Allison Sweet Grant on The Psychological Weight of Cancer
[0:00]Welcome to Totally Booked.
[0:02]I'm Zibi Owens.
[0:04]I've interviewed more than 2,000 authors on this show
[0:07]and learned endless amounts about storytelling,
[0:10]reinvention, and life itself.
[0:11]Because when you talk about books,
[0:13]you're really talking about life.
[0:15]So get ready to hear from today's best authors,
[0:18]the best-selling and the not yet discovered.
[0:20]Come find your next great read and the story behind it.
[0:24]Enjoy.
[0:24]I absolutely loved Allison Sweet Grant's book,
[0:29]Lump, A Memoir in Eloquine Reflections.
[0:32]It's beautiful.
[0:34]I read a few poems as you'll hear in my episode with Allison.
[0:37]And by the way, this was her first podcast for this book,
[0:40]which happens to a lot of authors.
[0:42]And I hope you enjoy it.
[0:44]Here's a little more about Allison.
[0:46]Allison Sweet Grant is the author of the Young Adult Novel,
[0:49]I am the Cage, about the psychological toll of medical trauma.
[0:52]She is the co-author of two children's books,
[0:55]the gift inside the box, and leaf in the fall.
[0:57]She has been published in the New York Times,
[0:59]The Atlantic, and People Magazine.
[1:01]Allison is a former psychiatric nurse practitioner
[1:04]with dual masters degrees from University of Michigan.
[1:07]She lives with her husband and three children
[1:09]just outside Philadelphia.
[1:11]Lump is her first work of nonfiction.
[1:13]By the way, Allison is married to Adam Grant,
[1:16]who has been on this podcast and whose books you may have read
[1:20]as well.
[1:21]I think is this my first married couple on the show separately?
[1:24]I don't know, perhaps.
[1:26]Anyway, enjoy our episode.
[1:28]It's very meaningful about her breast cancer experience
[1:31]and emotional and I almost cried.
[1:34]Welcome, Allison.
[1:35]Thank you so much for coming on totally book
[1:37]to talk about lump, a memoir in ineliquent reflections.
[1:42]Congratulations.
[1:43]Thank you, thank you, Zippy.
[1:45]Thank you so much for having me.
[1:46]I'm just thrilled to be here.
[1:48]I'm almost embarrassed by how like,
[1:51]a few say what I've been about.
[1:53]My love of this book.
[1:55]I loved it so much.
[1:56]Allison, it's so good.
[1:58]I was like crying, reading it.
[2:00]It's beautiful and I haven't stopped recommending it
[2:04]or talking about it or anything.
[2:05]So thank you for sharing your experience with us
[2:08]in this beautiful way.
[2:10]Well, thank you.
[2:11]I mean, you have gone above and beyond
[2:13]and helping me to spread the word about this book
[2:16]and I'm just so grateful.
[2:17]And it was so unexpected and I just really have been overwhelmed
[2:21]by your generosity.
[2:22]So thank you again for the moment.
[2:24]You know, sometimes like a book just hits you
[2:26]and I feel like that with this book.
[2:28]Why don't you tell us in our input?
[2:29]What lump is really about and when you knew it was gonna be
[2:32]a book and just all of the backstory of it
[2:35]and what happened with you?
[2:37]Yeah, well, lump is basically a poetic memoir.
[2:42]It's the story of my experience with breast cancer,
[2:46]which I was diagnosed with at the age of 40.
[2:49]I did not know it was gonna be a book.
[2:52]It really started out sort of as a journal.
[2:55]I write a lot of poetry and I was doing a lot of writing
[2:58]while I was sick and it really was just a collection
[3:02]of my own thoughts.
[3:04]It was a way of processing the difficult experience
[3:09]that I was going through.
[3:10]I did not have any plans to pull it all together.
[3:14]But once I did start doing that,
[3:16]once I decided, hey, maybe there's something
[3:18]a little more cohesive here.
[3:20]It came together in a really personally moving way.
[3:24]And I just felt like this is something
[3:27]that maybe other people can relate to.
[3:30]Maybe it might touch a nerve with somebody else
[3:32]who's going through this really hard thing.
