prime suspect. If you bleed anywhere along that line, from the mouth to the esophagus, stomach, small intestine, large intestine, rectum, there will be traces of blood in the stool. The way you check for a GI bleed is you get a stool sample, you put it on the card, and you put a few drops of the special developer fluid on it. And if it turns blue, that's blood. And the way you get a stool sample is you send an intern over to do a rectal exam. And so at this point in my career, I was very adept at taking orders. I didn't ask questions. I did what I was told. Mrs. Rodriguez was this tiny, wrinkled Dominican woman with layers and layers of family at the bedside. So I walk in and say, hi, I'm one of the night docs. I'm not her regular doctor, but I'm just here to do the rectal. And I'm thinking, Dr. Ofri, rectal specialist. And so the grandson steps forward. He says, well, we understand what you have to do, Doctor. I'm actually a nurse, and if you don't mind, I want to stay with Abuelita while you do the exam. Stay while I do this. And I'm thinking, what is the protocol for this situation? I've been a doctor now for two whole weeks, and I have no idea what to do when the family wants to stay. But I say, okay, whatever. So the rest of the family goes out to the hallway. We pull the curtain for some privacy from the other three patients. The grandson and I roll Mrs. Rodriguez onto her left side, and I start disgorging my pockets. The gloves, the lubrication fluid, the test cards. And then I realize I'm missing the bottle of developer fluid. So I say to the grandson, can you just hold on for one second? I need to get one more thing. So I dashed out of the room, and I avoid the gaze of the family members there, and I run to the supply closet and start rifling through the shelves and the bins. No developer fluid. So I raced down the hall to 16 west to their supply closet. And of course, none there. All the other interns have pocketed them. The ccu, the cardiac care unit was always well stocked, but I knew the nurses guard their supplies like hawks. So I crept in from the back door of the ccu. You know, where they keep the dirty laundry and the used bedpans. And I tiptoe over to the supply shelf. I start going through the shelves, and there's gauze pads and IV IVs and blood tubes and culture bottles and glycerin swabs and Betadine swabs and, ah, right behind the chest tubes is a single yellow bottle, developer fluid. And I snatch it just as the nurse yells, hey, those are CCU supplies. I cram it in my pocket and I run out with my head down, because from the back, all interns look alike. Or so I hoped. So I get back to 16 north, and I'm out of breath and I'm flustered and sweaty, and the Grandstone is still calmly balancing Mrs. Rodriguez on her left side. And so I undo the floral housecoat, the cardigan sweater, and the patient gown. I get down to her skin, and while I'm doing the exam, like a good nightfall intern, I'm running my scut list into my head. All right, I've got to do those blood cultures on 15 North. I've got to do the chest X ray to follow up on 17 West. And that guy in 19 south keeps pulling out his IV. And so I'm doing the exam, running the scut list, and the grandson says, I think that Abuelita is. Is no longer with us. No longer with us? What was he talking about? With his free hand, the grandson crossed himself and murmured something in Spanish. And I'm still frozen in the middle of the exam. No longer with us. Mrs. Rodriguez is dead. The grandson sighed. Abuelita lived a long and wonderful life. She didn't want any heroic measures or machines. She just wanted to drift off in peace. We just need you to pronounce her dead, Doctor, and then we can take her home. And I'm staring at the grandson. Suddenly my mind begins to race. I tear the glove off and I'm thinking, okay, okay. How do I declare a patient dead? And I'm running through the file cab in my head, thinking, okay, okay.

[Wendy Irwin]

Ah, ah.

[Dr. Danielle Ofri]

