5min chapter

Body Stuff with Dr. Jen Gunter cover image

A special new podcast from Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider

Body Stuff with Dr. Jen Gunter

CHAPTER

Facing Family Illness

This chapter shares a personal narrative about grappling with a family member's serious health diagnosis, specifically potential pancreatic cancer. The speaker discusses the emotional challenges and medical insights that arise from this experience, emphasizing the need for meaningful conversations about health and end-of-life care.

00:00
Speaker 2
like, this is an example, and the fact that you boxed a little bit reminds me of when Mike Tyson got angry at the dude that snapped his pigeon. Killed his pigeon. Remember? No, I know the Mitch Blood Green story, but I don't know the pigeon. No, Mike Tyson got into boxing because he was into pigeons collecting. I do know that part. And he said, I remember when this dude, he came up to me, you know, and I was doing pigeons a little pigeon and all my pigeons in the coop and he came over there and he said is this your pigeon? I said yeah, that's my pigeon. He said fuck your pigeon and he snapped his head off He snapped his head off and that's why I snapped. Oh, I started boxing. I said no one's ever gonna fuck with me No one's ever gonna take my pigeons, because I love my pigeons. And he tried to make me look like a bitch. And I said, I never, that's why I have fire in me forever. When I see a pigeon, I see anybody, I'm gonna fuck with a pigeon, I'm gonna beat that shit out of him. And that motherfucker snapped behind my pigeons, and that never happened again. So I treat him like a bitch and fuck them in the ass. You don't fuck with my pigeons. Yeah
Speaker 1
That's good. He was 10
Speaker 2
Yeah, he's strange. Oh, he snapped and then Muhammad Ali said I got an embossing because someone stole my bike a guy in Louisville, Kentucky Stole my bike and he beat me up. And so I went to the gym I said I want to be a boxer because I want to get the guy that stole my bike.
Speaker 1
Wow. Yes, he's looking. Everyone's. Everyone's. So. And someone ate your. Like when you did. Some ate my sandwich.
Speaker 2
And you fucked them up.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Then later on I would just fight with people out of boredom but I always realized that the that I could never initiate that wasn't an asshole or hard-ass or anything But I did understand That if I wanted to fight and and I I did a lot of times just out of boredom, you know I said that I would say that if somebody Agressed on me and it was aggressive with me and talking shit. I knew if I said I don't want to fight that that would always mean we're going to fight. Because the second you'd step back and go, I don't want to fight, then the bully goes, oh, you're going to fight, bro. Like, now I'm going to kick your... So I would bait them into fighting by telling them I didn't want to fight which I was technically the right answer Yes, well, I don't want to fight and then they would go, you know, I'd go like I don't want trouble and they go you found trouble You know and then at some point They would go we're going to fight and then I would go. Okay, but now and I would try it and and it worked most the time
Speaker 3
Except for one time the guy had four of his buddies with it. Ah, yeah I was gonna say like my experience as a kid growing up was like where we grow up in North Carolina, okay? Hey, Fayetteville, North Carolina very rough area. Yeah, where it's just constantly, I would just get in surprise fights out of nowhere. There's prize fights and then there's a surprise fight. Yeah, a surprise fight. Where I'm just like, oh, I'm going to fight. Oh, and then just suddenly getting down, you know, and then have to figure it out on the fly. But when
Speaker 2
did you go like, let me start training? When was that?
Speaker 1
I stole his bike, they ate his sandwich, they killed his bird. I got my pigeon, man. I know. There's a parakeet actually. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 3
yeah, yeah. I don't know. Yeah, that era of like, I don't know, high school, like right after middle school, high school with for me was like a turning point because I was like going to the army like that's an army based town. Okay, so my dad was training me coaching me getting me ready for the army, the army, the army. And then one day he was like, man, I don't know about the army. And I was like, I don't know about the army either. You know, I read on the internet that war is a racket. And then that was, it was on after that, right? Where I w and then I saw ultimate fighting on TV and was like, Oh my God, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do that. And the really, the big thing was, wasn't the bullies. It wasn't the bullies. Cause I was used to fighting them every day. I was normally fighting fighting fight And I was like so used to getting in that height place of oh God I gotta fight now that I was like it was normalized the thing was my little nerdy buddy in my backyard Choked me plum unconscious with the triangle choke really using jujitsu oh I'm like wait a minute you're smaller than me gotcha I've never been in any fights and just put me got flat out that's magic that's magic if I can learn that I could beat up all these bullies no problem right now and then then it would became a challenge for me damn it was like how crazy different world that I answer it