[3:35]And it all kind of fell together really easily after that.
[3:38]Do you mind if I read a poem or two?
[3:40]Is that okay?
[3:41]Of course.
[3:42]Okay, here.
[3:42]I'm just gonna read one or two so that everyone else can hear
[3:46]what I am thinking about.
[3:47]I mean, here, so everyone else can hear
[3:51]why I love the book and what I meant when I,
[3:53]whatever, I'm just gonna read it.
[3:55]Okay, this one's called a pause for consideration.
[3:57]Rather quickly, something starts to slip away.
[4:00]The idea of a future fuzzy amorphous,
[4:03]but distinctly there until it's not.
[4:05]Life feels like a plum left right on the table.
[4:08]Tomorrow draws you to the window like your neighbor's pool.
[4:11]Sparkling undisturbed on a bright day.
[4:14]I see the foggy exhale of an ice puff
[4:16]just before it starts to melt.
[4:18]You don't have to touch it to feel the cold.
[4:20]My son's laughter leaks from the next room.
[4:23]I collected into small piles upon the counter.
[4:26]I welcome his open mouth kisses, his pillowcase teeth,
[4:30]his lunch candy breath, carefree on my cheek.
[4:33]Come kiss me, little man.
[4:35]Let me be your mama while I can't.
[4:38]Oh my God.
[4:40]What a great.
[4:40]I should have had you read the audiobook.
[4:42]I think that was really beautiful.
[4:46]Yeah, I mean, going through breast cancer
[4:49]and particularly going through breast cancer during COVID,
[4:52]which is when I was diagnosed,
[4:55]my kids were all home from school.
[4:57]And it was a very different experience
[4:59]than I think it would have been.
[5:01]Had they been in regular school at the time.
[5:04]And so much of what I went through
[5:07]was really shaped by having my children next to me
[5:11]throughout every moment.
[5:13]And that poem is just one small sample of that.
[5:16]Would you mind talking about when you found out
[5:19]you had breast cancer and then how you even told your kids
[5:23]after that?
[5:23]Sure.
[5:25]Well, I discovered a lump a couple of weeks
[5:27]into the beginning of the pandemic.
[5:30]And I waited stupidly because everything was shut down,
[5:36]but more so because I was terrified.
[5:39]Because when you find the thing that you've been told
[5:44]your whole life not to find,
[5:47]it kind of, there's sort of like a fight or flight fond,
[5:51]type of response and I froze.
[5:54]It was scary and I didn't know what to do.
[5:56]And everything that I, when I went to the internet
[6:01]for guidance, which is the absolute worst place
[6:04]to go for guidance, but again, it was COVID.
[6:07]I took the advice that I wanted to take, which was to wait.
[6:12]Wait 30 days, see if it changes.
[6:14]It's probably assist, you know, all of the things
[6:17]that made me feel reassured.
[6:20]And I waited.
[6:21]And when I finally did call my doctor about a month later
[6:26]and she had me come in immediately,
[6:28]even though the building was abandoned,
[6:31]there wasn't a single other car in the parking lot.
[6:35]I was the only one in the,
[6:38]I'm not sure if it was a mammogram,
[6:39]so in the radiation center.
[6:42]As soon as I went in and as soon as I got those pictures,
[6:45]and as soon as they said, let's just take a few more.
[6:49]I knew that it was not the news that I was hoping for.
[6:53]Yeah, so that was sort of the introduction
[6:55]to my diagnosis.
[6:57]And I think like with many people who are diagnosed
[7:00]with cancer and particularly breast cancer,
[7:03]once you get that diagnosis, things happen very, very fast.
[7:07]And from the date of diagnosis to the first date
[7:11]of my first chemotherapy infusion, it was about two weeks.
[7:16]So it was pretty rapid, lots of testing and appointments
[7:20]and consultations that happened within those first few days.
[7:24]And then things got started.
[7:27]And it was a very precarious and emotional time,
[7:33]but I'm delighted to say that I'm here to talk about it.
[7:37]And here to share what I wrote about it
[7:41]with whoever is interested in reading it.
[7:43]Oh my gosh, well thank you for doing that.
[7:47]Did you feel like you were going to die?
