Remembering Oliver Sacks
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In memory of one of our dear friends, a re-release of our last conversation with Dr. Oliver Sacks.
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RIDILEB is supported by AT&T. We all love to connect via video calls or texts. Right now, at AT&T, you can get the new iPhone 18 Pro for $0 with iPhone trade-in. Any condition. It has the ultimate pro camera system and big leap in battery life, so you can turn this deal into a long-lasting connection. Learn how you can trade in your iPhone for the new iPhone 18 Pro requires trade-in of iPhone 14 or higher, excluding iPhone 16E, an eligible plan. Terms and restrictions apply, subject to change, visit an AT&T store for details. So we want to finish the night with a salute to a guy who's been on our program and part of our family pretty much from the beginning. I have known him for more than 35 years. Early on when Radio Lab started, I asked him if he'd help us out and send us a few story ideas. He didn't send us a few. He sent us bushels, tales of chemistry and medicine, hallucinations, music, people. So many extraordinary people that he knew or found or helped because the guy just doesn't run out. Dr. Oliver Sacks, neurologist, awful. There's a guy who notices everything. He's deeply interested in everything that happens around him and to him. Tonight we're bringing him back on tape for what, alas, may be his final offering for us. As many of you know, Dr. Sacks recently was diagnosed with liver cancer and he wrote about this in the New York Times. He said he plans to spend the time that he has left writing, being with friends, not doing interviews, but he did agree to share his thoughts exclusively with us tonight for you gathered here because he's one of our family. So as I've done for decades now, I went over to his house in Manhattan with my mic and I said to him, I just need to know what just happened. A month and a half ago you were fine and then what? At the beginning of the year I was fine. On the third of January I felt a little queer and I passed some dark urine. I thought I had a little gallbladder attack and didn't pay that much attention but thought I better get things checked. And the X-ray, which was expected only to show a couple of gallstones, showed hundreds of cysts in my liver. Although my doctor said he didn't know what these were and I would need further tests, I knew what they were. I said it's happened. And he was right. The doctors eventually confirmed that a cancer that had been found in his eye nine years ago had spread to his liver. Were you frightened or relieved or consoled or what? No, I think my first feeling was one of overwhelming sadness. There are all sorts of things I won't see and I won't do. One or two people have written to me and consolingly and said, well, you know, we all die, but fuck it. It's not like we all die. It's like you have four months.
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In memory of one of our dear friends, a re-release of our last conversation with Dr. Oliver Sacks.