WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.417 --> 00:00:03.000
(gentle music)

2
00:00:04.140 --> 00:00:05.723
Welcome to "Hadley Presents."

3
00:00:05.723 --> 00:00:07.770
I'm your host Ricky Enger,

4
00:00:07.770 --> 00:00:09.990
inviting you to sit back, relax

5
00:00:09.990 --> 00:00:12.870
and enjoy a conversation with the experts.

6
00:00:12.870 --> 00:00:13.920
In this episode,

7
00:00:13.920 --> 00:00:17.280
we're joined by New York Times columnist, Frank Bruni,

8
00:00:17.280 --> 00:00:19.380
sharing his experience with vision loss.

9
00:00:19.380 --> 00:00:20.770
Welcome to the show Frank.

10
00:00:20.770 --> 00:00:21.603
Hi, thanks for having me.

11
00:00:21.603 --> 00:00:23.970
Hey, thanks so much for being here.

12
00:00:23.970 --> 00:00:27.960
So, you've had actually quite the interesting career,

13
00:00:27.960 --> 00:00:30.180
but for those who don't yet follow you,

14
00:00:30.180 --> 00:00:32.040
why don't you tell us a little about who you are

15
00:00:32.040 --> 00:00:33.600
and what you do?

16
00:00:33.600 --> 00:00:35.340
Well, I'm a New York Times writer.

17
00:00:35.340 --> 00:00:37.170
Right now, I write an op-ed column

18
00:00:37.170 --> 00:00:39.930
that appears twice a week plus a weekly newsletter,

19
00:00:39.930 --> 00:00:42.000
but I've been with the Times for,

20
00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:44.430
it's getting close to a quarter century, 25 years

21
00:00:44.430 --> 00:00:47.700
and I've had one of the more sort of eclectic careers

22
00:00:47.700 --> 00:00:48.533
at the Times.

23
00:00:48.533 --> 00:00:51.946
I was a religion reporter in the beginning for a while.

24
00:00:51.946 --> 00:00:54.390
I did a lot of politics

25
00:00:54.390 --> 00:00:57.510
and covered George W. Bush's 2000 presidential campaign

26
00:00:57.510 --> 00:00:58.343
for the Times.

27
00:00:58.343 --> 00:01:00.450
I was this sort of main reporter on his plane.

28
00:01:00.450 --> 00:01:01.770
I was the Rome bureau chief,

29
00:01:01.770 --> 00:01:04.170
I was the chief restaurant critic for five and a half years,

30
00:01:04.170 --> 00:01:06.360
and I've been doing the op-ed column I think

31
00:01:06.360 --> 00:01:08.430
for about eight years now.

32
00:01:08.430 --> 00:01:11.520
I've also done a whole bunch of arts and culture reporting

33
00:01:11.520 --> 00:01:13.170
and long profiles of celebrities,

34
00:01:13.170 --> 00:01:16.140
so it's been, as I said, very, very eclectic.

35
00:01:16.140 --> 00:01:16.973
For sure.

36
00:01:16.973 --> 00:01:18.720
And you're a foodie as well.

37
00:01:18.720 --> 00:01:20.850
I think you've actually written a couple of books,

38
00:01:20.850 --> 00:01:22.380
related to food, yeah?

39
00:01:22.380 --> 00:01:24.122
I wrote a memoir that was

40
00:01:24.122 --> 00:01:25.530
basically about my eating life,

41
00:01:25.530 --> 00:01:27.900
it is called Born Round.

42
00:01:27.900 --> 00:01:29.610
That came out in 2009.

43
00:01:29.610 --> 00:01:32.730
More recently, I wrote an all meatloaf cookbook.

44
00:01:32.730 --> 00:01:34.110
And in between those things,

45
00:01:34.110 --> 00:01:36.210
just to show you how all over the map I am,

46
00:01:36.210 --> 00:01:39.030
I wrote a book on the college admissions mania

47
00:01:39.030 --> 00:01:40.899
and why you shouldn't be so obsessed,

48
00:01:40.899 --> 00:01:42.930
about getting into a school

49
00:01:42.930 --> 00:01:45.210
with an acceptance rate below 10%.

50
00:01:45.210 --> 00:01:48.630
And a years ago I wrote a kind of portrait

51
00:01:48.630 --> 00:01:52.650
of George W. Bush's campaign called "Ambling into History."

52
00:01:52.650 --> 00:01:54.540
Nice, so there's a lot out there

53
00:01:54.540 --> 00:01:57.480
for people to read in terms of your writing.

54
00:01:57.480 --> 00:01:59.513
If they want to, they can get very sick of me,

55
00:01:59.513 --> 00:02:00.480
Yeah.

56
00:02:00.480 --> 00:02:02.430
I've got to read your meatloaf book,

57
00:02:02.430 --> 00:02:06.540
just to see if you're part of the ketchup contingent or not.

58
00:02:06.540 --> 00:02:07.920
I'm looking forward to finding out.

59
00:02:07.920 --> 00:02:08.820
Depends on the loaf.

60
00:02:08.820 --> 00:02:10.110
There are 50 loaves in there.

61
00:02:10.110 --> 00:02:13.020
So, a lot of different condiments.

62
00:02:13.020 --> 00:02:17.070
So, you have been

63
00:02:17.070 --> 00:02:18.810
fully sighted all your life I believe

64
00:02:18.810 --> 00:02:22.530
and then quite suddenly, you were not.

65
00:02:22.530 --> 00:02:25.440
Why don't you tell us kind of how that came about?

66
00:02:25.440 --> 00:02:28.980
In October of 2017 I guess it was,

67
00:02:28.980 --> 00:02:30.420
I woke up one Saturday morning,

68
00:02:30.420 --> 00:02:33.000
it was a Saturday morning of Columbus Day weekend.

69
00:02:33.000 --> 00:02:35.940
As the morning went on, my vision felt weird.

70
00:02:35.940 --> 00:02:37.230
It was weird,

71
00:02:37.230 --> 00:02:39.330
but not disastrously so.

72
00:02:39.330 --> 00:02:41.760
As the morning went on, I thought something's wrong

73
00:02:41.760 --> 00:02:44.400
and I kept on thinking that I had some gunk in my eye

74
00:02:44.400 --> 00:02:47.040
or maybe my glasses were dirty

75
00:02:47.040 --> 00:02:48.840
or maybe I didn't have enough caffeine

76
00:02:48.840 --> 00:02:50.131
in my system or whatever.

77
00:02:50.131 --> 00:02:52.470
Only as the day went along and I began opening

78
00:02:52.470 --> 00:02:53.370
and closing one eye,

79
00:02:53.370 --> 00:02:55.920
the other eye did I realize that the vision in my right eye

80
00:02:55.920 --> 00:03:00.790
was profoundly blurry in a way that was not remedied

81
00:03:01.770 --> 00:03:05.580
by running warm water over it in the shower,

82
00:03:05.580 --> 00:03:07.230
cleaning it out or anything like that.

83
00:03:07.230 --> 00:03:08.550
And over the next couple of days,

84
00:03:08.550 --> 00:03:10.567
I went to see my normal ophthalmologist.