[7:49]Like were you convinced of it at any point
[7:51]and just trying to figure out what to do with it?
[7:54]I was convinced of it at every point.
[7:56]It's one of the reasons that I waited
[7:59]because it's one of the things I say in this book
[8:03]is that it's one thing to know you're going to die someday
[8:07]because everybody is.
[8:08]And that's sort of an existential exercise
[8:12]that we all deal with, right, at different points
[8:14]in our life.
[8:16]But when you hear the word cancer,
[8:19]it makes everything so much bigger and brighter.
[8:23]And death is one of those things
[8:25]that just kind of like slaps you in the face.
[8:28]And it was terrifying.
[8:30]And I did not know exactly what to do with it
[8:34]because one of the things that was pretty difficult
[8:38]about going through this diagnosis
[8:41]in such like an unstable state of the world
[8:45]was that I didn't know what questions I was allowed to ask
[8:49]and which ones I wasn't.
[8:51]Because I felt like I didn't want to make things
[8:55]more difficult for the people around me.
[8:58]I didn't want to make things more difficult for my providers
[9:00]who were having a hard time going through
[9:03]providing care during COVID.
[9:06]And as a woman, also, I didn't want to be rude.
[9:10]And I felt like asking, am I going to die
[9:13]and putting somebody in the uncomfortable position
[9:16]of possibly saying, yes, you might, was rude.
[9:20]And I didn't want to be rude.
[9:21]And so I just sat with this uncertainty
[9:24]for much longer than I probably needed to
[9:27]because I didn't know how to ask those questions.
[9:31]And now that you have survived this time,
[9:34]how do you feel now?
[9:35]You can't just like put it aside, right?
[9:38]You can't just be like, well, whoof, that's over.
[9:40]like, how has that changed your approach to everyday life?
[9:44]Cancer, I think once you've been through cancer treatment,
[9:48]cancer sort of becomes a barometer
[9:51]for which you measure every other stressor against, right?
[9:55]So like even the little things like that come up
[9:58]in your day to day anxieties or day to day problems.
[10:02]Well, it's not cancer, so it's not that bad.
[10:05]And that's very true.
[10:07]And that's a great way to keep perspective.
[10:10]But at the same time, you don't want to like minimize
[10:13]your day to day, everything else that comes along, right?
[10:16]So I think it's like a fine balance,
[10:19]it's a fine line to walk.
[10:21]I don't want to compare every little problem,
[10:24]every little inconvenience that occurs to cancer.
[10:28]But it is a good way of sort of lowering anxiety
[10:32]when I get anxious about things that really,
[10:36]you know, five, 10, 15 years from now
[10:39]will have no bearing on my life whatsoever.
[10:42]I don't know.
[10:42]Yeah, and that makes sense.
[10:44]Can I read another one?
[10:46]Of course.
[10:47]This one is called Come Out.
[10:49]Come Out, come Out from the dark snaking bowels,
[10:53]knees, raw and weeping, eyes brimming like September gutters.
[10:57]Come Out with weeds in the hollows of your clavicles
[11:00]with rocks between your toes with finger stiff
[11:03]and caked with the earth you have been digging.
[11:05]Come Out, even if you have to crawl,
[11:07]even if you have to zombie drag your body by your elbows,
[11:10]even if you must leave it bleeding behind you,
[11:12]no one climbs from a cave on stilts.
[11:15]So come Out and when you do tear these pages to blot your tears,
[11:19]come Out and wrap these words like wings around you,
[11:22]come Out and take my hand.
[11:24]This is not where anyone belongs.
[11:29]Do you remember where you wrote this,
[11:31]what you were feeling?
[11:32]Like, take me behind the scenes of this poem.
[11:35]I think with any life-threatening diagnosis,
[11:39]it's very easy to find yourself in a hole,
[11:45]to put yourself in a hole.
[11:47]And it's nice to have somebody who understands
[11:51]who can reach their arm down into that hole and pull you out.
[11:56]I had, I was lucky, very, very lucky to have a number of friends
[12:01]who stuck with me throughout this entire process
[12:05]and who I felt were like that arm reaching out
[12:09]to sort of drag me back into the light
[12:11]when I wanted to stay in the darkness.