Pupillary reflexes. That's it. So I whip out my handy pen light and I shine into Mrs. Rodriguez's eyes. To my dismay, she has huge cataracts and probably wouldn't have had reflexes anyway. Okay, okay. Respirations. Dead people do not breathe. And so I whip out my stethoscope. By now the family has filtered in from the hallway, and they gather around and watch as I put in one earpiece and the other and I plant the bell on her chest, and suddenly a twist vibrates through her body and I jump back. Was this rigor mortis, or might she still be alive? Suddenly it dawns on me that we never had a lecture in medical school on how to declare a patient dead. I guess it was assumed to be pretty obvious. Dead is dead, and if you're not dead, then you're alive, right? Pulse. Pulse. That is it. Dead people for sure, do not have a pulse. And so I run my fingers along her left carotid and then along her right. Of course, the only way you know you found the pulse is when you found the pulse. How do you document. Document the absence of something when its presence is defined by hunting. Until you found It. Maybe I was in the wrong spot. Maybe I'm pressing too hard. Not hard enough. Was I supposed to go over her entire body to document the absence of a pulse? Another twitch runs through Mrs. Rodriguez's body, and the family is staring at me, waiting for an answer. But how can I say anything? What if I got it wrong? Okay, okay, an ekg. That's it. If I get a flat line on ekg, nobody could argue with that. So I run out and get the EKG machine and wheel it back in. These old decrepit EKG machines that Bellevue had, all the leads are tangled up. And these old machines have these red rubber suction cups to put on the chest. And when you squeeze them, electrode jelly from EKGs gone by slithers out incredible crusted blue clubs. And Mrs. Rodriguez, this skinny little woman, doesn't have much bulk on her chest for the suction cups to stay onto. So I'd squeeze one on and another one would pop off. And so I'd apply more jelly and put it on. Another one would pop off back and forth, and the family is like watching, like a tennis match, back and forth as I'm chasing down the obstreperous suction cups. Finally, finally, I get the EKG set up, all the chest leads, all the limb leads, and I press the start button. And we all stare at this skinny strip of graph paper that's sneaking out of the EKG machine. And I'm praying for something definitive. It emerges with completely unreadable squiggles between the rattling air vents and three IV pumps. The next bit over, I can't get a stable baseline, and I readjust the leads, and two more suction cups pop off. The grandson curls his hand around his grandmother's wrists, and he says, she's dead, Doctor. You don't have to do any more tests. The family joins hands and begins to pray in Spanish. And I'm standing there with EKG jelly crusted under my fingernails, burning with embarrassment. How could I not figure out whether or not Mrs. Rodriguez was dead? Isn't that what doctors do? Pronounce the time of death? How could I ever be a doctor if I couldn't tell a dead person from a live one? How could there exist so much to be ignorant of? When were these magical medical skills going to materialize? And what was I going to write on the death certificate as the immediate cause of death? The sun came up over the east river, as it always does, even after the longest, hardest night of night float. And as I'm signing out to the day teams. I'm thinking about Mrs. Rodriguez, and I imagine her as a young woman, a fresh immigrant right off the boat to New York. And maybe she came to Bellevue every year for her annual checkup. Maybe she had her children at Bellevue. Maybe she thought she would die at Bellevue. Wherever she was, I hoped she forgave me for the indignity she suffered at the hands of an inexperienced intern. Now, most of us, when we go home at the end of the day, it's the end of the day. The light is falling, twilight's coming, dusk. But when you work at night, the end of the day, it's brilliant morning sun. And I did night float. The month of July. And so it was so bright. I remember I would go home every morning like this, with my eyes covered. And when I look back at that time now, I realize that I spent so much of my medical training with my eyes closed, medicine, learning medicine, so internally focused, cramming in all those facts, all those diseases. I always had my head in a book. But one of the things about becoming a doctor is that you need to open your eyes. You need to open your eyes to the world around us, to the experiences that teach us medicine. But our truest teachers are our patients and their families, whose lives and experiences we are so, so privileged to be a part of. Thank.

[Jay Allison]

That was Danielle O Free. Danielle is still a doctor at Bellevue Hospital. She's co founder and editor in chief of Bellevue Literary Review, which is celebrating its 25th year of publishing creative writing about health, illness and healing. Her latest book is When We Do A Doctor Confronts Medical Error. When we asked Danielle what near impossible task she's facing these days, she said, I recently joined an orchestra. It's like jumping in the deep end of the pool with your cello and hoping you can keep your head above those thousands of notes swirling around. She wrote an article about it, which you can [e-mail] along with photos of Danielle in her roles as a cellist, a doctor and an editor. In. In a moment, a woman contemplates the difficulty of eating mangoes. And a man faces off with a refrigerator. When the Moth Radio Hour continues. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. This is the Moth Radio Hour. I'm Jay Allison. In this show, stories of struggling with obstacles with mixed results. Our next story is from Wendy Irwin. She told this at a grand Slam at Queen Elizabeth hall in London. Here's Wendy.

