Jordie Poncy  - Still Existing and Bucket Listing

I'm a psychologist by profession, and when I tell people that, they either do one of two things, they clam up or then they start spilling their guts. [audience laughter] And I've always been kind of analytical, cerebral. I like figuring people out. I like helping people and so it's been a really good fit for me. 

 

And in 2022, I got the opportunity of a lifetime with a job offer to work at the esteemed Moffitt Cancer Center, where I would get to help cancer patients go through all aspects of their cancer journeys. I was so excited. 

 

And about two weeks before my start date, I thought to myself, “Jordie, you really ought to get this stomachache checked out that has been kind of lingering.” And so, I drove myself one morning to an ER because it felt like my organs are about to explode. Actually, I drove myself first to a dentist appointment because those are a real pain to reschedule. [audience laughter] And then I drove myself to the ER. I'm responsible. And I thought it was just going to be something easy like colitis, pancreatitis, gingivitis, something just needed a pill. But the doctor came back in and he looked really nervous, and he started making weird small talk like, “Where's your family? How quickly could they get here?” And I was like, this is not good. And then he seemed to be getting more and more nervous, and finally he came out with it. He said, “Jordie, we found what appears to be cancer throughout your liver.” And I was like, “What?” 

 

And then I distinctly remember him breathing a sigh of relief and saying, “Oh, I just hate delivering life changing news like this.” [audience laughter] And being a psychologist, of course, I said, “I thought you did great. How do you feel about it?” [audience laughter]  

 

As they wheeled me up to the inpatient units like some sort of Fabergé egg. I thought many things, one of which was, what am I going to tell Moffitt Cancer Center, my future employer? I mean, how do you make that call? “Hi, this is Dr. Poncy. How firm would you say that start date is?” Meanwhile, hospital machines are like beeping in the background. So, I decided the first person I would actually call was my attorney. That's what I call my sister because she's a criminal defense lawyer in Tampa. [audience laughter] And within about 20 minutes, she was Tokyo drifting into the parking lot of the hospital, bounding up to my room and saying, “I've already talked to multiple people about getting you in to see a specialist.” I was just really happy to see a familiar face. 

Soon we were playing rock, paper, scissors to see who would have to call our parents, I won, but somehow, I still had to call them, which is what happens when you have an attorney in the family. [audience laughter] They were soon racing frantically up to meet us. I eventually did call Moffitt. I spoke to my future supervisor from my hospital room, and I was sort of frantic. I was like, “I know this is hard to believe, but I just got diagnosed with cancer. I'm at the hospital. I don't know what to do about this job. I don't know what to tell you. I'm really scared.” And she was fantastic, Deane. She said, “First of all, I'm going to pray for you. Secondly, we're going to hold this job. You just focus on your health.” I was super relieved to have that sort of taken care of for the time being, but also pretty nervous because I didn't know what the future would hold and if I would ever be able to take that job. 

 

Eventually, I did end up entering Moffitt not as a staff member, but as a patient, which was pretty devastating. And in the weeks that followed, we met with a bunch of fantastic, top notch, top in their field specialists. But they were sharing really scary things about this cancer. We were hearing terms like rare, neuroendocrine carcinoma, stage four, incurable. And I bullied the doctors into this one, but my personal favorite was an average lifespan of about two years from date of diagnosis. That's the day I learned what it's like to go catatonic. 

My family actually had to kind of prop me up to leave the cancer center that day because I was in so much shock and my head was spinning. I quickly started chemo. My hair fell out. I lost more weight. My friends did that amazing thing they do where they all shaved their heads in solidarity, but it was actually annoying because they all looked awesome in their buzz cuts and I have the skull, apparently, of a Brachiosaurus dinosaur that's sort of bulbous and misshapen, so it didn't have the intended effect exactly. 

 

I spent my days getting chemo, recovering from chemo on my parents’ couch, and pretty much moaning under a blanket with existential dread. I mean, if you can imagine my parents going about their business throughout their day in the house and from under a blanket muffled size of, “I feel like a ghost. I'm not alive anymore, and I really hope there's an afterlife.” I was scared. 

 

The only thing that brought me any solace was torturing my father with morbid humor. One day we were driving in the car, he was driving, and I tilted my passenger chair back and I said, “Dad, let's pretend like this is my deathbed, okay?” And I kind of half closed my eyes and I coughed a little for effect. And I said, [coughs] “Dad, dad, I'm drifting toward the light. This is your chance. Tell me, what do you want to get off your chest?” And he said, “I'm trying to drive. I'm not playing this game.” And I said, “Dad, this is it. Unburden yourself with all your personal and family dark secrets.” And he said, “I'll tell you a secret. Don't ever pull the stunt with your mother.” [audience laughter] I thought that was pretty good advice. She was a little more emotionally labile than were at this point. 

 

So, yeah, time trudged on, and I entered a really dark place. I was super depressed and hopeless with everything we had learned. And it was interesting to observe myself as a psychologist going through this because I had definitely underestimated the paralyzing weight of depression and hopelessness. As a psychologist, I'd always been warm, compassionate, connecting. I got good results with my clients, but honestly, I think I was a little low on the empathy scale because I hadn't experienced anything quite like this before. And I was a little annoyed with myself at times when we would ask clients or patients to activate and do things. I didn't realize what a big ask that was until now. 

 

More time went by, and eventually the doctors and the scans said, “Your tumors aren't going anywhere, Jordie, but they are shrinking.” And I did start to have some better days. One day, I was pulling groceries out of the back of the car, and boom, I was hit with this epiphany, “Jordie, you're still alive.” And I know that sounds kind of obvious, but to me, it wasn't. I had felt like I was not part of the living, so focused on treatment and chemo and cancer. And I thought, I'm just as alive as anybody else is, today at least. How can I make this day worth living? 