[12:14]And I hope that the message that comes across
[12:18]in some of my poetry, particularly in that piece,
[12:21]is that if I can be that hand for somebody who needs it,
[12:24]for somebody who maybe doesn't have a physical hand there
[12:27]with them to let me try to do that for them.
[12:32]So generous and amazing.
[12:34]Oh, yeah, the whole book is like that.
[12:36]I'm like, come out so I can give the final copy
[12:38]to a bunch of people.
[12:41]Okay, just one more I wanna read if that's all right.
[12:44]This is called bargaining.
[12:45]Some days I wanna pluck the eyeballs from my skull
[12:49]slowly to have something to throw
[12:51]and rip the limbs from my frame
[12:53]if only to stop the aching.
[12:55]There are a few things more painful
[12:57]than sitting by and watching the only body
[12:59]you've ever had, the only body you'll ever get,
[13:02]destroy itself.
[13:03]Sometimes it seems easier to lend a hand.
[13:06]It makes a person wonder,
[13:07]by the time you're bargaining for a life,
[13:10]what is left to bargain with?
[13:11]What is left to bargain for?
[13:13]Yeah, tell me about this one.
[13:16]You know, there are a lot of pieces in the book
[13:19]that are very specific to certain experiences
[13:22]that I had going through breast cancer, right?
[13:24]My first, going to my first chemo appointment
[13:27]or losing my hair, things like that.
[13:30]But there are a lot of pieces that are more vague
[13:33]and maybe more nuanced and sort of encompass
[13:38]a greater emotional state that I experienced
[13:44]from at some point from either diagnosis
[13:48]to the end of my treatment.
[13:50]And I think that this poem is one of those sort of,
[13:54]you know, pieces that describes the psychological weight
[14:00]of going through cancer.
[14:03]So it's not specific to a particular ache or pain
[14:08]or appointment, but more just a state of mind
[14:11]that I had while I was somewhere in that,
[14:15]you know, cancer realm.
[14:18]What I really loved throughout the book is poems,
[14:20]like the ones I read that are just so honest
[14:24]and that touch on life in general,
[14:26]like what are we doing here?
[14:28]How do we, what does it all mean?
[14:30]How do we save, how do we savor every single moment?
[14:33]Because that is bigger even than breast cancer,
[14:37]which is also so pervasive.
[14:39]It's like, how do you take the moments
[14:42]and hold them in the cup of your hand
[14:44]and make them special when, who knows when it's all gonna end?
[14:48]And I feel like that is more acute
[14:52]because of what was going on with you,
[14:53]but it's something that everybody is going through
[14:56]in one way-shaped reform.
[14:58]And you just like hit it head on and address it
[15:01]and give us a roadmap through all of that worry and concern.
[15:06]And then you turn it into something beautiful.
[15:08]Well, thank you.
[15:09]That is extraordinarily kind of you to say,
[15:12]I really don't know what I'm doing.
[15:14]I'm just taking everything that I'm like feeling inside
[15:19]and trying to get it down in the most accurate way possible
[15:24]so that not only for readers, but for myself.
[15:28]And that's where it really started, you know,
[15:29]as poetry for myself, as a journal,
[15:32]as words for myself to help process these things
[15:36]that like you said are universal to everybody.
[15:39]And if they connect with somebody, I'm delighted.
[15:43]So when I first came upon the book and I knew,
[15:46]I knew from the get-go I would love it,
[15:48]but then of course I did.
[15:49]I didn't realize that you were married to Adam Grant
[15:51]who had also been on my podcast.
[15:53]What is it like having a book come out
[15:56]being married to a bestselling author already?
[15:58]Like you know the behind the scenes
[16:00]of the publishing industry, I'm sure at this point.
[16:04]How did that inform if at all or maybe not?
[16:07]You're the way you're bringing the book into the world.
[16:10]Well, it's incredibly intimidating.
[16:12]Yes, because I don't have an audience.
[16:16]I am a small author.
[16:20]And I am in some ways a very selfish author
[16:24]because truly I write for myself and hope,
[16:29]like I said before, that it reaches people
[16:31]and it connects with people.
