Hey, so something worth knowing is a benefit for the nonprofit organization that makes Crash Course and SciShow Complexly. It's September 16th, 2026 in Los Angeles, California at the Wilshire Ebell Theater. Please join us. It's going to be incredible.
Friends have complexity like Mark Rober, Katie Max, Simone Yetch, and more will share inspiring talks about what makes them hopeful and join Hank Green on stage for fun, interactive discussions. Complexly has been creating free educational content like SciShow and PBS Eons and Crash Course and Bizarre Beasts for nearly 15 years and 6 billion views. But this year, we've become a 501c3 nonprofit and we're doing something worth knowing as an in-person event that benefits Complexly and our impactful educational media. It's the first ever Complexly in-person event and it's a fundraiser to support our mission of inspiring curiosity and lowering barriers to knowledge building because curiosity builds understanding and understanding builds a better world.
Tickets go on sale to the general public June 30th at somethingworthknowing.com. So come build a better world with us on September 16th and experience something worth knowing you can get your ticket at Complexly.info slash something. And welcome to Dear Hank and John! This is very weird to do the intro.
That's right, or as I prefer to think of the Dear John and Hank. It's a podcast where two brothers answer your questions. Give you a advice and ring all the weeks from both Mars and AFC Willem and John. Did you know that you can get rid of most cancers with just a water gun?
Oh, is that so? Yeah, it works on Libra's and Capricorns as well. Wait, what? Oh, you mean like, okay, first off, I'm not going to workshop your joke because you have cancer and it wouldn't be appropriate.
Secondly, I do have some notes. What? I think it works. I tried this on someone else and it also failed.
But to me, it's a good joke. It's the get rid of because that implies like a level of elimination or like complete killing. And then I've got to reimagine this as just like, just like force them to depart from within 50 feet of me as the definition of get rid of. So I think the place to look is the problem is the get rid of.
Like, do you know that you can something else most cancers with just a water gun? Yeah, annoy frustrate. Yeah, it's tricky. It's tricky.
Yeah. So this is a different episode from usual. That's right. Hank, do you want me to go through the whole thing?
I know that you're the main character of your cancer diagnosis, but can I tell you what it was like for me? Yeah, sure. Let's do that. Then you can tell your story.
Okay. So Sarah and I went to Sierra Leone. And before we left for Sierra Leone, there were a few Hank and I had a few conversations where he would just mention his health, which is very unusual. Like, yeah, I'm the one who mentions my health in our conversations.
Yeah. I'm the one who worries about health. And I was really quite worried about this because it was so it was unusual. And I thought maybe it was just like a symptom of you being overextended and overworked.
Sure. That makes sense. And then we went to Sierra Leone and when we were, you seemed weird when we were in Sierra Leone. Like I would call you and I would be like, you cannot believe how amazing this 48,000 square foot hospital is all the good it's going to do.
It's just incredible. And you would be like, that is incredible. And but you just seemed off. Yeah.
And like a little like you were struggling to get to the level of excitement that I was feeling. And then when we had a long trip home and when we were in the car on the way home, dad picked us up, our dad picked Sarah and I up. And he basically immediately told us that you just had a biopsy and that you'd had an MRI earlier in the week. And there was a lot of suspicion that you might have some kind of cancer in your lymph nodes.
And that was scary. But I think for the first few days also, we were all able to tell ourselves like, well, maybe it's nothing. And even doctors were like, it could very well be nothing. Yeah.
And then you heard from the surgeon that it was definitely not nothing. And then we, I think everybody who loves you and who knew was really, really scared for a while. And I was with mom and dad a lot. And then we found out that you have Hodgkin's lymphoma, which is a very treatable, very curable form of lymphoma.
There's a lot known about it. There's been a good treatments for a while now. And that made it easier for all of us, I think, a little less scary, a little more known. But man, you know the main thing that I've been thinking about the last 10 days, and I know that you don't want me or the last two weeks or whatever, three weeks, I don't know how long it's been.
But I know that you don't want me to be sentimental and everything. And I know that we have a lot to talk about. But like, so I don't really want to like frontload the emotion part of it. But you know, you're my oldest friend.
You're my brother. You're the person I trust most in the world other than my spouse. Everything I've made in my professional life, I've made either with you or to impress you. I, you know, I can't imagine life without both of us.
Like the thing that is like when I imagine myself dying, which I do, I don't know, six or seven hundred times a day, the thing that is most unbearable is not to think about dying. It's to think about like my kids and Sarah and you. And so it just, here's the thing, the basic thing I want to say is that like the great joy of my or one of the biggest joys of my life has been the fact that in adulthood, we've been able to be in it together in all kinds of things together, in making stuff together in hard times together, in frustration together, in like struggling to fathom the political environment in which we find ourselves together. Like all of that, we've been able to be in it together.