85
00:03:10.567 --> 00:03:13.650
He kind of had a sense

86
00:03:13.650 --> 00:03:16.410
that it might be some sort of optic neuropathy

87
00:03:16.410 --> 00:03:19.440
and he sent me to a neuro ophthalmologist

88
00:03:19.440 --> 00:03:22.860
who diagnosed me with something called an NAION,

89
00:03:22.860 --> 00:03:24.510
that's the shorthand for it,

90
00:03:24.510 --> 00:03:25.710
which and I may get this wrong,

91
00:03:25.710 --> 00:03:26.543
I think it stands

92
00:03:26.543 --> 00:03:31.080
for Non-Arteritic Anterior Ischemic Optic Neuropathy.

93
00:03:31.080 --> 00:03:34.050
And what it basically means is that I've had

94
00:03:34.050 --> 00:03:36.870
what physicians kind of colloquially referred to

95
00:03:36.870 --> 00:03:38.880
as a stroke of the optic nerve.

96
00:03:38.880 --> 00:03:41.850
And for reasons that are not entirely clear,

97
00:03:41.850 --> 00:03:43.800
at some point overnight that night

98
00:03:43.800 --> 00:03:46.320
and this most frequently happens to people

99
00:03:46.320 --> 00:03:47.970
to whom it happens at night,

100
00:03:47.970 --> 00:03:52.380
there had been a significant blood pressure change or drop

101
00:03:52.380 --> 00:03:56.550
that ended up depriving the optic nerve of adequate blood

102
00:03:56.550 --> 00:03:59.280
and thus adequate oxygen for a long enough period of time

103
00:03:59.280 --> 00:04:00.930
that the nerve partially died

104
00:04:00.930 --> 00:04:03.060
and that's what this condition is.

105
00:04:03.060 --> 00:04:06.150
In some cases, in the first two weeks,

106
00:04:06.150 --> 00:04:07.920
the situation gets a little bit worse

107
00:04:07.920 --> 00:04:09.030
and then it stabilizes.

108
00:04:09.030 --> 00:04:10.860
That's kind of how it was for me.

109
00:04:10.860 --> 00:04:11.850
In some cases,

110
00:04:11.850 --> 00:04:14.670
it gets a teeny bit better before it stabilizes.

111
00:04:14.670 --> 00:04:18.300
In most cases, in aggregate, the damage is permanent.

112
00:04:18.300 --> 00:04:20.292
And there is no treatment for it.

113
00:04:20.292 --> 00:04:25.292
There was a clinical trial going on when I was diagnosed

114
00:04:25.620 --> 00:04:27.570
that I was a part of that has already been ended,

115
00:04:27.570 --> 00:04:29.010
because the results were so poor,

116
00:04:29.010 --> 00:04:30.480
they didn't even finish it.

117
00:04:30.480 --> 00:04:32.220
And then the capper is,

118
00:04:32.220 --> 00:04:34.980
the literature suggests that if this happens to you

119
00:04:34.980 --> 00:04:37.920
in one eye, there's a one in five chance

120
00:04:37.920 --> 00:04:41.130
that it will happen in the coming years in the other eye.

121
00:04:41.130 --> 00:04:42.450
And that's of course a huge thing,

122
00:04:42.450 --> 00:04:46.890
because you can get through the world quite well.

123
00:04:46.890 --> 00:04:48.300
A lot of people do sometimes

124
00:04:48.300 --> 00:04:50.910
from birth with vision in just one eye.

125
00:04:50.910 --> 00:04:53.725
So, my left eye is still with,

126
00:04:53.725 --> 00:04:56.760
when I wear glasses, my left eye is still 20/20

127
00:04:56.760 --> 00:04:58.560
and it does all the work now.

128
00:04:58.560 --> 00:05:02.130
But if it were affected to the extent that my right eye is,

129
00:05:02.130 --> 00:05:06.990
I would quite likely fit the definition of legally blind.

130
00:05:06.990 --> 00:05:09.316
And so before this happened,

131
00:05:09.316 --> 00:05:13.830
was vision loss on your radar in any way at all?

132
00:05:13.830 --> 00:05:15.780
Like did you know someone who had lost vision?

133
00:05:15.780 --> 00:05:16.613
No?

134
00:05:16.613 --> 00:05:17.610
No, no.

135
00:05:17.610 --> 00:05:20.515
I mean, it's funny you worry about whatever you worry about.

136
00:05:20.515 --> 00:05:24.270
I don't know that I had that many specific worries,

137
00:05:24.270 --> 00:05:25.980
but it's hard to remember now.

138
00:05:25.980 --> 00:05:29.220
But I mean if I had kind of health worries,

139
00:05:29.220 --> 00:05:31.458
health paranoias, health nightmare scenarios,

140
00:05:31.458 --> 00:05:34.440
I never thought, "Oh, what if I lost my vision?"

141
00:05:34.440 --> 00:05:35.527
For that matter, I never thought,

142
00:05:35.527 --> 00:05:36.840
"Oh, what if I lost my hearing?"

143
00:05:36.840 --> 00:05:38.850
Those just weren't things that I thought about.

144
00:05:38.850 --> 00:05:40.110
I've not met many,

145
00:05:40.110 --> 00:05:42.330
although I have subsequently learned that most people

146
00:05:42.330 --> 00:05:44.610
who are legally blind become so over the course

147
00:05:44.610 --> 00:05:46.350
of their lives and are not born that way.

148
00:05:46.350 --> 00:05:48.330
I have not met many of those people

149
00:05:48.330 --> 00:05:51.510
and the ones I have tended and this is the case

150
00:05:51.510 --> 00:05:55.020
to kind of lose their vision at an earlier age than mine,

151
00:05:55.020 --> 00:05:57.570
which when this happened, I was 52.

152
00:05:57.570 --> 00:05:59.317
Nothing in my experience suggested,

153
00:05:59.317 --> 00:06:01.687
"Oh, I'm aging, I'm in my 50s,

154
00:06:01.687 --> 00:06:03.570
"I better worry about my vision."

155
00:06:03.570 --> 00:06:05.850
Now, if I were a smarter man, I probably would have,

156
00:06:05.850 --> 00:06:08.070
because there are a lot of things that do come on

157
00:06:08.070 --> 00:06:09.570
as you get older, as you all know.

158
00:06:09.570 --> 00:06:12.060
I mean glaucoma, macular degeneration,

159
00:06:12.060 --> 00:06:13.380
a lot of that stuff.

160
00:06:13.380 --> 00:06:15.090
But I think I was more familiar with stuff,

161
00:06:15.090 --> 00:06:19.080
like retinitis pigmentosa and blindness agents

162
00:06:19.080 --> 00:06:21.330
that happen more between the age of like the late teens

163
00:06:21.330 --> 00:06:22.740
and the mid-30s.

164
00:06:22.740 --> 00:06:24.951
And of course for people,

165
00:06:24.951 --> 00:06:28.200
whether they've thought about vision loss or not,

166
00:06:28.200 --> 00:06:31.447
there's usually not like a plan in their back pocket of,

167
00:06:31.447 --> 00:06:33.780
"Oh, this is what I'll do when that happens."