[16:33]Whereas Adam really writes with the purpose
[16:36]of getting his ideas out there
[16:38]and reaching as many people as he can, you know?
[16:40]So it's different.
[16:42]But yeah, it's, I mean, I feel very fortunate
[16:45]that I have had sort of an insider's perspective
[16:48]in terms of publishing and the industry and all that.
[16:52]And there's been a huge learning curve for me
[16:55]because so much of what Adam does.
[16:57]I did not see.
[16:59]I thought it was all sort of like magic
[17:01]that happened, you know, with like the flick of a wrist.
[17:04]And there's so much, so many details,
[17:07]so much hard work and so many people behind the scenes
[17:11]that go into putting something out there in the world.
[17:14]And it's been amazing to be able to just be a small part
[17:17]of it and have you read the book to your kids.
[17:20]Have they read it?
[17:21]How have they been involved with it?
[17:24]Well, I have three children and my two oldest daughters
[17:28]have both read the book.
[17:30]My son is a little bit young for it.
[17:33]So he has not read it yet.
[17:34]And he was also quite young while I was going through cancer.
[17:39]And I am trying to be very cognizant
[17:43]of how he how to sort of put that back into his life
[17:48]because it was very present.
[17:50]Obviously, while I was like in the thick of things.
[17:53]But now that I'm, you know, that my active treatment
[17:57]has ceased and I'm sort of in a maintenance phase,
[18:00]it's not really a part of his day to day life.
[18:03]And I just, you know, want to be really healthy
[18:07]and age-appropriate in regards to how I present that to him.
[18:10]So yeah, my daughters have both read it.
[18:13]I think that they found it moving.
[18:16]And I think that they, it provided us with the opportunity
[18:20]to talk about the experience for them now that they're older
[18:24]and have stepped away from it a little bit themselves.
[18:28]So it's given us a lot of great conversations
[18:32]and some great moments as a family
[18:35]in terms of helping one another
[18:38]and showing kindness and love and gratitude to one another.
[18:44]I hope that it's something that they're proud of,
[18:47]their mom for doing.
[18:49]And I hope that they don't mind when I reference them
[18:53]in the book.
[18:54]That's always a little bit tricky, I think, you know.
[18:57]But yeah, all in all, it's been a great experience.
[19:01]All in all, it's been a great, it's provided a great opportunity
[19:05]for us to reflect on those hard moments as a family.
[19:10]It's amazing.
[19:11]When did you write your first poem?
[19:13]Like when did you know that poetry was an outlet for you?
[19:16]Oh my gosh, that's such a good question.
[19:20]It must have been when I was in elementary school.
[19:23]And I'm sure the, you know, I don't have any of them
[19:27]that I'm aware of, but I remember writing poetry
[19:30]in elementary school.
[19:31]I remember submitting poetry to like my little school contests
[19:36]and things like that.
[19:38]And once I got to middle school,
[19:40]I remember regularly checking poetry books
[19:43]out of the school library again and again.
[19:46]And again, it was just always something that I was drawn to.
[19:50]And I like how poetry, one of my favorite things
[19:56]about poetry is how it condenses, how it can
[19:59]content so much heart and emotion into a very little piece
[20:04]of writing.
[20:05]And I always found that really special
[20:08]and kind of like a pretty little package as opposed to,
[20:12]you know, reading a long novel and having to really like
[20:16]take your time to work through all the intricacies
[20:20]of a story, right?
[20:22]Whereas I could take this very small little pretty thing
[20:26]and say exactly what I want to say
[20:28]and package it up perfectly and like just have it here
[20:31]in the palm of my hands.
[20:33]So I've always found sort of the,
[20:36]I don't know, condensed nature of poetry
[20:39]to be something that I connected with.
[20:42]And are there poets that you remember taking out
[20:44]of the library or that you referred to now often?
[20:47]Yes, I think the very first poetry book
[20:50]that I remember having at home as a child was Ann Sexton,
[20:55]which now reading her poetry as an adult,
[20:58]I kind of think like that prop,
[21:00]it might not have been the most appropriate poetry
[21:03]to have been in a middle school library,
[21:06]but I remember loving it at just being very moved by her words.