And I know that we can't be all the way in it together with this, but I'm with you. And I want to be as together as we can be, I guess. Yeah. I mean, it's, I feel like I've already learned a lot about how to be in this situation, even though I've only been in this situation for like, oh, so as you're, as you're hearing this, the Vlabority video would have come out a few days ago.
Yeah, maybe we should just maybe we should back up and you tell your part of the story. Okay. Just start. Okay.
Yeah, sure. I mean, so I had shingles a while back, a bunch over the summer, which can be coincident with lymphoma in both ways, where like you can get it because you have lymphoma, but you can also your like your, like the lymphoma can kind of get, like you can kind of have lymphoma like stuff going on and then it can get triggered by shingles. So just because you have that, that like sort of long term intense infection. So anyway, it might, but it also could have nothing to do with it.
So I had this three bouts of shingles, which is very weird, but I was on Humira at the time for my colitis and they figured that's probably because of the Humira and fairness when I started taking, when I stopped taking the Humira, I stopped having shingles. But the last bout I had was across the top of my chest and into my armpit and shingles, if you don't know, it's an infection of the nerves that is the same virus as chickenpox. So chickenpox hangs out in your nervous system. And then if your immune system gets lowered, you get, you can get shingles.
And so it's terribly painful rash, basically, where your nerves are infected with this virus. Oh God, that sounds so painful. In a lot. Just the phrase your nerves are infected with this virus, is very evocative of physical pain.
Yeah. And after that, like I, like my armpit remains woven. And then I went to see the doctor and they were like, there's probably nothing. And then I, it's they remain, it remains well.
And then I went to the doctor and they're like, okay, well, let's get a scan. And it was like, like pretty obvious immediately that this was not a something that probably wasn't a big deal. It was like, this could very well be a big deal. And like, yeah, the, the tech who was doing my ultrasound was like, you should stay here.
Usually there's a doctor who I can go grab. Because usually the tech is like, they don't say anything. They're like, that's not their job. You'll hear results in a couple days.
Yeah. But, but you know, in the doctor sort of explained what it was exactly about the ultrasound that looked suspicious. And like, I couldn't tell you, it was like, there's been a facement of the fatty high law or something like that. And I'm like, okay, I'm sure.
I believe you that it's worrying. And then, you know, so I got to get scheduled for a biopsy and then that happened. And then it takes a while for the biopsy results to come back sometimes a really long time, because they're not like, with certain problems, it's a, it could be a bunch of different things and they have to like do genetic testing, et cetera. But with this, it took a couple of days.
And there was that period that was probably the worst bit so far between finding out that it was lymphoma specifically, which did mean that it wasn't a number of other things that it could have been that would have been bad, which would be like a melanoma that had moved to my lymph nodes or something like that. So that would have been worse than this. But the period of time between finding out that it was, you know, we're going to have to do cancer stuff, which is good to find out because you can start some balls rolling and finding out what kind it was was the worst part. And like, it was like, you would not believe how giddy I was finding out that it was Hodgkins.
Like it was ridiculous, because you know, that's a different game than a lot of lymphomas. Yeah, it was good news amid the bad news. Not that other, you know, there's just a lot of forms of lymphoma of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. There's like over 60 and some of them are very treatable and some of them are really, really difficult to treat.
Yeah, I mean, sometimes you don't even treat like certain kinds of non-Hodgkin's. It's just like, oh, you've got it, but like we're going to keep an eye on you until it gets bad and then we'll treat you because the treatment. And that's another thing that I've learned, if you're curious, this is all about balancing, you know, with Hodgkin specifically, but really with all cancer and chemotherapy, it's about balancing, you know, the side effects of the treatment with the potential positive outcomes. So you could go way harder than they're going to go on me, because they're going to like let it go and see how it responds.
And then like, you know, with Hodgkin's usually it responds pretty well. And then they give you some time to see if it comes back and they monitor you for a long time, usually doesn't come back. And if it does, then they just go again and usually it responds well the second time. So or they do radiation or they do immunotherapy, like there's like a bunch of treatments that exist now that didn't exist, you know, even five years ago.
And so the it's about like trying to, because like the chemo can have side effects that are, you know, not like you feel bad for a month, you can get some damage to your heart or some damage to your lungs. And like, so you got to watch out for that. Right, it's all kinds of long term side effects too. It increases certain risks long term.
So right, and radiation is the same way where you know, you don't want to do radiation on the first go because you're increasing the odds of future problems, future cancers. This the week that we're recording this is kind of my week from hell. Monday's great. Tuesday, I'm prepping for a colonoscopy because I had to, I had to go on, I scheduled, they really want to do it both to see like how my current treatment regimen is working and be just for screening reasons.
And we've been postponing it because of because my treatment has been changing. But they don't want you to do a colonoscopy after you've started chemo because it can increase chances of complications. So they like moved it up. So tomorrow I start the prep for my colonoscopy, then I get the colonoscopy, then I get my PET scan and my chemo port that PET scan will tell me how like what stage lymphoma, how much this is as of right now, it seems like though since I'm feeling fine and the scans did not show it, MRI didn't show it in any other places.
