Ep 202 Cancer Part 1: What is it?
This Podcast Will Kill You
Exactly Right and iHeartPodcasts
4.8 • 17.7K Ratings
🗓️ 3 March 2026
⏱️ 98 minutes
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Summary
Cancer has touched every one of us in some capacity, and learning of a diagnosis inspires many more questions than it answers. In this four-part series on cancer, we aim to lay a foundation of knowledge that will help make sense of this multifaceted disease. We begin our four-part series on cancer by asking a deceptively simple question: what is cancer? As we’ll discover over the course of these episodes, there is not one answer but many. After all, cancer is not one disease but many. In this first episode, we examine the clinical definitions of cancer - when someone receives a cancer diagnosis, how is that determined, and what does that mean? Viewing that question through a historical lens reveals our changing understanding of cancer and how that knowledge filters into the public perception of this disease. With cancer diagnoses on the rise, it’s tempting to label cancer a disease of the 20th or 21st centuries. But is that the case? Tune in to find out.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is exactly right. |
| 0:07.0 | People who didn't do what John of God wanted them to do, they usually disappeared. |
| 0:15.0 | John of God was once Brazil's most famous spiritual healer. |
| 0:20.0 | But in this limited series podcast, we uncover the darker truth behind his global empire |
| 0:26.4 | of faith and fear. |
| 0:29.0 | From exactly right and Adonde Media, this is Two-Faced, John of God. |
| 0:34.6 | Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:41.1 | Throughout this series, we'll be discussing many aspects of cancer diagnosis and treatment, |
| 0:46.3 | and we will be sharing several personal stories related to cancer. Some listeners might find |
| 0:51.4 | this content upsetting. Please listen with discretion. |
| 0:59.1 | Do you know that you can live without a jugular vein? |
| 1:05.4 | Those were the first words my surgeon told us after he removed said vein during my second excision surgery for squamous cell carcinoma. |
| 1:09.2 | Six months earlier, the newly discovered cancer was isolated to my tongue and lymph node. |
| 1:15.2 | The cancer was brought on by the human papilloma virus, HV. |
| 1:20.4 | As a Gen Xer, I probably got it long ago. |
| 1:24.1 | However, my children are likely to be spared HIV and this kind of cancer because of the Gardasil vaccine. |
| 1:31.5 | The cancer was removed with good margins, meaning they'd probably gotten it all. |
| 1:37.6 | Then came the radiation to creep up any stray cells hanging around. |
| 1:42.7 | I received the largest dose possible. |
| 1:45.4 | Thirty sessions directed in my neck and mouth. |
| 1:49.3 | Before radiation began, I was told there was a deterioration risk to surrounding bone |
| 1:54.8 | structures. |
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