Inherited: A Life Without a Cure with Melanie Ezell

You just said something that, ugh, and I should have written it down, but it was...

It-- your attitude towards taking on big wave surfing is...

That's your attitude towards taking on everything, it seems, at this point, where just do it.

Like y- and that, that kind of carries through into your book.

Your book, um, as we talked about before we started recording, you have a lot of these surfing metaphors that as you're reading it, for somebody who's been through treatment, it's just, uh, I could relate to it.

I've never been on a surfboard in my life, but it just-- it all made sense.

Besides the whole, like, zen aspect of surfing and just being in the water, when you're underwater, you know, you don't know which way is up or down.

Right.

And just all-- uh, the way that you wrote, it's just so beautifully descriptive and for a book that talks about all of your experiences in going through the eating disorders and your relationships and all of that, it, it just works.

Yeah.

The-- I mean, that's, that's because that's what surfing is.

Like it...

Surfing is the microcosm that reflects the macrocosm.

Like when you, when you're out there surfing, if you're in a bad place mentally, uh, you're surfing terrible.

And the-- it's just, it's a mirror.

The ocean is a mirror, and it holds up all your own problems to you, and it says, "Hey, you need to face this." And, and you're right.

There-- [sighs] Like with treatment, there's times when you're making really tough calls, like life and death calls.

Like should I do this chemo now? Should I wait? Should I do different chemo? Um, should I do-- should I work with this hospital? Should I go on this trial? And there's something I often say to myself, it's a bit crude, but I go, "Just put your big girl panties on and do it." And, [chuckles] and no one else can make those decisions for you.

Um, you can get input, and you can ask experts, but i-in the end, you know, I don't care how supportive your partner is, how supportive your parents are, how supportive your friends are, like you are the one who makes that call in the end, and it's really scary.

And it would be nice to just be like, "Well, I'll just give my autonomy over to somebody else and let them do it for me," but that, that's not how it works.

And there's something about being out in the ocean and being in these survival situations where there's no thinking anymore.

There's just doing, and you're relying on yourself alone.

Um, no, no one's gonna come...

I mean, maybe if you have like a lifeguard tower, but like pretty much no one's gonna come to save you.

So you've, you've gotta figure it out, and you've gotta figure it out quickly.