That's probably very early in the progression of the disease, but we'll confirm that because MRIs don't show everything with the PET scan and then I start chemo on Friday, which as of the recording of this podcast is three days ago or the release of this podcast. Right. So as you're listening, Hank has already started treatment and he's on the road. There's a little bit of, so we don't argue much.
I often say that we've only had one argument, which was at VidCon, but you've pointed out that really we've had more arguments than that. It's just that only one really erupted into full, I don't even think you raised your voice necessarily, but like you know what I mean. So I would actually argue that our second biggest argument behind the argument that we had at VidCon when the Gregory Brothers video was malfunctioning is about what the next six months look like. I think it's a good idea to have this out.
Let's model how we have arguments, Hank. Well, I think we're probably going to come to the same place, which is where I met. I think we're going to end up where I am, John. That's what we always do.
That's why we never have arguments. It's because I always end up, Hank just slowly delivers me to his, no, sometimes I remain passionately opposed to Hank's positions. Yeah, so here's what I think. And the argument just to be clear is about work, it's about Dear Hank and John, it's about vlog brothers, it's about all the stuff that we do together.
And this is, look, it's complicated because obviously work is not the most important thing, but work isn't really important. You know, like there are over 100 people who work for either DFTBA or Complexly, and for whom Hank is ultimately their CEO. And so it's not an insignificant thing. And then there's the community of Nerdfighteria and the community of people who listen to this podcast.
And we are conscious while we know that everybody listening is only wants the best for Hank and only wants whatever is going to be good and helpful for him. We're also conscious of the fact that this isn't just hard for Hank. It's also hard for everybody who cares about Hank, which includes people who listen are listening right now and includes people who care about our videos and people who work for Complexly and DFTBA. You know, there's so many people around the world who are thinking of, and dare I say it, Hank, praying for Hank.
And we want to be conscious of that. And while also finding our way through because it's, yeah, it's complicated. And so I think my impulse is to say, like, Hank needs to be un-sabatical, like, let's set set some absolute boundaries. And I think Hank's impulse is more like, let's see how I feel.
That's right. Like the thing I don't want to do is set myself up to not have anything to do. I get that. I totally get that.
Yeah. And your response to that, which I get is like, just hang out, read books, watch TV, go for walks, do restorative yoga. And I'm like, yes. Yeah.
But I need, I, you know, there's a bunch of stuff that I feel good at when I'm doing it. Right. And that I feel better after I'm done. Right.
And you know, I kind of expected, because I like went in to shoot SciShow the sort of like three days after I found out, and hadn't really told anybody yet, except for a couple high level people at Complexly and DFTBA. And I was like, I'm gonna be so tired after this. I'm gonna be so exhausted. Because I was really, so I got the biopsy where they actually remove your whole lymph node or a whole lymph node, so that they can get a really good look at what's going on inside.
And like after that, I felt really tired. And I was, and then like four days later, I still felt really tired. And I was like, this is the lymphoma. I'm like, I have lymphoma fatigue.
And then I just kept getting less tired every day. And it turned out that I had surgery fatigue and I had stress fatigue and I had maybe, you know, painkiller fatigue and, you know, abuse bar fatigue just because, you know, I was, I was, I was taking anti-anxiety because I was really freaked out. And so that, and I go on a film SciShow, and it was a light shoot day. And then I do tangents.
And at the end of that, I felt the best I had felt since like the first worrying scan. And I was like, okay, this is important data because, because honestly, what I do want to do is lay in bed and feel like crap. Like, I totally want to do that. I'm into that.
Like, that's what my brain is pushing for a lot of the time. And I don't feel better in that situation. And so I want to figure out things to work on that are low lift, low stress, that are not, and like, you know, honestly, also I need to be doing physical things. So that's going to be extra hard, I think, you know, biggest side effect of chemo is the thing that everybody has this fatigue.
And so I got, you know, like what I want is to not have to do anything. But to do things that make me like, like when I feel up to it, to do things that make me feel good. And like, you know, I have been journaling, which I never do, because that's, it's felt very necessary. And I've been writing, you know, just writing some stuff that's not journaling.
But I have no idea what direction it's moving. I love to hear that though. With no with no goal. That's the best guide.
No goal. And what I don't want is to be in a situation where I think I'd feel better if I made a podcast or made a vlogger this video or went into shoot SciShow. And people are like, no, you can't. Right.
Right. And I absolutely understand that. And, and I, you know what, we were going to have an argument and I just I completely acquiesce. Like, I agree with, unfortunately, I agree with everything he said.
So I told you, I can't model how to have an argument except to say that I am concerned that you feel obligations even when everyone works really hard to have you not feel them. So I just want you to be conscious of that. Right. So I have a couple questions from, from what you just shared.