168
00:06:33.780 --> 00:06:38.357
And so I suspect you didn't necessarily have an idea

169
00:06:39.420 --> 00:06:41.760
of what would happen.

170
00:06:41.760 --> 00:06:44.880
So, what were you thinking in those very early days

171
00:06:44.880 --> 00:06:48.390
when you're told this is what has happened,

172
00:06:48.390 --> 00:06:50.820
it's not going to get better and there's a chance

173
00:06:50.820 --> 00:06:53.700
that the other I could be affected as well?

174
00:06:53.700 --> 00:06:56.250
Well, I think adrenaline is our friend.

175
00:06:56.250 --> 00:07:00.270
I remember sort of operating on a wave of adrenaline

176
00:07:00.270 --> 00:07:01.410
for several weeks.

177
00:07:01.410 --> 00:07:05.610
My mind was just pinging and juiced

178
00:07:05.610 --> 00:07:09.569
with the kind of wonder of what had happened to me.

179
00:07:09.569 --> 00:07:14.070
And I think that prevented any kind of emotional crash,

180
00:07:14.070 --> 00:07:16.560
that prevented any kind of obsessive worry,

181
00:07:16.560 --> 00:07:18.330
about what happens next.

182
00:07:18.330 --> 00:07:20.490
And I think that sort of subsided.

183
00:07:20.490 --> 00:07:22.680
I feel like we're given all of these,

184
00:07:22.680 --> 00:07:25.110
I don't know if they're evolutionary tools or whatever,

185
00:07:25.110 --> 00:07:26.130
that work out quite well.

186
00:07:26.130 --> 00:07:28.230
I think that subsided gradually enough.

187
00:07:28.230 --> 00:07:30.450
It wasn't like there was ever a crash.

188
00:07:30.450 --> 00:07:34.260
That I kind of was able to ease into the realization

189
00:07:34.260 --> 00:07:36.060
of what my situation was.

190
00:07:36.060 --> 00:07:38.310
And my attitude about it actually changed over time.

191
00:07:38.310 --> 00:07:41.280
I remember just as a kind of metaphor and example,

192
00:07:41.280 --> 00:07:44.352
I've never liked listening to books, audio, never at all.

193
00:07:44.352 --> 00:07:47.100
I immediately, it's just my mind wanders.

194
00:07:47.100 --> 00:07:48.360
I have trouble concentrating.

195
00:07:48.360 --> 00:07:51.210
I like the act of visual reading.

196
00:07:51.210 --> 00:07:54.517
And I remember fairly quickly after this happened thinking,

197
00:07:54.517 --> 00:07:55.350
"Well, you know what?

198
00:07:55.350 --> 00:07:57.397
"I should be listening to more audiobooks,

199
00:07:57.397 --> 00:07:59.857
"because I should be listening to them instead of music

200
00:07:59.857 --> 00:08:02.250
"when I run or when I'm on the treadmill."

201
00:08:02.250 --> 00:08:03.600
And now there's another reason,

202
00:08:03.600 --> 00:08:05.970
because it could be the case that there will be a day

203
00:08:05.970 --> 00:08:09.270
when that's my only way to read books.

204
00:08:09.270 --> 00:08:12.930
And so I remember getting an audio, whatever that,

205
00:08:12.930 --> 00:08:13.800
What is it called?

206
00:08:13.800 --> 00:08:14.633
Audible.

207
00:08:14.633 --> 00:08:16.260
I remember getting an Audible subscription.

208
00:08:16.260 --> 00:08:18.759
I have so many unused credits, I can't tell you.

209
00:08:18.759 --> 00:08:21.030
I remember downloading,

210
00:08:21.030 --> 00:08:23.430
I think it was Jennifer Egan's new book,

211
00:08:23.430 --> 00:08:25.350
which I think is it "Manhattan Beach?"

212
00:08:25.350 --> 00:08:26.183
I don't know.

213
00:08:26.183 --> 00:08:27.016
I remember downloading that.

214
00:08:27.016 --> 00:08:31.230
I remember downloading "Sapiens" by Yuval Harari.

215
00:08:31.230 --> 00:08:32.820
I'm saying his name wrong, I'm sure.

216
00:08:32.820 --> 00:08:35.310
And starting both of those and finishing neither of those,

217
00:08:35.310 --> 00:08:37.950
because I was listening to them.

218
00:08:37.950 --> 00:08:39.990
But I kept on thinking I am going to train myself

219
00:08:39.990 --> 00:08:40.823
to do this.

220
00:08:40.823 --> 00:08:43.770
Because my attitude was I need to develop some new habits,

221
00:08:43.770 --> 00:08:48.640
so it is not so jarring if the other eye goes.

222
00:08:48.640 --> 00:08:51.030
And then my attitude changed entirely and I thought,

223
00:08:51.030 --> 00:08:52.201
you know what?

224
00:08:52.201 --> 00:08:53.034
I'm actually doing the wrong thing,

225
00:08:53.034 --> 00:08:55.950
because I love reading-reading.

226
00:08:55.950 --> 00:08:59.100
So, what I'm going to do is do more of that

227
00:08:59.100 --> 00:09:02.910
and kind of ring every last drop I can from that

228
00:09:02.910 --> 00:09:05.340
for as long as I have it even if I lose it.

229
00:09:05.340 --> 00:09:06.577
Because I said to myself,

230
00:09:06.577 --> 00:09:09.727
"I will be able to make the adjustment

231
00:09:09.727 --> 00:09:11.250
"and it will be tough."

232
00:09:11.250 --> 00:09:12.960
So, I kind of didn't know how to cope

233
00:09:12.960 --> 00:09:14.130
and I felt my way through it

234
00:09:14.130 --> 00:09:15.690
in terms of what I should brace for

235
00:09:15.690 --> 00:09:17.010
and what I should just not,

236
00:09:17.010 --> 00:09:19.020
what I should put out of mind.

237
00:09:19.020 --> 00:09:20.640
And I have mostly gone the route

238
00:09:20.640 --> 00:09:21.930
and it may be the wrong one.

239
00:09:21.930 --> 00:09:24.300
I think there's no right or wrong route.

240
00:09:24.300 --> 00:09:25.980
I think it's different for everyone.

241
00:09:25.980 --> 00:09:29.010
I've mostly gone the route of putting this out of mind.

242
00:09:29.010 --> 00:09:30.750
Now, it's never far from mind,

243
00:09:30.750 --> 00:09:32.160
because right now the trial I'm in,

244
00:09:32.160 --> 00:09:33.960
I stick a needle in myself

245
00:09:33.960 --> 00:09:37.118
and pump myself full of a serum twice a week.

246
00:09:37.118 --> 00:09:39.780
And every day when I turn on the computer,

247
00:09:39.780 --> 00:09:42.090
I mean my vision is not what it once was,

248
00:09:42.090 --> 00:09:44.310
because my right eye still tries to participate

249
00:09:44.310 --> 00:09:47.580
and my brain hasn't succeeded in editing it all the way out.