[Wendy Irwin]

Good evening. Give me a second. I'm with you. Growing up in the 70s, an interesting time when you are the middle child of 11, I lived with an excitable Caribbean family. And the thing that brought them joy, the thing that brought them to paroxysms of happiness was mangoes. I had an aunt, my Aunt Maudie, and she became our resource investigator. She was a person that scoured markets up and down London. Every inch, every store, every space was upturned and investigated because she brought back the mangoes. And it was generally on a Saturday during World d', Sport, she would announce the mangoes from the front gate and we'd all crowd round. Except Aunt Maud wasn't that good at the kind of mango getting. Like she had one job and she messed it up. It was like the mangoes that she'd got couldn't survive the middle passage between where they actually grew and where they were supposed to be eaten. They tasted of despair, desperation, not one thing good. And so when the rest of the family was crowding around Aunt Maudie, I realized I just didn't like mangoes. And yes, I hear just how dare you? I dare. I'm a black woman that just did not like mangoes. Forgive me. So Aunt Maudie would be in the center, you know, she'd be blocking out World of Sport when Giant Haystacks was going to do his thing. And I would just hang back because I just preferred the crunch of an apple. And I think it irritated her. It was her moment in the sun. And one day she says to me, you, Wendy, if you can't eat mangoes, what are you going to do with your life? If you can't eat a mango means that you can't do hard things. And you know what? In that moment, as she pointed at me, and it must have been something about the light, because it just glistened off her bracelets. And it must have been something about the length of her fingers that seemed preternaturally long at age 5 and the rings that glittered. But I somehow took on that identity. I don't do hard things. And that worked for a long, long time. It meant that I could avoid tough things like disagreement, like a job that I just wasn't feeling, a relationship that just had outlived its purpose. I didn't do tough things, and it worked. So roll forward a couple of decades later, and it is the coldest. It's the coldest day in November that I have ever experienced. And I'm sitting in a doctor's office when in fact, I'm in a hospital and I'm sitting on a really uncomfortable chair. My Bladder is full. And I am debating whether or not I can go to the toilet and risk being traumatized by the mess people have left in there. And I realize I can't. But let me go back eight weeks from that day when I met a person that I now call Ms. Mordi. And Ms. Mordie, let me be clear, is a thin, fibrous lump of tissue that I find in my left breast. A hard thing in every sense. And at that moment, I do what I've always done with hard things. I ignore. And so I ignored her for eight weeks. She just wasn't there. And then for a further seven weeks, I did the other thing that I do. I pleaded, I begged. Maybe if you don't get any bigger, or maybe if you wouldn't mind just disappearing because you weren't there last month. Ms. Mordy has other ideas. One night she says, I'm just gonna do a little dance, make a little love to the healthy cells in your breast and multiply with my malignancy. Tonight, that pain was so bad, it took me to A and E. And in that AE trip, I ended up having an ultrasound. And that ultrasound then led to a biopsy, and that biopsy then led to an mri. And that led to this moment in that office where that oncologist tells me, I am so sorry, Wendy, but it is breast cancer. And I recognize that I have lived long enough to see those odds shorten from 1 in 100 to 1 in 10, now, 1 in 2, now me. And the weirdest thing is, is that I find myself saying, as the oncologist says, have you thought about freezing your eggs? I find myself saying out loud the stuff I'm thinking like I have never had, to my knowledge, knowingly eaten a frozen egg. And what are they like with avocados? Is that something we could maybe talk about? You know? And the oncologist laughs and the nurse laughs and I laugh, and I realize, actually, we've got to go to work on Maudie. So Maudie and I fight. And what really levels up the odds is this beautiful, wicked, brutal thing called chemotherapy. It enters the ring, takes both of us out. I am the only one left standing. What I have learned is that chemotherapy gave me some brand new taste buds. And yesterday I tried a mango for the first time. It tasted like joy and it smelt like the best part of summer. You know those days when it's 24 degrees cloudless, and everyone looks good? I ate that mango. I gave thanks. And my name is Wendy Irwin. I can do hard things. Thank you.