But the first thing is that for the next like four to six to 12 months, depending on treatment and lots of other things, you're not going to have a weekly Dear Hank and John, you may not have any Dear Hank and John, except for the like 600 episodes that we've already made, half of which you haven't listened to. And you encourage you to listen to those episodes because we will be keep John will be recording new advertisements because we have that's a weird thing. But like, we have to have an ad break in this one because we, well, we need to, like, this wasn't obvious just to state the obvious, like, we didn't have this in the budget. Yeah.
And we may, we may have to cancel contracts. That's not a big deal. As the person who's taking over for Hank and some of these CEO roles, I look forward to those phone calls where I can be like, we're canceling this contract. And if you are mean about it, you kind of stop.
Just, just, you know, like, square that with your own consciousness. Yeah, yeah, yeah, just like, you know, which is not to say like, we expect advertisers to spend money on, on things that aren't being advertised or like impressions that don't exist. But we do expect advertisers to be cool about us taking some time off and then not charging them. We do expect that to be cool.
So anyway, for the next four to six to 12 months, depending on how everything goes, treatment wise, we don't know how often, if at all, there will be new episodes of Dear Hank and John, because we just don't want to put that pressure on Hank. Yeah. And I like doing it. And so, of course, and if you call me and you say, I'd like to record a podcast right now, I have, I'm done watching Netflix and I'm done writing and I want to record a podcast, I'll be like, great, let's record a podcast.
But I don't want to have the expectation that that's going to happen for listeners or for us, because we just don't know. And I think making space for you to feel however you're going to feel is the right call. Right. And if you want to watch a bunch or listen to a bunch of old Dear Hank and John's, we've got some that's there that we got ready for you.
That's great. Get those impressions. Deliver? No, no, we're fine.
Everything's fine. If you've joined the Patreon, we'd love it if you stayed. We will be back. Yeah.
But at all, and we should say like the just so nobody worries, like the money from this podcast doesn't go to us, it goes to Complexly to support stuff like SciShow and Crash Course and all the other stuff that gets made there. And the folks working behind the podcast who were so grateful to for their flexibility, especially the last few weeks, are going to be fine as well. So don't worry on our account. We just want to apologize for the fact that we do have to have an ad break, which reminds me.
Hey, yeah, this is going to be hard. Today's podcast is brought to you by. I'll tell you man, I'll tell you it's all it's all been fun in games for the last five years, but turns out you got to get life insurance guys. What's this?
Let's just roll the ad. You want to do another one? I had a couple in mind. Okay.
What do you got? No, I at the moment I had one, but then my here's something that's been happening to me in the last month, like my mind will go utterly blank, utterly, like the blank is so blank that I'm like, did I just achieve enlightenment? Do I exist? Oh, no, for me, it's more like, is that?
Did I just glimpse Nirvana? There's nothing. There's just nothing there. There's no suffering because there's no desire because there's nothing.
So, yeah, anyway, here's here's maybe some ads. I don't know if we sold these impressions. This episode of Dear Hank and John's Brownth When things look real, that works on my brain to be like, I'm doing a real thing. It also works on other people's brains to be like, this is legitimate.
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So John I have a question for you. Great. What's my job like? You've done a little bit of it in the last week or two?
How is it? Oh my god. Oh well I don't know what it's like normally. It's not easy and it's not as easy as you make it out to be and it's very time consuming and I don't know how you do other stuff.
Like I do not know how you did this job or these jobs being the CEO of DFTBA and Complexly and wrote two novels. I don't understand how you did that. I also have a hard time figuring that out. Here's what I'll say about your job.
You work with amazing people and that makes it bearable but it is not an easy job. I am I'll tell you what after two weeks of kind of doing your job I'm very very impressed. And by the way you've still been doing much of your job. Like I don't really fully take on your jobs until like Wednesday a couple days from now and I'm quaking in my boots man.
Good. John do you want to know some things I've learned about being a cancer patient? Yeah. Are these going to be dad jokes as well or are these going to be actual observations based on eight days of experience?
The other dad joke I had was what's the most expensive haircut you can get? About see that is a great joke. Yeah, it's not only is it expensive. It's not great.
Yeah, it's a bad haircut and it takes forever. Weeks. Weeks of individual hair is getting cut out at a time. How do you feel about the prospect just to turn it back to you because I know you're trying to make it about me for a minute.
But how do you feel about the prospect of losing your hair? Is that an emotional connection for you? Yeah, I worry about it a little bit when it cut like so like there's two there's a bunch of reasons why I might not make YouTube videos obviously. But but hair being one of them is interesting to think like I don't know if like I talked about this in my vlog video but I don't know like I don't this is an identity that I'm having put upon me by by reality and I don't know what to what extent I want to lean into it.
Yeah. And like but you know it's just our bodies. It's just I am also worried about how Orin's gonna feel about it. Yeah.