250
00:09:47.580 --> 00:09:49.920
There are times when I go into a sort of double vision.

251
00:09:49.920 --> 00:09:50.753
There's times

252
00:09:50.753 --> 00:09:54.180
when what I'm reading almost seems to tilt diagonally.

253
00:09:54.180 --> 00:09:58.140
There's times when whatever the effect on my vision is,

254
00:09:58.140 --> 00:10:00.480
it makes me feel like I'm sort of woozy and drunk

255
00:10:00.480 --> 00:10:02.850
and I'm not, and I have trouble concentrating.

256
00:10:02.850 --> 00:10:04.590
So, I'm always aware of this.

257
00:10:04.590 --> 00:10:07.410
But I have found what works best for me

258
00:10:07.410 --> 00:10:11.190
is rather than thinking a lot about what will I do,

259
00:10:11.190 --> 00:10:14.820
life adjustment wise, if the left eye quits on me,

260
00:10:14.820 --> 00:10:18.420
I have found that I am saner and more productive

261
00:10:18.420 --> 00:10:20.070
and I move forward better

262
00:10:20.070 --> 00:10:23.400
to just put that out of mind knowing I'll deal with it

263
00:10:23.400 --> 00:10:24.630
if and when it comes.

264
00:10:24.630 --> 00:10:26.438
So, I'm not really in denial,

265
00:10:26.438 --> 00:10:29.163
but I'm in some little baby version of that,

266
00:10:29.163 --> 00:10:30.960
that I think is a gift.

267
00:10:30.960 --> 00:10:33.060
I think it's a very healthy approach

268
00:10:33.060 --> 00:10:33.893
to think of it

269
00:10:33.893 --> 00:10:37.470
that way because there are things that you can't change,

270
00:10:37.470 --> 00:10:39.120
but you know what your present is

271
00:10:39.120 --> 00:10:41.850
and you've decided that whatever comes,

272
00:10:41.850 --> 00:10:43.980
you can deal with that, you know that.

273
00:10:43.980 --> 00:10:48.030
And in the meantime, you do what you want to do.

274
00:10:48.030 --> 00:10:50.730
There are ways in which my behavior has changed

275
00:10:50.730 --> 00:10:52.606
that are absolutely cognizant of this

276
00:10:52.606 --> 00:10:55.950
and that are meant to be kind of responsible

277
00:10:55.950 --> 00:10:57.286
and maximize my odds.

278
00:10:57.286 --> 00:11:00.444
There's more that's unknown about NAION

279
00:11:00.444 --> 00:11:02.280
than that's known about it.

280
00:11:02.280 --> 00:11:06.540
It is believed that if you have an optic nerve structure,

281
00:11:06.540 --> 00:11:08.670
which I have now learned that I have,

282
00:11:08.670 --> 00:11:10.793
that renders you susceptible to this,

283
00:11:10.793 --> 00:11:14.280
if the conditions align in a certain way.

284
00:11:14.280 --> 00:11:15.330
Because there are many more people

285
00:11:15.330 --> 00:11:16.800
who would be susceptible

286
00:11:16.800 --> 00:11:19.140
than who end up having the stroke of the optic nerve.

287
00:11:19.140 --> 00:11:22.011
It is believed that sudden changes in blood pressure,

288
00:11:22.011 --> 00:11:25.260
might be a trigger.

289
00:11:25.260 --> 00:11:27.960
There is some belief among some physicians,

290
00:11:27.960 --> 00:11:29.590
this is very, very debated,

291
00:11:29.590 --> 00:11:32.490
that you might want to steer away

292
00:11:32.490 --> 00:11:34.800
from being at very high altitudes

293
00:11:34.800 --> 00:11:37.320
if you're trying to minimize

294
00:11:37.320 --> 00:11:40.110
the possibility of this stroke hitting the other eye.

295
00:11:40.110 --> 00:11:42.679
I stopped going to the Aspen Ideas Festival.

296
00:11:42.679 --> 00:11:46.373
Now I may go back after a couple of years, I don't know.

297
00:11:46.373 --> 00:11:49.200
I take a baby aspirin every single day

298
00:11:49.200 --> 00:11:50.190
to promote blood flow.

299
00:11:50.190 --> 00:11:52.950
Like I do those few things that maybe, maybe,

300
00:11:52.950 --> 00:11:54.090
not superstition,

301
00:11:54.090 --> 00:11:58.230
but 70% superstition, 30% science.

302
00:11:58.230 --> 00:12:00.870
I do those things that would fall within the realm

303
00:12:00.870 --> 00:12:03.690
of responsible and I remain cognizant that way.

304
00:12:03.690 --> 00:12:07.920
But in those instances where denial is helpful,

305
00:12:07.920 --> 00:12:09.450
I allow myself to deny.

306
00:12:09.450 --> 00:12:12.570
Do you feel like vision loss

307
00:12:12.570 --> 00:12:15.210
has impacted your writing in any way,

308
00:12:15.210 --> 00:12:18.900
whether it's kind of the mechanics of how you do it

309
00:12:18.900 --> 00:12:20.670
and of course just the style

310
00:12:20.670 --> 00:12:22.590
or the things that you write about?

311
00:12:22.590 --> 00:12:23.910
In regard to the former,

312
00:12:23.910 --> 00:12:26.945
I'm lucky as I've always been a very, very fleet writer.

313
00:12:26.945 --> 00:12:29.550
In fact, I often, for the Times,

314
00:12:29.550 --> 00:12:31.590
write analyses of political debates

315
00:12:31.590 --> 00:12:35.190
that are up on our website 90 minutes after the debate ends.

316
00:12:35.190 --> 00:12:36.330
I am slower.

317
00:12:36.330 --> 00:12:38.700
Luckily, I started from a baseline of fast,

318
00:12:38.700 --> 00:12:40.320
but I'm a slower writer,

319
00:12:40.320 --> 00:12:42.240
because I have to circle back more frequently,

320
00:12:42.240 --> 00:12:43.897
because I make more mistakes.

321
00:12:43.897 --> 00:12:45.660
I'm very lucky.

322
00:12:45.660 --> 00:12:47.250
This is something, this isn't what you asked,

323
00:12:47.250 --> 00:12:50.880
but I'm so much more conscious of the ways

324
00:12:50.880 --> 00:12:52.440
in which I'm lucky here than unlucky,

325
00:12:52.440 --> 00:12:53.790
of the ways in which,

326
00:12:53.790 --> 00:12:56.640
because of various aspects of what I do and who I am,

327
00:12:56.640 --> 00:12:59.233
this is not impacting me the way it would someone else.

328
00:12:59.233 --> 00:13:00.307
People have said to me,

329
00:13:00.307 --> 00:13:01.747
"Oh my God, this is so horrible.

330
00:13:01.747 --> 00:13:04.861
"You're a writer, how do you write without good vision?"

331
00:13:04.861 --> 00:13:05.694
Well, you know what?

332
00:13:05.694 --> 00:13:06.527
You actually can.