[Jay Allison]

Wendy Irwin lives in East London and has an ongoing love affair with homemade butter and feminist theory. Wendy spends far too much time, she says, making preparations for the impending zombie apocalypse. Story UPDATE Wendy is happy to report that she has since discovered that there isn't a mango she doesn't like, and she remains cancer free and grateful. Our final story comes from Brian Kett, who told this at a Chicago Story Slam where we partner with public radio station wbez Live from the moth. Here's BR.

[Brian Kett]

Hi.

[Wendy Irwin]

Hello.

[Brian Kett]

Last year I was looking for work. I was out of work and I kept thinking of that old joke, what's the difference between a pizza and someone with a liberal arts degree? The answer being that the pizza can actually feed a family of four. I'm single, but that's just I don't have a There are no mouths to feed at home. But every work opportunity I had would fall through. And I became so frustrated and defeated that I couldn't even bring myself to sit down and follow up on my next job lead. So I left my apartment. I went for a walk. I thought that would help. And I was out walking when I came upon all these cars honking and driving around this station wagon in the middle of the road. And its hatchback was up. And next to it were these two guys who kind of look like the old man Muppets that sit in the balcony and make fun of everyone. And they were speaking in Russian. And they kept gesturing to this refrigerator covered in magnets that was sitting on the curb. And it's clear they were trying to move the fridge into the back of the station wagon. And it was a tight squeeze because the fridge was huge, right? It's the size of a fridge. And the two of them had these expressions that looked so sad. They looked like those animals that Sarah McLachlan sings about in those commercials. And I was going to keep walking, but I got stuck waiting for the light to change. So it was like the McLaughlin commercial was on and I couldn't switch the channel. And I became so overwhelmed with just emotion and guilt and just empathy. I turned to them, I said, do you guys need a hand? And they just looked at me. And so I mimed lifting the fridge. And they began nodding enthusiastically because turns out, I'm a great mime. And so the three of us lifted up this and we tried to slide it into the back of the station wagon. It didn't fit. Like, but barely, but didn't fit. We set it down and I thought, okay, I'm done. And then one of the Muppets. He pulled out this wrench. It's the biggest wrench I've ever seen. I don't know where it came from. And he began using it to try to take off the refrigerator door to get a little bit of extra clearance. And now I couldn't bail because we were all in this together, and we were on to phase two. And so for the next 20 minutes, I watched this guy try to take off this door. But the bolts on the door were so rusted, you need, like, a blowtorch to get them off. And by now, the cars are honking more and more. And I came to my senses. I thought, like, what am I doing? And so I turned to the guys. I said, hey, listen, good luck. I'm going to go. And I turned to walk away. And as I was walking away, I heard something in their voices. And I didn't know what they were saying, but there was a tone that I recognized because it was a tone that I had been using a lot myself lately. Both of them were clearly very frustrated and defeated, too. In that moment, I really saw myself in both those guys, and something inside me just kind of snapped. And in desperate need of a victory of my own, I whirled around. I said, no. And they looked at me a little alarmed, and I said, we're gonna rotate it. And they stared at me, and I go, we're gonna rotate. And I imitated turning the fridge on its side because the. Again, your great mime. And so we all gathered around, and I was at the base of it, and we picked this thing up. I was at the base of it by myself, and we tipped it on its side. The refrigerator door flopped open, hit the pavement. The shelves inside the fridge slid out into oncoming traffic. So now the cars are honking like crazy. There's a big backup. When the door hit the ground, all the magnets popped off, and they just scattered everywhere like cockroaches. It was instant pandemonium. And if that wasn't enough, when the door opened, there was a sudden shift in weight. And to maintain my grip, I lurched forward. And when I did so, my back went out. And as these pains are shooting down my spine and into my leg, I think, yeah, okay, this is it. This is how I die. Middle of the street. I just wanted to go for a walk. So we set the fridge down. My shirt is soaked through with sweat. And then out of nowhere, the. This woman appeared. I think it was her fridge, I don't know. And she starts yelling at the two guys. They start Giving it right back to her. And all I can do is just hobble off to the side of the road and sit down on the curb. And I felt terrible. Not just because of my back, but because this, like everything else I had been trying lately, was a total failure. And I must have seemed pretty upset because the woman saw me. And then she gave the guys a look that said, why does this guy care so much about my fridge? And so. The three of them are sitting there and they're talking with one another, and I just sat on the curb just reflecting on the futility of life. And I was sitting there doing that until she came over and she put her hand on my shoulder and she said, thank you for trying. Means a lot. And while her words didn't fix my back or the fridge that I probably broke, they really did make a difference because she was right. Right. Trying is a victory in and of itself, regardless of outcome. Because some days, yeah, you might not get the fridge in the back of the station wagon. And some days, you might throw out your back in the middle of rush hour. But if you keep trying, there might just be a day where it all works out. And so I hobbled home. And when I got home, the first thing I did was Google what a herniated disc feels like. And then reflecting upon what that woman said, I pulled up that next job lead and I tried again. Thanks.