Speaker 2
sounds like something that would happen in the backyard like. This
Speaker 1
guy Chris Dibman he was. I was done doing damage to me what happened next what you in the backyard with another beautiful sand and ongoing. I'm going to the crispy and took my sandwich. Okay number one. Well, you know, we were friends too, but he still, he still bo-guttered my sandwich, you know, the one my grandpa made. Then a little bit later on, not too much later, I broke my shoulder playing football and I had to have this big cast on my shoulder. And it's a whole to do. And the only thing I enjoyed back then other than grandpa sandwiches was riding my unicycle and You can ride a unicycle? I can and I and I rode one and it was the only thing look again the reason my kids don't know how to ride a unicycle even though a fucking tried to teach them 15 times, is because they don't give a fuck, because they got a 60-inch screen in the room, and they got video games, and they got their phone, and they got air conditioning, they got grub hub, they got everything. have anything else inside the house with no air conditioning and depressed mops and there's no food. So I'm not going in. I'm going to hang out. Right. Try to ride a unicycle. It was an act of God that even got my hands on a unicycle. Yeah, where did you
Speaker 2
get one from?
Speaker 1
Well again, no Amazon. There was one place that had a unicycle that I was aware of when I was 10. It was the Schwinn Shop. Schwinn! On Laurel Canyon Boulevard and I'd walk into that place it was like Valhalla man, smelled like rubber, you got the apple crate and the cherry picker and all this stuff and the unicycle being the backup on the wall you know and the rack. Now fucking cheap ass, broke ass family couldn't afford anything inside of that Schwinn shop much. Right. There was a unicycle was $66 in 19, one wheel 74, you know, and as no fucking way, anyone was going to buy that. Yeah. But grandpa Munster from the Munsters, Al Lewis, Al Lewis. Damn you're good with
Speaker 2
names. You mean to tell me you want one of those unicycles? Not bad. Not bad. Yeah, baby. Fred Gwenlab.
Speaker 3
Kiss my ass. Godfrey. He was the meanest man in the world. The meanest. He hit me. He hit me. Wait, you got an insurance The guy you know, you know, cycles. I'm sure these people show
Speaker 1
a grandpa. I'll list. No grandpa. I'll hit me. With his car. Now with his hand. Donut. Donut. Donut. Donut. Donut. Donut. Donut. Donut. Donut. Donut. Donut. Donut. Donut. Donut. Donut. Donut. Donut. Donut. Donut. Donut. Donut. Donut. Donut. Donut. Donut. Donut. Donut. Donut. Donut. Donut. Donut. Donut. Donut. Donut. do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do Yeah, showing a picture of him looking nothing like grandpa. But that's what Hal Lewis looked like in 1959.
Speaker 3
They put makeup on him and he looked the same.
Speaker 1
Anyway, he was a mean man. Wow. He spit tobacco on the floor of his house. He had a wooden floor. Ted Cruz? Spit tobacco. He looked like Ted Cruz. And he was mean. Why did he... I don't get in the Schwinn Shop? What the hell does that have to do with anything, Adam? no. There's nothing I could purchase in the Schwinn Shop. I didn't have any money. My family didn't have any money. But I had a vague recollection that a few years earlier, the oldest brother he had three sons. the oldest brother Dave, because I was friends with the middle brother, the oldest brother Dave had a unicycle, but it'd been a couple years, and Dave was like 14 or 13 or something, he was an older brother and he was going into high school or something. So I got hold of, you know, of grandpa. And I said, is Dave still got that unicycle? Is he using it? Is he riding it? Because this is the only way for me to get hold of a unicycle. I couldn't order one online or go to the Schwinn shop or I expect anyone to buy one. Dave said, yeah, it's in the backyard. It's just been sitting in the backyard, rusting out for a year and a half or something. So I said, could I buy that unicycle from you? It was a Schwinn, which is the only one who really made them back then. That's right. So he said yeah, give me ten bucks I'll buy you can buy it for ten bucks. So then I fucking washed cars at my dad's apartment, you know These are all conversations my kids love, you know conversation I've made ten bucks, you know buck a car wash ten cars got my ten bucks went down to Van Nuys Got the unicycle but had like a flat tire and it rusted out and the seat was all popping out and stuff. And I took it and I took an SOS pad and I scrubbed all the rust off it and I oiled it and I cleaned it all off. I made a seat cover out of blue jeans. Damn. When you're making cutoffs, you can't throw away the rest of the blue jeans. Man, that's big bucks, you know, for the Corolla's. I showed it and everything, pulled it around, got this thing all shiny and new, and then rode the shit out of it for like the next couple years.