333
00:13:06.527 --> 00:13:09.030
You can't be a truck driver without good vision.

334
00:13:09.030 --> 00:13:10.290
You can't be a surgeon.

335
00:13:10.290 --> 00:13:13.530
I mean, I could probably list 50 careers

336
00:13:13.530 --> 00:13:16.230
where you'd be over without good vision

337
00:13:16.230 --> 00:13:18.150
and writing is not one of them.

338
00:13:18.150 --> 00:13:19.560
It really isn't.

339
00:13:19.560 --> 00:13:22.320
I learned to type properly when I was a teenager.

340
00:13:22.320 --> 00:13:24.270
In fact, I wrote a whole column about this

341
00:13:24.270 --> 00:13:25.740
and I know where home row is.

342
00:13:25.740 --> 00:13:30.000
And once my finger's run home row on the keyboard,

343
00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:32.070
I'm not looking at the letters.

344
00:13:32.070 --> 00:13:34.680
However, because we always make mistakes,

345
00:13:34.680 --> 00:13:36.810
it takes me longer to see the mistakes,

346
00:13:36.810 --> 00:13:39.180
because I'm not seeing the screen as sharply.

347
00:13:39.180 --> 00:13:41.790
Something happens in my brain, confusion wise,

348
00:13:41.790 --> 00:13:42.900
where I really have to go back

349
00:13:42.900 --> 00:13:46.020
and read every paragraph more times than I would otherwise

350
00:13:46.020 --> 00:13:47.155
to catch typos.

351
00:13:47.155 --> 00:13:50.400
And so it has slowed me down and frustrated me in that way.

352
00:13:50.400 --> 00:13:53.100
Has it changed what I write about or my style?

353
00:13:53.100 --> 00:13:54.660
I doubt it's changed my style,

354
00:13:54.660 --> 00:13:57.150
but I think I write a little bit more about

355
00:13:57.150 --> 00:13:59.160
where I'm more interested in writing about,

356
00:13:59.160 --> 00:14:01.140
people going through struggles

357
00:14:01.140 --> 00:14:04.620
and I think maybe I have an extra measure of empathy.

358
00:14:04.620 --> 00:14:08.471
Have you had the opportunity to meet other people

359
00:14:08.471 --> 00:14:11.790
who have low vision now that you've lost some of yours?

360
00:14:11.790 --> 00:14:14.040
Yeah, I've made a point of it, not tons,

361
00:14:14.040 --> 00:14:16.080
but I've gotten to be very friendly

362
00:14:16.080 --> 00:14:19.050
with a very renowned jurist in Washington D.C.

363
00:14:19.050 --> 00:14:20.370
Who's on the Circuit Court there,

364
00:14:20.370 --> 00:14:22.260
which is one step below the Supreme Court.

365
00:14:22.260 --> 00:14:27.260
His name is David Tatel and he has retinitis pigmentosa

366
00:14:27.300 --> 00:14:31.020
and he lost his vision by the time he was about 32.

367
00:14:31.020 --> 00:14:32.850
And he and his wife have become friends

368
00:14:32.850 --> 00:14:35.460
and he has had a brilliant judicial career.

369
00:14:35.460 --> 00:14:37.050
And if you went into his courtroom

370
00:14:37.050 --> 00:14:39.240
and you knew nothing about him

371
00:14:39.240 --> 00:14:40.628
and you just watched for a while,

372
00:14:40.628 --> 00:14:43.020
you very likely would never pick up on the fact

373
00:14:43.020 --> 00:14:44.880
that he is profoundly, legally blind.

374
00:14:44.880 --> 00:14:46.260
He sees almost nothing.

375
00:14:46.260 --> 00:14:47.910
If you watched really carefully

376
00:14:47.910 --> 00:14:49.470
and you saw him exit the courtroom,

377
00:14:49.470 --> 00:14:51.300
you would see him hugging the wall.

378
00:14:51.300 --> 00:14:52.980
And apparently something that has happened

379
00:14:52.980 --> 00:14:54.900
in the last couple of weeks since I last saw him,

380
00:14:54.900 --> 00:14:57.840
he has, at the age of mid-70s,

381
00:14:57.840 --> 00:15:01.410
he's actually integrated a guide dog into his life,

382
00:15:01.410 --> 00:15:03.677
which he has had such an amazing attitude about him.

383
00:15:03.677 --> 00:15:06.690
I mean he has viewed it and approached it

384
00:15:06.690 --> 00:15:10.197
and experienced it as this adventure, which it is.

385
00:15:10.197 --> 00:15:12.420
And I think that's the real answer to your question

386
00:15:12.420 --> 00:15:15.497
is I never before understood so fully

387
00:15:15.497 --> 00:15:18.660
how crucial perspective is,

388
00:15:18.660 --> 00:15:21.093
how crucial it is to realize

389
00:15:21.093 --> 00:15:24.150
that this challenge you've been visited with

390
00:15:24.150 --> 00:15:27.420
is a pittance compared to what most people deal with.

391
00:15:27.420 --> 00:15:29.730
How crucial it is to realize that everybody,

392
00:15:29.730 --> 00:15:32.220
if not visible to the naked eye,

393
00:15:32.220 --> 00:15:35.010
is going through something pretty difficult probably

394
00:15:35.010 --> 00:15:36.480
and you just don't know it.

395
00:15:36.480 --> 00:15:38.120
When you open your eyes to that,

396
00:15:38.120 --> 00:15:40.830
it is enormously emotionally helpful.

397
00:15:40.830 --> 00:15:43.470
And I think it makes you a bigger and better person.

398
00:15:43.470 --> 00:15:47.490
Is there something aside from just as you say,

399
00:15:47.490 --> 00:15:50.640
opening your eyes to this perspective

400
00:15:50.640 --> 00:15:53.310
and how everyone is going through a struggle

401
00:15:53.310 --> 00:15:55.380
and each of us has them,

402
00:15:55.380 --> 00:15:59.160
is there something that's been particularly helpful

403
00:15:59.160 --> 00:16:01.170
for you since you've lost your sight,

404
00:16:01.170 --> 00:16:04.230
whether it's just a something that you've realized

405
00:16:04.230 --> 00:16:06.480
or even some piece of technology

406
00:16:06.480 --> 00:16:08.130
or some experience that you've had

407
00:16:08.130 --> 00:16:10.380
that's been really helpful for you?

408
00:16:10.380 --> 00:16:12.390
The impact of this on me remains,

409
00:16:12.390 --> 00:16:14.820
for lack of a better word, subtle enough

410
00:16:14.820 --> 00:16:17.280
that I'm not in the realm benefiting much

411
00:16:17.280 --> 00:16:18.540
from technological assistance.

412
00:16:18.540 --> 00:16:19.650
I mean other than the fact

413
00:16:19.650 --> 00:16:22.431
that I've increased the font sizes on everything I write.