[Jay Allison]

That was Brian Kett. Brian tells us that after this experience, experience, whenever he's moved, he's hired professionals. Brian is a Los Angeles based screenwriter who has pilot projects in development here and in Australia, which means he gets time zone conversions wrong a lot. Brian's pastimes include hunting for mid century furniture, fly fishing, and getting stuck on a crossword puzzle. We asked Brian what impressed probable task he's currently attempting and he said, I'm trying to teach our dog Mochi how to sick. I went into the process with such naive optimism, but she's seemingly unable to grasp the concept. She remains unbothered, unseated, and an absolute delight. To see photos and find out more about any of our storytellers here, you can go to themoth.org and while you're

[Brian Kett]

there, have you ever.

[Jay Allison]

Have you ever felt like you have a story you'd like to tell us about? Huge obstacles or small ones or whatever makes a great story, you can pitch it right on our site, that's themoth.org or call 877799, moth. That's 87799, moth.

[Lisa Stump]

My name is Lisa Stump. I live in Andover, Massachusetts. And this is my story. On New year's Eve in 2009, I went to my ring box to put on my engagement ring. And to my horror, I realized that I had lost the ring at some point during the previous seven days. The ring was expensive and had belonged to my husband's grandmother. And I was devastated. So I went on this quest to see if there was anything I could do to find this ring. And I did get a little obsessive. I filed a police report. I placed ads in the paper on Craigslist. I bought a metal detector. I went to a hypnotist. I searched for this ring everywhere I could think of. I put up posters in all the places I had been. I talked to everybody. I just did everything I could. I'm getting a little discouraged, but there had been a lot of snow that year, and I thought maybe when the snow piles melted at the edges of these parking lots where I had been, that maybe I could find it. So one day in March, there was so much rain that the schools were closed that day. And I had all the kids in the car and I went to the supermarket and I went over to the big snow pile near where I had parked my car. And I looked down and I saw something shiny. And I got out of the car and I went over to it, and it was a diamond ring. And I was so excited. And I leaned over and I picked it up and, oh, I was so disappointed. I had found a diamond ring, but it wasn't mine. But then, you know, I got a little encouraged, so I thought maybe I'd find the owner. So then I realized this wasn't going to be easy to find the owner of this ring. And I went through this incredible quest and I ended up on the featured on the front cover of the local newspaper. And then the radio stations called me and the TV stations called me, and I was on the news. And it was all very embarrassing but very exciting and exhilarating. And I eventually did find the owner. And I was humbled to find that she thought I was crazy. And she had replaced her ring a long time ago. And she was sort of grateful to have it back, but thought it was a nutcase. And I. I think that gave me the closure I needed to replace my own ring and leave it behind me. Thank you.

[Jay Allison]

Remember, you can pitch us find out all about how to do it at the that's it for this episode. We hope you'll join us next time. And that's the story from the Moth. This episode of the Moth Radio Hour was produced and hosted by me, Jay Allison. Co producer is Vicki Merrick, associate producer Emily Couch. The stories were directed by Kathryn Burns with additional Grand Slam coaching by Sarah Austin Jeuness and Larry Rosen. The Moss leadership team includes Gina Duncan, Christina Norman, Marina Cluce, Jennifer Hickson, Jordan Cardinale, Caledonia Cairns, Kate Teller, Suzanne Rust, Sarah Jane Johnson and Patricia Urenia. Moth stories are true as remembered and affirmed by the Storytellers. Our theme music is by the Drift. Other music in this hour is from Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions Podcast music production support from Davey Sumner. The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Special thanks to our friends at Odyssey, including Executive Producer Leah Rees Dennis. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story and to learn all about the Moth, go to our website themoth.org.

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