Speaker 2
Were you good at it as soon as you got on it? Come
Speaker 1
on. Yeah, I learned I have really weird balance. I have strange balance. Balance is sort of like a musical ear. Yes. Or Well, like you can do voices, right? Yes, I can. All right, I can't do voices, but you shouldn't get credit for it. It's a God-given thing. And I have balance. I have weird balance. You know, so I learned how to write a unicycle in about three hours. And then I was off and running. And I was riding off of picnic tables, I'd hop on it, I'd go off loading docks at the back of a supermarket. You were like extreme games before extreme games. I was going extreme because I needed something, you know? And I only have a clip of me riding around
Speaker 2
my house. Are you good? No, you're lying.
Speaker 1
And I don't, yeah. Damn, cool. I hopped on it in my house like three years ago and I hadn't ridden it, ridden it.
Speaker 4
Years. And I'm mowing through my house. This shit here. Wow.
Speaker 2
Wow. That's a nice house, buddy.
Speaker 1
It is. You do a unison. Look at. Now making the corners is a little tough if you go slow. Threading the needle. Wow, look at
Speaker 2
it. Damn. Going by. Wow, nice. Damn. That's my... Guess who else is another unicyclist? Let's
Speaker 4
see if you can do it. That
Speaker 1
guy kicked your ass out front of the cell. Guess who else is a unicyclist? Mike Epps. Oh, Mike Epps. Mike Epps is a unicyclist. Brother on a unicycle.
Speaker 2
You don't see that that often. What is a uni- I'm sorry, Universal Circus? Oh yeah, the greatest show on Earth. Showtime! That's a Jeff Ross joke. That's not my joke. Mike, that's really funny. The greatest show on earth. Jeff Ross. Yo, Joe Mike eps on a unicycle. That's universal. That's the Black Circus, which is fantastic, by the way. He gets down on a unicycle. Awesome. Wouldn't guess that. Watch. Mike eps on unicycle if you could find that you'll see you and my caps
Speaker 1
so I anyway I broke my shoulder and I wrote but I didn't stop me from riding my unicycle I had a big cast on my arm you know and I think people started to complain and my mom didn't like the optics of her son with the big cast and the broken shoulder run, zipping up through the neighborhood, all over the neighborhood on a unicycle. Wow. You know? So... Chris Dintman... Dintman. Dintman.
Speaker 3
Dintman. Dintman. Dintman. Dintman. Dintman. Dintman.
Speaker 1
Dintman. Dintman. Dintman. Dintman. Dintman. Dintman. Dintman. Dintman. Dintman. Dintman. Dintman. Dintman. Dintman. Dintman. Dint off.
Speaker 3
No. What happened?
Speaker 1
I said all right well I'm getting the cast off in like two months so I'm gonna need it back because it's all I got. I mean that's all. I didn't have a fucking dog or basketball hoop or I didn't have a video game. I didn't have shit. Yeah. But I got this unicycle, that's all I got. So he goes, all right. And I go, okay, now I wanted to say no, just like I wanted to say no about the bite of the sandwich, but I couldn't do it, my self-esteem was too low. So I said, take the unicycle, but that's all I got. So I'm gonna need it in two months. I get the cast off. You know this story. Get the cast off, and now it's time for me to be reunited with my unicycle. With your unicycle. And so I said to Chris when I saw him in school cast off you know this afternoon I need my unicycle back and he said I put it in the back of your yard. And I said, I don't think there's a unicycle in my backyard. He said, well, somebody must have stole it then. I said, damn, are you sure you put it in the back, my backyard? He said, yep. I said, well, it's not in there. And he said, well then somebody stole it from your backyard. So that's kind of on you And then I said to my mom who didn't make sandwiches and didn't purchase unicycles. I said mom Remember you pulled me off the unicycle. All right now I got the cast off and I need the unicycle back but Chris said he put it in the backyard, but it's gone. And I think he either has it or stole it or never put it in the backyard, or maybe someone stole it out of our backyard. Maybe he stole it out of our backyard after he put it in our backyard, but I'm out a unicycle.
Speaker 2
And she
Speaker 1
said, well, what are you gonna do? And I said, well, I don't have any money or anything. So could you talk to Chris Dittman's mom and see if she would understand this situation and maybe she could replace the unicycle? She said, okay, I'll talk to Chris Dittman's mom. And then she talked to Chris Dittman's mom or didn't I don't know but later on that night I said to my mom did you talk to Chris Dittman's mom about replacing my unicycle and she said yep and I said how to go not good I said what's happening no replacement I said and that's it that's all We're now done with this chapter in your life where you own the unicycle. Now who's the worst mom? My mom or Chris Dittman's mom? In this equation who's the worst out of this group?
Speaker 2
It's a toss-up.
Speaker 3
Neither of them make sandwiches.
Speaker 2