414
00:16:22.431 --> 00:16:25.020
And there again, talk about perspective,

415
00:16:25.020 --> 00:16:27.060
I mean 20 years ago,

416
00:16:27.060 --> 00:16:30.060
I would not have been able to monkey with the look

417
00:16:30.060 --> 00:16:32.340
and the size of what I read and the back-lighting

418
00:16:32.340 --> 00:16:33.990
or front lighting or side lighting

419
00:16:33.990 --> 00:16:35.527
or upside down or whatever.

420
00:16:35.527 --> 00:16:40.350
I mean I am able, because I live at this moment in time,

421
00:16:40.350 --> 00:16:44.550
to manipulate the visuals of what I read

422
00:16:44.550 --> 00:16:48.180
or the computer aspects of what I'm writing in a way

423
00:16:48.180 --> 00:16:51.510
that is enormously helpful and it's very low tech.

424
00:16:51.510 --> 00:16:53.220
I mean it's nothing I had to learn to do,

425
00:16:53.220 --> 00:16:54.690
I just had to start doing it.

426
00:16:54.690 --> 00:16:56.370
That wouldn't have been doable in the past.

427
00:16:56.370 --> 00:17:01.370
And so how lucky am I to have NAION in 2019

428
00:17:01.950 --> 00:17:06.950
and not even in 1999 or God forbid, 1959, right?

429
00:17:07.860 --> 00:17:08.940
That's exactly it.

430
00:17:08.940 --> 00:17:11.550
I often tell people that if you have to be blind,

431
00:17:11.550 --> 00:17:14.040
now's the perfect time for that to happen,

432
00:17:14.040 --> 00:17:16.380
because there are so many more opportunities

433
00:17:16.380 --> 00:17:19.890
and it's far, far different than it was just 20 years ago.

434
00:17:19.890 --> 00:17:20.940
Yeah, no, and it's funny,

435
00:17:20.940 --> 00:17:21.880
I mean, you and I are talking about this.

436
00:17:21.880 --> 00:17:24.210
Every vision challenged person talks about this

437
00:17:24.210 --> 00:17:25.410
and is aware of this.

438
00:17:25.410 --> 00:17:27.378
God bless Apple.

439
00:17:27.378 --> 00:17:30.720
We talk about corporations in such evil terms

440
00:17:30.720 --> 00:17:33.090
and sometimes that's entirely justified,

441
00:17:33.090 --> 00:17:34.573
but I often love me Apple because,

442
00:17:34.573 --> 00:17:37.860
whether it's dictation stuff, et cetera,

443
00:17:37.860 --> 00:17:40.710
they've been really sensitive to this

444
00:17:40.710 --> 00:17:44.850
in a way that I suspect goes beyond the market reward,

445
00:17:44.850 --> 00:17:45.840
but I don't know.

446
00:17:45.840 --> 00:17:47.149
What else has been helpful?

447
00:17:47.149 --> 00:17:50.070
The perspective thing I mentioned

448
00:17:50.070 --> 00:17:51.540
in realizing other people's struggle

449
00:17:51.540 --> 00:17:53.090
has really been the most helpful.

450
00:17:53.090 --> 00:17:55.770
But as a kind of sub point of that, I would say,

451
00:17:55.770 --> 00:17:58.680
I often do kind of go through my head,

452
00:17:58.680 --> 00:18:02.100
kind of like do a roll call of the people in my life.

453
00:18:02.100 --> 00:18:04.470
And I look at them from the perspective

454
00:18:04.470 --> 00:18:06.960
of what have they been through in the last five years?

455
00:18:06.960 --> 00:18:08.430
What are they going through now?

456
00:18:08.430 --> 00:18:09.810
And there's all sorts of stuff

457
00:18:09.810 --> 00:18:12.690
that I wouldn't be so conscious of

458
00:18:12.690 --> 00:18:15.120
if I weren't going through that exercise.

459
00:18:15.120 --> 00:18:17.460
Which is an exercise that I think makes me a better friend,

460
00:18:17.460 --> 00:18:19.530
but it also is something that kind of gives me

461
00:18:19.530 --> 00:18:22.290
a better awareness of my place on things

462
00:18:22.290 --> 00:18:25.050
and becomes protection against self-pity.

463
00:18:25.050 --> 00:18:29.647
Is there one thing that when the doctor told you,

464
00:18:29.647 --> 00:18:30.480
"This is it.

465
00:18:30.480 --> 00:18:32.017
"This is what has happened.

466
00:18:32.017 --> 00:18:34.687
"You're going to have to get used to things as they are

467
00:18:34.687 --> 00:18:37.200
"or perhaps worse than they are now."

468
00:18:37.200 --> 00:18:38.670
Is there something that you wish

469
00:18:38.670 --> 00:18:41.130
that someone had told you then

470
00:18:41.130 --> 00:18:43.050
that you've kind of figured out for yourself now

471
00:18:43.050 --> 00:18:44.377
and you just wish you could say,

472
00:18:44.377 --> 00:18:47.250
"Hey self, this is what I know now?"

473
00:18:47.250 --> 00:18:49.230
This isn't exactly what I think you have in mind,

474
00:18:49.230 --> 00:18:54.120
but I wish that the initial doctor or for that matter,

475
00:18:54.120 --> 00:18:56.340
other doctors had done something,

476
00:18:56.340 --> 00:18:58.680
which now that I've integrated many more doctors

477
00:18:58.680 --> 00:18:59.670
into my life.

478
00:18:59.670 --> 00:19:02.520
Something that wasn't said to me by the first doctor I saw,

479
00:19:02.520 --> 00:19:05.040
by the second doctor I saw, by the third doctor I saw.

480
00:19:05.040 --> 00:19:06.900
Something that wasn't ever really said to me

481
00:19:06.900 --> 00:19:10.533
was your challenge from this day forward

482
00:19:10.533 --> 00:19:13.380
is in much greater measure,

483
00:19:13.380 --> 00:19:16.436
psychological and emotional than it is physical.

484
00:19:16.436 --> 00:19:19.650
And you might want to think about

485
00:19:19.650 --> 00:19:21.480
whom you're going to talk to the most about this,

486
00:19:21.480 --> 00:19:23.820
whether you want to talk to somebody professionally.

487
00:19:23.820 --> 00:19:28.820
It remains shocking to me and I would call it derelict,

488
00:19:28.860 --> 00:19:33.450
delinquent, negligent that the medical profession doesn't,

489
00:19:33.450 --> 00:19:35.190
as a practice and a habit,

490
00:19:35.190 --> 00:19:37.310
and the doctors aren't better trained

491
00:19:37.310 --> 00:19:41.340
to realize and brace for and help patients,

492
00:19:41.340 --> 00:19:44.340
through the psychological impact of illness or disability

493
00:19:44.340 --> 00:19:47.507
or any sort of medical shock like this.

494
00:19:47.507 --> 00:19:49.770
I almost get a little angry

495
00:19:49.770 --> 00:19:51.780
when I think about the two visits,

496
00:19:51.780 --> 00:19:53.790
I made to the initial doctor

497
00:19:53.790 --> 00:19:56.280
and the two times I left that office

498
00:19:56.280 --> 00:20:00.247
with her sort of shaking her head and sort of like,

499
00:20:00.247 --> 00:20:02.700
"Yeah, this is a really rough blow."