He's not a big fan of change. Right. And and I like I think that that might be the thing that like hits him it's home the most for him. And I honestly worry more about my eyebrows than my hair.
Yeah, which you can you know you can do makeup things for sure. Right. But with your eyebrows they're part of how you express yourself and part of how you communicate. Yeah.
Like we see lots of people without hair. Right. But eyebrows usually stick around unless there's a reason. Right.
And you know so I thought about that and like there's lots of things you can do. You can go full eyebrow weight if you want to. Yeah. And yeah so so I also don't know how to play it exactly because there's like two bad parts of it.
One you start to get really thin hair and two there's hair everywhere. Yeah. And so the thing that to do is usually once it starts to come out you shave it so that you're not like clocking up your drains all the time. Right.
And it's so much more hair on your head than you think. And so I don't I don't I haven't sort of decided how I'm going to play that one yet. Yeah. But yeah it's definitely it's a thing that like it's like it's a present thought which is surprising honestly.
Well I think everybody responds to it differently but you're right that it's sort of the it's a very visible marker. Right. Like it's a it's something that's visibly associated with with cancer for a lot of people and then also lots of people like their hair is a big part of their self-expression. Yeah.
It's you know and I think for you it may be maybe a little bit less so since you have had the same haircut since you were about eight but I think the part of it that I can see being difficult for you is that like you said it's an identity that you didn't choose and I could see how you might not feel comfortable with your with your appearance. But I actually think that you might you might be very handsome. We'll see what shape my head is. Yeah.
Like there's always the possibility that Orrin's going to be like finally dad looks like he's supposed to look. So what are the things that you've learned so far in your eight days as a cancer patient? So 20 days. First not that much.
I have a lot of learning left to do for sure. So I've talked to a lot of people who have known about this and here are the best and worst things you can say from my experience so far. Great. I think this is something everybody needs.
Yes. I think that this is like the most important learning because everybody's going to know somebody with cancer at the very least. Right. Worst thing is they ask how you're doing and I say okay and then they say but how are you really doing?
Oh yeah. This is not this is not what I want to do. Yeah. I would tell you how I'm really doing if I want to do.
Also I have no idea how I'm really doing like this is it's very deep and complex. I can't think that deep right now. And I really don't want to look. I'm at the grocery store.
I don't really want to think too hard about how I'm doing. Yeah. And then on the other hand, the best thing someone has said to me is I think you're doing really good. Right.
Like I think you're doing this well. Yeah. And instead of instead of someone asking me how I'm doing is I feel like I'm a big huge pile of mess. Garbage is wet garbage being being told that this is hard and I'm doing a good job is the is like that's what I need to hear because I don't know if I'm doing a good job and I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing.
Like I know what I'm supposed to be doing like objectively like I'm on the path. I'm doing the things I got all the things scheduled and you know I think I did a good job of getting things on the rails. But like to just hear that I'm doing it right. Yeah.
Feels really good because that's like one of the one of the hardest parts of this is that like it's so new. I don't know what it's supposed to feel like or be like and I don't know how to feel. So like just tell me how to feel. That's great.
Tell me tell me to feel like I'm doing a good job. That will feel very good. Yeah. So although yes.
Would it feel good if somebody walks up to you in the grocery store and said you're doing a great job? I don't know that it has to be somebody who has some awareness of the situation. Right. But if somebody walks up to you in a grocery store the nicest thing they can say is I hope you're doing well and we're thinking about you.
You got this we're rooting for you that kind of thing. Yeah. And that's great. I've gotten lots of that.
And you know and then like the next time it's like so you have a tacos tonight. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Right. Like you are still other things. Yeah. And I can imagine that you would not want to have your identity diminished to this identity you didn't choose.
Like that includes who you are. That's part of who you are. But it's certainly not all with who you are. Not to take it back to tuberculosis.
But that's something that I heard a lot from people living with MDR TV that one of the hardest things about it is that to their social order to their community and sometimes even to their families they become nothing but a person with TV. Right. Who is therefore dangerous discounted threat. A representation of a fear rather than a person.
Yep. Just one other comment on this or question about this. Don't you think worse than how are you really feeling would be if you reached out to a good friend to tell them about your cancer diagnosis and then they started crying and said how can this be happening you do so much yoga. That one hasn't happened to me.
Which is what I said to my my dear friend Amy. So whatever people have said to you, Hank, just take solace. Yep. The knowledge.
It could be worse. Could be that. Could be that. Could be that.
So when you think about what you need of course like it's a one day at a time thing you have no idea like you said you have a lot to learn you don't know what the future looks like even like five days into the future which must be its own kind of stress. But do you think that you're going to get into a new kind of media because that's what it seems to me like you will have time for. Yeah. And I think that that's an opportunity.
Well what do you mean John? I mean like enjoying it or or reading. Hard boiled noir mystery movies from the forties. Gotcha.