[21:11]I feel like all of us book lovers
[21:14]when we were in middle school read tons of inappropriate things
[21:17]because they're just, I just feel like we were all reading
[21:20]our parents' books and way beyond our years.
[21:24]Like it seems to be a common thread among a certain generation.
[21:29]I don't know what kids now would say later,
[21:31]but at least for us.
[21:33]Yes, absolutely.
[21:34]I actually remember walking into my school library
[21:37]in middle school and asking for a title
[21:39]that some of my friends were reading.
[21:41]It was Flowers in the Attic,
[21:43]by VC Edgers.
[21:45]And I remember the library and looking at me like,
[21:49]you know, we have that here.
[21:50]And it would be sort of like just taking a step back
[21:54]knowing that, okay, like I didn't realize that I see now,
[21:57]I have this step here.
[22:00]And how about now, what do you like to read for fun?
[22:05]I like historical fiction and popular fiction.
[22:10]And I still do read a lot of poetry.
[22:13]And even actually recently,
[22:15]I'm getting more into some suspense novels,
[22:18]which is not something that I used to read,
[22:21]but I'm really enjoying it.
[22:23]I don't know.
[22:24]Yeah, that's awesome.
[22:26]What types of poems are you working on now
[22:29]if any, or have you put it aside?
[22:32]Or how is it entering your life at this stage?
[22:35]I actually have not been working on too many poems
[22:38]since I finished the lump,
[22:41]because I've just been spending so much time
[22:44]in that world, revising and editing and correcting
[22:47]and putting this book together.
[22:49]And so I've stepped away from anything new at the moment.
[22:52]But I do hope and expect to get back into it at some point
[22:57]because it's just personally such a wonderful outlet.
[23:01]And I think my life would feel very empty
[23:04]if I were to step away from it for too long.
[23:07]Amazing.
[23:08]To the person who is out there going through cancer
[23:13]of some type or who loves someone
[23:15]who is going through cancer of some type,
[23:17]what would you say to them?
[23:20]I think the first thing I would say is I'm sorry,
[23:24]I'm sorry that this happened to you.
[23:26]I'm sorry that you're going through this.
[23:28]It sucks all the way around.
[23:31]There's no, you know, there's no getting around that.
[23:33]But I think I would also say that it's okay
[23:38]to feel whatever it is you're feeling
[23:40]around the terrible disease.
[23:43]You don't have to pretend,
[23:45]you don't have to hide,
[23:47]you don't have to pretend to be strong
[23:50]when you're not feeling strong.
[23:52]You don't have to pretend to be brave
[23:53]when you're not feeling brave.
[23:55]You can come to the table with whatever emotion you have
[23:59]with you and they're all okay.
[24:02]And I think the sooner, the earlier as cancer patients
[24:07]that we realize that and fall into it
[24:12]and embrace it, no matter what those feelings are,
[24:18]the easier it is and gosh, like when you're dealing
[24:23]with cancer, the easier you can be on yourself,
[24:26]like the better, you know what I mean?
[24:28]Give yourself some grace and allow yourself
[24:32]to feel whatever you're feeling,
[24:35]whether it's fear or anger or any range of emotions.
[24:40]They're all legit, they're all okay,
[24:43]they're all acceptable and you don't need permission.
[24:47]You know, for any of them.
[24:49]Beautiful.
[24:50]Awesome, thank you so much.
[24:52]Thank you for sharing your experience with us.
[24:53]Thanks for coming on, totally booked.
[24:55]And thank you for all you're gonna be doing
[24:58]to help other people.
[24:59]I just know it. Congratulations.
[25:01]Thank you, thank you, Zippy.
[25:02]I'm so grateful to you and so happy to be able to
[25:07]talk with you and with your readers and be here today.
[25:11]Thank you.
[25:11]Thank you.
[25:12]Thank you for listening to totally booked with Zippy,
[25:15]formerly momstone have time to read books.
[25:18]If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review,
[25:21]follow me on Instagram at Zippy Owens
[25:24]and spread the word.
[25:25]Thanks so much.
[25:26]Oh, and buy the books.