500
00:20:02.700 --> 00:20:04.597
And never was it said like,

501
00:20:04.597 --> 00:20:07.560
"Would you like a referral to a counselor?"

502
00:20:07.560 --> 00:20:09.086
Never was that brought up at all.

503
00:20:09.086 --> 00:20:13.290
And I think it's possible in this doctor's case that,

504
00:20:13.290 --> 00:20:16.060
this doctor I came in as an educated person.

505
00:20:16.060 --> 00:20:19.410
I was a New York Times columnist, maybe she knew my name.

506
00:20:19.410 --> 00:20:21.750
My romantic partner at the time was a physician

507
00:20:21.750 --> 00:20:22.650
who was there with me,

508
00:20:22.650 --> 00:20:24.843
maybe she thought he's got it covered,

509
00:20:24.843 --> 00:20:26.700
but there were other doctors who saw me

510
00:20:26.700 --> 00:20:28.770
who wouldn't have necessarily made those assumptions.

511
00:20:28.770 --> 00:20:30.450
And she shouldn't have either.

512
00:20:30.450 --> 00:20:32.838
As a kind of, to find answer to your question,

513
00:20:32.838 --> 00:20:37.650
I wish the doctors at the start had been more aware of that,

514
00:20:37.650 --> 00:20:39.810
have had more of a conversation with me about that.

515
00:20:39.810 --> 00:20:41.520
But I wish it almost less for myself,

516
00:20:41.520 --> 00:20:42.840
because I can take care of myself.

517
00:20:42.840 --> 00:20:45.540
I'm a big boy and I'm smart about these things

518
00:20:45.540 --> 00:20:46.770
and I'm conscious,

519
00:20:46.770 --> 00:20:49.350
but I really worry for other people,

520
00:20:49.350 --> 00:20:50.610
because there are people

521
00:20:50.610 --> 00:20:53.430
who really should have that said to them.

522
00:20:53.430 --> 00:20:56.130
There are other people who don't have as many friends.

523
00:20:56.130 --> 00:20:58.500
And I think, and I've talked to people,

524
00:20:58.500 --> 00:21:02.940
I think this is a fairly common widespread flaw

525
00:21:02.940 --> 00:21:03.840
in the medical profession,

526
00:21:03.840 --> 00:21:06.450
well beyond eye doctors, you know?

527
00:21:06.450 --> 00:21:09.360
And it's so obvious that I'm dumbfounded

528
00:21:09.360 --> 00:21:10.830
that it's not remedied.

529
00:21:10.830 --> 00:21:12.817
Sadly, it's kind of a case of,

530
00:21:12.817 --> 00:21:15.277
"Well we can't do anything more to fix you.

531
00:21:15.277 --> 00:21:18.787
"And so our role here is done.

532
00:21:18.787 --> 00:21:20.850
"Good luck or not, off you go."

533
00:21:20.850 --> 00:21:22.890
And that's very unfortunate.

534
00:21:22.890 --> 00:21:24.706
I think physicians need to be much,

535
00:21:24.706 --> 00:21:25.650
much more careful,

536
00:21:25.650 --> 00:21:28.020
about the information that they're doling out,

537
00:21:28.020 --> 00:21:29.400
because it has a real impact

538
00:21:29.400 --> 00:21:31.170
and sometimes they're doing it cavalierly.

539
00:21:31.170 --> 00:21:34.440
The physician in question insisted that the chance

540
00:21:34.440 --> 00:21:36.630
that my other eye would go was 40%,

541
00:21:36.630 --> 00:21:39.270
now because I've done some journalism on this now

542
00:21:39.270 --> 00:21:42.090
and I'm again, talk about luck, I can pick up the phone.

543
00:21:42.090 --> 00:21:43.140
And because I'm a journalist

544
00:21:43.140 --> 00:21:44.520
who's going to be writing some about this

545
00:21:44.520 --> 00:21:45.990
and has written some about this,

546
00:21:45.990 --> 00:21:46.920
I can pretty much get

547
00:21:46.920 --> 00:21:48.690
the most prominent neuro-ophthalmologist

548
00:21:48.690 --> 00:21:50.340
in the country on the phone

549
00:21:50.340 --> 00:21:52.470
and I can ask them questions journalistically

550
00:21:52.470 --> 00:21:54.720
which are valid, which I am asking for that reason,

551
00:21:54.720 --> 00:21:58.260
that are also the subjects of my curiosity, right?

552
00:21:58.260 --> 00:21:59.093
Not everybody can do it,

553
00:21:59.093 --> 00:22:03.390
but I now know that that 40% was a real outlier prediction,

554
00:22:03.390 --> 00:22:06.653
that almost everybody else is in the 15% to 20% range.

555
00:22:06.653 --> 00:22:09.030
Don't throw that number out

556
00:22:09.030 --> 00:22:11.220
if it's an outlying figure,

557
00:22:11.220 --> 00:22:14.340
because that's a much different emotional impact than 20%,

558
00:22:14.340 --> 00:22:18.270
when you're talking about the stakes being legal blindness.

559
00:22:18.270 --> 00:22:21.600
So, I have a lot of thoughts about the medical profession

560
00:22:21.600 --> 00:22:24.489
and the way in which physicians,

561
00:22:24.489 --> 00:22:26.760
without bad intentions,

562
00:22:26.760 --> 00:22:30.540
can complicate their patient's lives utterly needlessly.

563
00:22:30.540 --> 00:22:32.400
So, you're actually writing

564
00:22:32.400 --> 00:22:35.774
or perhaps you're done writing a book on

565
00:22:35.774 --> 00:22:38.550
your experience thus far.

566
00:22:38.550 --> 00:22:39.930
What can you say about that?

567
00:22:39.930 --> 00:22:41.598
Do we have a publish date yet?

568
00:22:41.598 --> 00:22:44.160
No, it's not done.

569
00:22:44.160 --> 00:22:45.960
It's due the middle of next year

570
00:22:45.960 --> 00:22:47.670
and my guess is that means it'll be out,

571
00:22:47.670 --> 00:22:49.189
probably in the middle of 2021.

572
00:22:49.189 --> 00:22:51.690
I think they'd like the next presidential election

573
00:22:51.690 --> 00:22:54.780
to occur and the next president to be inaugurated.

574
00:22:54.780 --> 00:22:56.310
I think they want to get beyond all that.

575
00:22:56.310 --> 00:22:57.810
And I've had to juggle that work.

576
00:22:57.810 --> 00:22:59.640
I'm still working full time at the Times

577
00:22:59.640 --> 00:23:02.220
and still on CNN four or five times a week.

578
00:23:02.220 --> 00:23:03.840
So, it hasn't been,

579
00:23:03.840 --> 00:23:06.600
I have not been able to turn my full attention to the book.

580
00:23:06.600 --> 00:23:09.090
But the book is basically about a lot of the things

581
00:23:09.090 --> 00:23:10.320
we've talked about today.