No stakes. Lots of death but not any death that you're invested in. Not only are all of the characters dead. All the actors are dead.
This is a tricky thing for me. Because I have a hard time. Yeah. Enjoying content that I can't see myself participating in somehow.
Whoa. Wait. What? So you tell me that like you can't like Star Wars because you're like I'm not a Jedi.
No no no. I watch Star Wars and I'm like yeah I could be that stormtrooper. What do you mean you could be that stormtrooper? I don't understand.
Like in the costume. Oh like you could be that like the actor. Wait you watch movies that you think like which role would I play? I feel like I'm bearing my soul too much.
I was going to say this might actually be the most vulnerable moment not any of the cancer talk. This is real openness right here and I appreciate it and I want to say that I hear you that when you watch a movie you think what role would I play? Or I think like how would I write that scene or I think yeah yeah like how would I direct it? I'll tell you what that's perfect with noir mystery movies because you'll say how would I write this scene maybe a little less sexist.
Yeah. But I think what you'd enjoy about them is the clipped humerist and not exactly humorous but like the clipped sharply observed dialogue. Yes I like that. You know I like that a lot.
You know what I have been so like the thing that's been best so far and I expect for this to wane some. But is anything that's got like a joke every five seconds? So Wayne's World. Yeah.
Yeah like really silly funny movies Seinfeld stand up comedy. The one where Will Ferrell is a professional ice skater. Yeah like that. Yeah.
It has to have a lot of jokes very fast. Right. To keep my brain occupied. They don't even all have to land right.
Like that's the magic of those movies is the jokes don't all have to be good but they have to the quantity has to be incredibly high. Yeah. And you know what this means John? Hmm.
Is that I've been imagining myself doing stand up about cancer. Please God. Please. Please.
Please. No. Please. Very vulnerable.
Right. The last thing I need is Hank Green emerging from this experience with a new damn job. That's right. I can't have a touring America.
I can't have a touring America. What if what if something happens? What if you break a leg or something and then I have to tour America just like I have to be the CEO of these companies for a few months. I don't like that at all.
Who will think about me? Oh man. I don't know John. Oh God.
I have to be like be on stage like doing Hank's jokes. Right. Being like being like being like Euripides. You meant it's a deep cut.
It's a deep cut. Oh all right. So how are you doing really? No idea John.
Yeah. I hear you. I think the main thing that we want to say though to everybody listening is that we know this is hard. We know this is tough for you.
Like Hank and I have had a while to talk about this and talk about it with family and process it and dream about it and all that stuff. And you know obviously we know that it's different for you than if it was a member of your family. But it's also it is somebody you care about and it's scary. It's scary for us too.
And you know we're sorry to have this bad news to drop on you. But also you know what I've something I've noticed in the last three weeks Hank. I say a sentence that's that's that's sad. Like this is hard.
This is hard. This sucks. And then I say but yeah. But I don't know what's coming after I say but yeah why did I say that?
Why did I do that? It's like a is this an American thing where like they they raised us that they raised us to be improbably optimistic and hopeful in the face of all I don't know what it well I think it's just a human thing. You don't want to tell people just bad news right you want to tell them the but yeah you can if you haven't watched my vlogbrothers video you can watch that it's quite it's you know it's about the little over 10 minutes long and it has some of the butts in it like that Hodgkin's from as one of the better cancers if you're going to get a cancer it's certainly not lucky because it's very it's actually quite rare. Yeah but it's lucky as these things go.