 

And I've been a longtime admirer of Viktor Frankl, who is a psychologist who founded Logotherapy, and he was a survivor of concentration camps. And there, in that harsh environment, he noticed that people who tended to do the best physically and mentally were people who had a sense of meaning and purpose in their everyday lives, especially when that was focused on helping others. And I had missed that from my days in psychology. And so, I thought, maybe I should think about this job. But every time I had contacted Moffitt Cancer Center, I'd been terrified, because I thought, how can I do this job when I can hardly get through it myself? So, I sat down with my former supervisor, Lisa, who is one of the most direct and intelligent people that I know, and I gave her a whole dissertation about why I shouldn't take the job. There would be countertransference. I'd freak the patients out. They'd freak me out. No one could concentrate. And she let me finish. And then she said, “Jordie, you're scared. You need to get your act together and take this job, because you're going to be able to offer something that rarely people can, which is both your analytical skills, your clinical skills, but also the empathy you're building for going through this experience.” 

 

And Lisa had always called me “Boundaried,” and that meant I didn't share a lot about myself, which was true in counseling. And she was asking me or nudging me to practice in a different way, to be really open with my story. And I said, “Oh, Lisa, I thought you were going to let me off the hook here.” And she just gave me a signature Lisa eye roll, which is a badge of honor if you've ever received one. It's like the Paul Hollywood handshake of psychologists. 

 

So, I started at Moffitt on my first day. I was terrified. I went to trainings. I shook people's hands. I met new people. I smiled. But I was panicking inside. I mean, literally. I hid in an office space to have a panic attack. Only that space had a glass wall I didn't realize. So, people could walk by and see the new guy just hyperventilating in a room by himself, which was not a great start. 

 

Finally, I met with my first patient, and I had rehearsed my intro speech. It was, “Hi, I'm Jordie Poncy. I'm a Psychologist here at Moffitt, but you may see me at chemo or in waiting rooms because I'm also a patient.” And she burst into tears. And I was like, “Oh, no. I have broken this woman in a vulnerable place.” And she said, “No, no. Actually, it's fantastic. These are tears of relief because I can finally talk to someone who understands what it's like to sit in this chair. My family, try as they might, they're great. They just don't quite understand.” And then I talk to the next person and the next. And I started seeing more and more reactions of the same nature. And I realized a lot of these patients want someone in the trenches with them who's going to get it, you know, someone who's not going to placate them or tell them everything's going to be okay, or-- This is surprisingly common, but when you tell someone you have cancer, one of their first reactions is to immediately tell you about a great aunt who died of the exact same cancer you have. [audience laughter] So, someone who wasn't going to do that, at the very least. 

And I was doing more connecting and more sharing of myself and it was amazing. I remember a patient who was an older woman going through cancer largely by herself, and she was experiencing depression as well. And one day she came in and she said, “Jordie, I finished my chemo regimen.” And I was like, “That's fantastic.” And we celebrated. And I said, “Did you ring the bell upstairs in the infusion center like you can when you finish chemo?” And she said, “No, I was by myself.” And I was like, “You are not by yourself right now.” And I dragged her up to the infusion center. We gathered the Moffitt staff around, who are amazing at building community like this, and we all clapped and cheered while she clanged that bell. And it was the first time I'd seen her smile in a long time. It was amazing. [applause] Well, thanks. 

 

New Year's rolled around, and my family has this terrible tradition I would not recommend where my mom, my dad, my sister and I sit around, and we were-- Instead of telling our own New Year's resolutions, we were telling everyone else what their New Year's resolutions ought to be. [audience laughter] When it's your turn, it's insulting, but also enlightening. 

 

And my attorney was sitting there, my sister. And she said, “You know, you still fear the future so much. You still have this existential dread. You're always super responsible,” which she finds annoying. And she said, “I think you should pursue in the Moment every day, enjoyment in the New Year.” And I was like, “That's allowed?” And then I thought that's actually a pretty good idea. And so, I did what anyone does when they're trying to live in the moment. I sat down and made a to-do list. [audience laughter] And that list was called “Still existing and bucket listing.” 

 

And even though I'm really afraid, it has led me to do some really fun things like go hiking with friends in New Mexico, go swimming in a cenote in Mexico, swim with dolphins in Orlando, go fishing in Alaska, and telling a Moth story because I'm a longtime listener. And this is incredible. [audience cheers and applause] 

 

Yeah, we can just like check. And, I don't mean to make it sound like it's all fun and games or living out loud, because fighting cancer has been the hardest thing I have ever had to do. And working this job is also really difficult. There are days where I face the very mortality that has been ascribed to me in patients. I see patients decompensate and I see their health decline or they get a bad scan or they pass away. And I see the future that I've been told that I have, even though we're not sure exactly when that will be. 

 

And so, people ask all the time, “How are you doing this?” And I have learned two really valuable lessons. One is I lean a lot on God. Sometimes I actually feel him just pushing me back up when I want to flee the room. And also, I realized that my sister and Viktor Frankl were correct that having a sense of meaning and purpose in your daily life, especially when helping others, fighting cancer in me and also in my patient community, is honestly what I think has kept me alive this long. I'm about a year past that two-year deadline [cheers and applause] and thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. And the doctors, as of the last scan, they say that the tumors are still shrunken and stable. So, we're still going. And each day that I go into the cancer center, I find myself really excited about the people I'll get to meet with and the exciting bucket list items I'll get to tackle in the future, no matter how long of a time that might be. Thank you.