Not sandwiches. Your mom isn't gonna get you anything. She hasn't fed you that well. And she definitely ain't getting you no damn unicycle. And then Chris Dittman's mom is a bully. Did she raise the bully? She talked to
Speaker 1
Chris Dittman's mom. I never thought about it at the time. Knowing my mom, she didn't feel like leaving the house. She probably waited somewhere. She probably didn't even call and just was like, I'm just gonna tell
Speaker 2
him now. I don't know, I don't know. I don't know your mom might do it. She probably was like, this is so unimportant to me. Yeah,
Speaker 1
well, the tragedy is there were three brothers, the Dittman brothers. The Dittman brothers. And Chris, the youngest, I don't think he saw his 25th birthday, and the middle age, Jesse didn't see his 19th birthday. Damn. So it was two out of the three cut down in their prime. They just got all that karma from free unicycles and sandwiches. Maybe it was the sandwich karma. Yeah. But yeah, so, you know, they have real problems. But still that was the end of me my unicycle now. Now I own 15 unicycles and the reason... Different heights? No. That's 13 too many. I didn't then I didn't have a unicycle from 11 and a half to adulthood. Like I was just done. I'd been broken of the unicycle. And then later on, when I became successful, every chick I told the sad unicycle story to would show up the following day with a unicycle. Now I have 12 unicycles. Because when they hear that hard luck unicycle story, they all come in the next day. There you go. Is it all Schwinn or Schwinn? Or is it just a different company? It used to be like Schwinn. There was the Schwinn of unicycles, then the Huffy of course. And they made a shitty unicycle, but that would have been good enough for me. But then later on, once the internet opened up and everything, there's dirt bike unicycles, like off-road unicycles, you know, there's everything. Oh yeah, it's a whole thing. Oh yeah, there's a whole mountain bike trail jumper. Unicycles. Some genre here. Yeah, like knobby tires on them. There's a whole world out there.
Speaker 2
That just sounds like it would crush your nuts just the whole time. The thing about motorcycles,
Speaker 1
like if you ride off a loading dock or whatever, picnic table, whatever I would do, you don't sit on it, you stand. Oh you kind of, oh okay. You get the pedals in the middle, not 6 o'clock and 12 o'clock, 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock. You get right in the middle and you stand right, when you jump off, you stand up. You get your nuts off of that seat. Ask Mike Epps. We have Mike Epps riding the motorcycle. Mike,
Speaker 2
do you? I told
Speaker 1
you. Hell yeah. Learn
Speaker 3
how to do something constructive. Is
Speaker 1
that a Schwinn?
Speaker 3
You did some exercise. If you ain't got two wheels. It looks like he's ready
Speaker 1
too, look at this. Yeah Yeah right on one. You don't have any air in his tire.
Speaker 3
Y'all can get out the house. The internet is killing y'all. Get outside. Get some
Speaker 1
exercise. I never liked my guys but now. You guys need to do a video. He's in a fucking pod. He's fantastic. compressor. Look at that. He's riding, man. I'll tell you, you do get a lot of exercise when there's no fucking air in your tire. That's for sure. He's going uphill. He burned a lot more calories, Mike. And he's an amazing roller skater. You think there are people calling the cops going, this brother stole a unicycle? 100%. Alright. You know Mike? Yeah, very well. Tell him. I want to talk to him about his one wheel obsession.
Speaker 2
You guys need to do. That would be Adam Carolla and Mike Epps. Tell him I got
Speaker 1
an air compressor
Speaker 3
and a good sense of air compression. I would like to promote this race, obstacle course race. That would be fire, celebrity unicycle. Content, we're making content. And they watch people pop up, there'll probably be other people that ride unicycles. I know.
Speaker 1
I know. Celebrity unicycle. Yeah, Tom Higgs. Maybe that would bring us together. It would.
Speaker 2
I think it would.
Speaker 3
Reach across the aisle. Can
Speaker 2
I give a shout out to my the barber that I went to yesterday? Yeah, man Cuz I was looking for it cuz I never really do barbers in LA I usually have my own Clippers cuz I learned how to do my own do and in college I learned Oh, that's good as hell. That's nice And so we'd go to the
Speaker 1
you know University of Illinois. I used to have one of those wall clippers. Wall. I got wall. And then Chris Dittman asked to borrow it? Oh my god. I've never got a haircut.
Speaker 3
No, it's okay.
Speaker 2
Dittman's like, you mind if I cut my hair I'll back Okay, all right, he's left alone All right now, okay you did your own hair so I in so on I would come to LA I would my friend Sarah mellow who's awesome works for icon Sarahello, the nicest human being on the planet, producer of many comedy shows, I would keep my clippers. I bought clippers for LA. When I come out to LA, I would have it at her house. Still doin'. I go, ah, I'm coming over and get the clippers. This time I said, let me find a barber. I don't feel like doing this.

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