It's lucky as these things go and the you know I don't know what the treatment journey is going to look like you know one really knows this is this is the other thing that I have learned is that there isn't a lot of comparability between stories right because you don't you don't know how treatment is going to affect you. Yeah you don't know you know you don't know a lot about how the disease is progressing. Yeah because you don't get like a pet scan every two days you know so like you're always in situations of uncertainty and you're always in situations where there's a bunch of new stuff that you don't have control over and and like we are always in that situation you know where you know control is is always a bit of an illusion things can always change very quickly and you know I'm glad to know what's wrong I'm glad to know what to do about it I'm glad I'm very glad that like the financial part of this is not stressing me out which would be for 99% of Americans right I'm very glad to have such great support structures I'm very glad that sort of like what to do is known but like what it's going to be like is unknown yeah people respond very differently to these drugs the side effect profiles are very different person to person the you know the cancer responds differently in different people so like sometimes it's short sometimes it's long and you just don't know until you're through and so like the thing that was the first thing anybody said to me when it looked like I might have cancer was like you need to start seeing this as what's going on today and that's it and if you're thinking about what might be in six months don't because you don't know you just have no idea what this is going to be like so just take it day to day and it's very hard for me to do yeah but I am better when I'm doing it that way like I do feel better yeah so yeah no I think that that's the right approach and you're right that uncertainty is with us all the time and sometimes we can be hard like I think sometimes we can say like oh it's it's always an illusion like safety security certainty is always an illusion and that's true it is always an illusion but like it's it's a privilege to be able to take respite in that illusion yeah and sometimes in your life you will not be able to take respite in that in that illusion and that's hard yeah but I did it again you said what but isn't it weird that this is happening that's the other thing it's very weird it's very weird it's very weird it's like I keep I like even now you know two weeks post-diagnosis as you're hearing this I'm like in chemo hangover mode I'm still like but like maybe I don't though yeah like like it seems like probably it can't be that's can't be really the thing yeah right I mean the whole thing about yeah I mean I feel the same way like on a different scale obviously because it's not happening to me but that same feeling of like oh weird like yeah weird and there is also the weirdness of having to talk about it in public which is weird but it would also be weird to not talk about it in public and certainly I don't know about you Hank but when I was 25 years old and making a commitment to have a public life that I did not understand that I was making with the with the publication of my first book it did not occur to me that I would have to live the big moments in life in public yeah or to some extent yeah but it also I mean this is something that we talked about a lot at the very beginning like I was like you know whatever if you want to say like we're taking a sabbatical because we're taking a sabbatical because I got overworked I'd be like great fine but that felt off to you yeah yeah I mean I there are people who have done it that way and and I totally respect that choice and me too and understand it you know this is weird there are like parts of it that I'm worried about I'm worried about like I don't think that press is going to care that much or be invasive I am a little like I don't you know if you've been through chemo and you've got like advice I will hear it for sure if you've got like here's how you cure cancer without chemo I don't need to hear though I'm sure that's right meaning but like that's not that's not helpful it's not helpful or honestly it's not real you know you have to you have to face these things with reality and with the clear knowledge that we have lots of evidence for what works and situations like this and what doesn't yeah so in conclusion if you're a he-mog doctor yeah or you've been through chemo by all means sent us an email and hang out at your home otherwise I've been really glad to hear from friends and friends who've been through it and you know you ask ask for a second blanket and make sure you bring a snack and you know the nurses like it when you bring cookies like all that is great yeah very into that and also like you know maybe I like I probably should be doing some physical activities that I'm capable of so that that's also something I need to think about and so I haven't read that I've been reading the subreddits and it was watching watching the YouTube videos and it's great to have those resources for sure yeah but to go back to the point there are aspects of it being public that of course are concerning and potentially challenging yeah but also the relationship that we've built with this community is such that over the last like 17 years or whatever is such that I think for both of us it would be hard not to talk about what's going on yeah and just disappear yeah I mean I felt bad like canceling those two I had to cancel two college events and it was before I had anything definitive and I felt bad just doing that yeah and say and not having a like a clear reason why right right I do want to address a couple of things that I think might come up in response to this first off like why don't you do Dear John and Sarah or Dear John and guest host for a few months I think the short answer is because I don't want to at its core this is a podcast where two brothers answer your questions give you dubious advice and bring you all the weeks news from both Mars and AFC Wimbledon and I don't really want to lose that I certainly don't want to lose it for months and also unlike Hank I don't know that I have the capacity to do all this stuff well and so that's the other reason the same may go for vlogbrothers videos I have no idea yeah and but it's you know it's vlogbrothers like that's what it's always yeah I think yeah I totally agree and I like that's what I want and it shouldn't matter nothing else should matter yeah yeah um and so that's a great card to be able to play and and you know I also want to keep making videos they might I might look different in one way or another and they might be more infrequent um and I don't know and maybe there won't be any but like right where I'm at right now I like making YouTube videos and it's easy not to brag but I know how to do it when you've done something 1400 times yeah it's easier than it used to be that's for sure it's way easier for you that it is for me every time I see your workflow I'm just like oh that's how he does it in three hours instead of 10 yeah but I yeah I mean my my feeling about that is basically like if you call me and tell me you want to do a podcast we'll make a podcast and if you call me and tell me you're gonna make a vlogbrothers video on Friday I'll make one on the Tuesday before and the Tuesday after or something like that but like no I don't think anybody honestly Hank I don't think anybody feels wants us to feel like I don't think anybody's pressure on us to do that stuff except for us yeah and I only want to do it if it feels good