582
00:23:10.320 --> 00:23:13.860
It's about aging, and limits and perspective,

583
00:23:13.860 --> 00:23:16.500
and how you adapt to sudden limits in your life

584
00:23:16.500 --> 00:23:17.970
that kind of make you aware

585
00:23:17.970 --> 00:23:18.870
that this is the beginning

586
00:23:18.870 --> 00:23:21.570
of a long process of more limits when you age,

587
00:23:21.570 --> 00:23:22.419
how you hold onto your perspective ways in which,

588
00:23:22.419 --> 00:23:23.252
(dog barking)

589
00:23:23.252 --> 00:23:25.006
sorry, my dog is barking.

590
00:23:25.006 --> 00:23:27.360
I got a dog during all of this.

591
00:23:27.360 --> 00:23:28.193
I wanted a dog.

592
00:23:28.193 --> 00:23:30.690
Again, I hadn't had one in many, many, many years

593
00:23:30.690 --> 00:23:33.079
and I asked myself why I pressed the button now.

594
00:23:33.079 --> 00:23:35.880
Why would you press the button when your vision is in peril?

595
00:23:35.880 --> 00:23:37.500
Well, first of all, I don't want to live

596
00:23:37.500 --> 00:23:40.087
as if that one in five chance is going to happen.

597
00:23:40.087 --> 00:23:43.230
Number two, I realized and a kind of,

598
00:23:43.230 --> 00:23:45.480
this wasn't hugely consciously thought out,

599
00:23:45.480 --> 00:23:48.360
but I did want to do something that took me outside myself.

600
00:23:48.360 --> 00:23:50.440
I think it's really easy

601
00:23:51.720 --> 00:23:55.530
to become even more self-obsessed than you are already

602
00:23:55.530 --> 00:23:57.540
when you're going through something like this.

603
00:23:57.540 --> 00:23:59.040
But that bark you just heard I think

604
00:23:59.040 --> 00:24:01.170
is part of a story you and I are talking about.

605
00:24:01.170 --> 00:24:04.419
And she sounds like a really neat dog.

606
00:24:04.419 --> 00:24:06.840
I forget what breed she is, she's a mix,

607
00:24:06.840 --> 00:24:08.130
I remember that much.

608
00:24:08.130 --> 00:24:09.280
She's a mix.

609
00:24:09.280 --> 00:24:12.390
I didn't know what breed she was when I got her.

610
00:24:12.390 --> 00:24:13.800
She was my little brother's dog.

611
00:24:13.800 --> 00:24:15.810
She came from a Border Collie rescue group

612
00:24:15.810 --> 00:24:18.720
and she looked like, and was described as,

613
00:24:18.720 --> 00:24:20.490
predominantly Border Collie,

614
00:24:20.490 --> 00:24:23.259
but I'm one of those nerds who had her DNA done

615
00:24:23.259 --> 00:24:25.770
and it turns out she's actually a mix

616
00:24:25.770 --> 00:24:28.620
of Australian Shepherd and Siberian Husky.

617
00:24:28.620 --> 00:24:29.820
Awesome.

618
00:24:29.820 --> 00:24:32.940
I want to thank you so much for joining us

619
00:24:32.940 --> 00:24:34.980
and sharing your story.

620
00:24:34.980 --> 00:24:38.640
We will all certainly look forward to reading the book

621
00:24:38.640 --> 00:24:39.690
when it's out.

622
00:24:39.690 --> 00:24:40.523
In the meantime,

623
00:24:40.523 --> 00:24:43.590
if people want to find out what's going on in your world,

624
00:24:43.590 --> 00:24:45.480
what can they do to kind of follow

625
00:24:45.480 --> 00:24:46.427
what's happening with you?

626
00:24:46.427 --> 00:24:49.260
If you go to the Times website and hit Opinion

627
00:24:49.260 --> 00:24:50.280
and then Columnists,

628
00:24:50.280 --> 00:24:53.470
you can find your way to everything I've written recently.

629
00:24:53.470 --> 00:24:55.800
And if you go into one of those columns,

630
00:24:55.800 --> 00:24:58.350
you can find a link that shows you,

631
00:24:58.350 --> 00:25:00.300
that invites you to and shows you how to sign up

632
00:25:00.300 --> 00:25:01.740
for my free weekly newsletter.

633
00:25:01.740 --> 00:25:05.910
And every Wednesday at noon, a newsletter that I write,

634
00:25:05.910 --> 00:25:09.480
that's a kind of much more improvisational personal take

635
00:25:09.480 --> 00:25:11.910
on the news and that also includes updates about my life

636
00:25:11.910 --> 00:25:14.370
and my struggle with NAION.

637
00:25:14.370 --> 00:25:15.420
That comes out every,

638
00:25:15.420 --> 00:25:16.650
which is once you sign up for it,

639
00:25:16.650 --> 00:25:19.895
it just zooms into your inbox every Wednesday at noon,

640
00:25:19.895 --> 00:25:21.270
no charge.

641
00:25:21.270 --> 00:25:22.650
That again is something you can access

642
00:25:22.650 --> 00:25:24.420
if you go to the Times website,

643
00:25:24.420 --> 00:25:27.330
go to the Opinion section, go to Columnists, go to me,

644
00:25:27.330 --> 00:25:28.590
click open one of my columns

645
00:25:28.590 --> 00:25:31.020
and several places in that column.

646
00:25:31.020 --> 00:25:33.000
It invites you to sign up for my weekly newsletter,

647
00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:34.200
which would be great if you did.

648
00:25:34.200 --> 00:25:35.460
Fantastic.

649
00:25:35.460 --> 00:25:38.760
We will also have a link in the show notes to,

650
00:25:38.760 --> 00:25:40.530
I believe you're on Twitter as well, right?

651
00:25:40.530 --> 00:25:41.363
I am on Twitter.

652
00:25:41.363 --> 00:25:43.740
It's @FrankBruni and I'm on Facebook,

653
00:25:43.740 --> 00:25:46.746
which is @FrankBruniNYT.

654
00:25:46.746 --> 00:25:48.604
Thank you again for taking a little

655
00:25:48.604 --> 00:25:49.590
time with us today.

656
00:25:49.590 --> 00:25:51.397
I appreciate it very much.

657
00:25:51.397 --> 00:25:53.850
Thank you very much, I appreciate your time.

658
00:25:53.850 --> 00:25:55.530
Got something to say?

659
00:25:55.530 --> 00:25:59.310
Share your thoughts about this episode of "Hadley Presents"

660
00:25:59.310 --> 00:26:02.100
or make suggestions for future episodes.

661
00:26:02.100 --> 00:26:03.870
We'd love to hear from you.

662
00:26:03.870 --> 00:26:08.310
Send us an email at podcast@hadley.edu.

663
00:26:08.310 --> 00:26:13.310
That's P-O-D-C-A-S-T@Hadley.edu

664
00:26:13.380 --> 00:26:16.710
or leave us a message at (847) 784-2870.

665
00:26:20.190 --> 00:26:21.878
Thanks for listening.

666
00:26:21.878 --> 00:26:24.545
(upbeat music)