and like editing a video is very meditative for me it is very comfortable yeah and like recording it kind of sucks and writing it is the bigger question like to what extent am I gonna be like am I gonna be interested or able yeah and the other thing that if I don't feel like recording and editing a video I have thought about whether we could just do like some newsletter updates yeah we the turn criteria newsletter you can find the link to that in the vlogbrothers video and sign up for that if you want to get updates and stuff and that'll be at least be a point of contact can I tell them about how you tried to watch another gosh darn I think it's still like this is a good idea business venture in the midst of this well yeah sure I flipped my lid you didn't like john didn't like oh my god I'm still mad I gave up on that one immediately I was soon as I saw the way I interpreted it I was like everybody everybody was gonna it wasn't gonna be just me yeah but the but yeah so like I read an early draft of Hank's video and Hank's video is so beautiful it's so it's so great you did a good job you're doing a good job but the first draft it was also great it was beautiful except at the end you know how like at the end of every youtube video like every every really effective youtube video there's a call to action like like and subscribe or please donate to this cause or by awesome coffee at awesome coffee club calm more necessary than ever whatever it is uh Hank's call to action at the end of the dang video was I don't know how many vlogbrothers videos I'm gonna make it but I'm starting up a new business it's not really what I said it's a newsletter business it's a sign up for my brand new newsletter and I was like if you do that if you start if you represent what I said if you reset the clock on how long has it been since he restarted a thing after just after getting diagnosed with cancer like everyone is going to be as mad as I am yeah I mean I was just thinking a fresh a nice fresh newsletter with you know for we got a new we got a newsletter yeah but have a newsletter and it's great it is good it provides a high quality newsletter experience to its tens of thousands of subscribers the last thing we need is a new thing that's a good point thank you yeah so you you won that one I'm also doing a good job you are doing a good job thank you I think that's and you know what everybody out there listening you are doing a good job that's all we want and we don't care how you're feeling really no we do but we don't we don't want to put pressure on you to answer it you'll let us know yeah well I mean the whatever way you're feeling is normal this is a very strange situation yeah for sure and you know it's been helpful for me to have folks be like all these all the different directions your mind is running in it's all normal and it's all common and yeah and everybody's going to bring their own stuff to it right because so many people who listen who are listening to this are cancer survivors or love a cancer survivor or lost somebody to cancer and so everybody's going to bring you know their own particular memories or experiences to this and commingle that with this experience that we're having so we also like just you know I think I think it's such it's so individual and so all we can really do is make space for that the last thing I want there is no news for Mars and AFC Wimbledon this week not as far as we know like literally not just not just that we don't want to talk about it I don't think anything happened but I do want to say that in advance of feeling it because we haven't felt it yet because as we're recording this not that many people know we're very grateful for your support your generosity your understanding and I don't know if I'll make an yesterday video this year on August 18th but I think I love you so much I admire you so much it's this has been a hard hard thing for you to go through already but I admire the way that you're going through it with integrity with curiosity seeking to learn and opening yourself up to the hard the hard feelings as well so yeah I just I just like you a lot thanks I like you too John I wasn't thinking about you I was obviously selfish in that moment no I appreciate those kind words though thank you oh man yeah so thanks for coming to our lymphoma spectacular yep thanks for thanks for making a podcast with me John oh thanks thanks for to everybody who sent in their questions sorry we didn't answer any I was doing okay until you said thanks for making a podcast with me and then I got real emotional that's weird I know the things I know it's like when I didn't cry at my high school graduation until I saw this kid I didn't know and I was like I'm never gonna see that and by the way I haven't and there's just something yeah there's something you know little moments where you just realize like how much you have to be grateful for like I'm just so I'm so glad that we've been able to make so many podcasts together yeah and I look forward to making many more yeah I'm okay actually with extending the hiatus until say like January of 2027 wow wow yeah just just debuting here John and Hank I also like it's funny that you I have to say this it's funny that you when I proposed the idea of a newsletter that I might use if I felt like it which is how I phrased it yeah that you were like that is you cannot do that but when I said to you maybe this will give us some time to work on that book project that we would like to maybe do together you were like yeah you were very excited about that okay all right do you not see that I thought we were I thought we were in the conclusion face of the podcast but I guess not everybody stopped listening went to where they thought we were wrapping up but it turns out that we had a whole other bit to get to do you not and this is a genuine question like I'm not asking this rhetorically it may sound like I'm asking it rhetorically but that's only because I'm frustrated do you not see the difference between starting a new thing that is open ended has no shape and may last forever and writing a book yeah I guess I do okay that's great I'm super encouraged that you see the difference between those two kinds of projects I probably should see see that that that different shape more often I love a thing that ends yeah Hank Hank loves an open-ended commitment and god well thank god because like otherwise we might not have made an open-ended commitment to partners in health we might not have made an open-ended commitment to vlogbrothers and deer-hankin-jaun and lots of other stuff but like let's all all all hail some things ending you know like this book that we're hopefully gonna write together with all your with all of yeah all the energy I'm gonna have for the next few months but the hope is that that's not an obligation exactly it's just like whenever you feel like it you can write me I used to have written me anything so like and that's fine no rush man no and if it never happens that's good too yeah zero deadlines that's the difference it's like no deadlines no open-endedness if it happens it'll happen in the end and if it doesn't happen nobody ever has to know about it except for all these people who do know that there is something except for the 12 people who listened after the end stop this podcast was edited by kylie dishman produced by rosionna hollfrow-hoss our communication coordinator is brook shot well our editorial assistant is to book each other already the music you're hearing now and the vina the podcast is by the great enrolla and as they say in our hometown don't forget to be 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