As. We wrap up the week.
We're bringing you one of the many positive messages from our
past interviews. Each Thursday we're sharing
stories of our most watched athletes, celebrities and
leaders. We hope these problem solving
narratives inspire you to tackle obstacles in your own life.
This week, Tom Green. What you went through with
cancer, explain what the doc initially thought it was and
then how it quickly progressed from there when you first.
Yeah, well, 'cause it was misdiagnosed when I first sort
of felt that there was some sort of, you know, something wrong
down there. And they said it was
epididymitis. And they gave me some
antibiotics and we went off and filmed a bunch of episodes of
the MTV show while I was waiting for these antibiotics to kick
in. And then they never kicked in.
So I went back to the doctor again and he said, oh, she's
sorry, my bad. Actually, cancer.
So, so you know, it's, it's, it's made me kind of very
conscious of, you know, my health and my awareness of, you
know, I'm always kind of like, I mean, like I said, when COVID
happened, I took it real seriously because not only is
you know, it possible to get sick, but it's also possible to
get sick and then be told that you're not sick or, you know,
it's complicated. It's not just sort of a easy
black and white thing to understand and even a doctor can
not not diagnose you properly. So yeah.
What was the single scariest moment during that period?
Well, it was definitely like the moment of realization that I
could potentially die from from this.
You know, I was sort of sitting there, you know, sort of
devastated because the show was like, you know, kind of my life
at that point. And I realized I was going to
have to stop the show. It was sort of this sort of
devastating thing where it's like, you know, what the Hell's
going to happen here? I mean, if it just seemed like
such a bizarre curveball to be getting testicular cancer at
this time, you know, after everything had led me to this
moment where things were going great and then I get testicular
cancer. So I just assumed the worst, you
know, was was was the assumption was if I got testicular cancer,
well, I'm probably not going to survive it either.
You you really thought that? I pretty much thought that you
can't help but go there. I mean, you're sitting there,
you've got cancer in your body, you know, you're getting it.
You're looking at the statistics.
You go, OK, they're pretty favorable, but it's not 100%,
you know? And so it was a like three or
four year actually recovery processes.
I understand it because then I think the public was probably
less aware of the, the, the stress and the pain you were in
at the time. And then I guess there was nerve
damage connected to some of the surgery.
So it's like what did that recovery process?
Yeah, no, it was extreme pain really.
Waking up from the lymph node dissection was really the one
that was the pain, not the test. Strangely, it's, you know,
surprisingly it's not the testicular cancer operation.
Removing the testicles. Pretty easy, right?
They just go in and cut you up here up, up in your abdomen and
they go down and they just kind of Shuck it out like an oyster,
as I've said in past stand up performances, but it's sort of
like it's not too invasive of a surgery.
But the lymph nodes dissection where they had to go in and
check my lymph nodes just to see if there was, you know, any
cancer in there. And so they, I elected to do
that and they took it out and I did not have cancer in my lymph
nodes. So I did not have to have
chemotherapy. But the surgery itself was so
shockingly painful when I came out of it.
And then it really probably took many, many, many years actually
to really fade. You know, it sort of went from
extreme pain to dull pain and then you're sort of dealing with
a dull pain for the next five years or more of your life,
which sort of becomes normal. But in those initial years, you
know, it was, it was pretty traumatic, to be honest with you
because you're sort of I'm, you know, when I was hosting
Saturday Night Live, you know, like, you know, I've never
talked about this publicly before.
I'm sort of allude to it a little bit in the documentary
that's coming up, but I've never and I don't even get into
detail, but a little more detail.
Is this like, you know, you're entire body is just basically
been through a traumatic thing and now you're sort of somewhat
in pain, but also exhausted like I had, I had a lot of energy
issues. And at the same time, you're
also terrified because you're like, Oh my God, is this going
to stop? This is going to go away.
And then you're also, at that moment in my life, had a a lot
of attention on me. I'm hosting Saturday Night Live.
You have to show up and be, you know, happy and positive and
funny and in your mind you're scared that you're, you know,
you're not recovering in in pain and you don't want to really
talk about that. You want to sort of, you know,
there was this sort of idea, I think, I think society has
changed a lot since then, but there was this idea of like, oh,
I don't want to look like I'm weak or I don't want to look
like I'm sick. So I have to pretend that I'm
completely recovered instantly, you know, because I want to work
and I want to, you know, take advantage of all these great
opportunities that are here in front of me of, you know.
And so I don't want people to think that I'm, you know, any
less funny, happy or, or, you know, alive than I was six
months ago when I, my show was on the air.
So you're sort of struggling through gritted teeth as you're
trying to pretend that you're doing great, but really you're
not so. So how would you privately cope
with that at the time? Well, it was tough.
It was tough. All, all gamut of them all, all,
all, all emotions, you know, scared, sad, angry, you know,
physically in pain. And at the same time you're kind
of, you know, getting hit by all sorts of different sort of
things from, you know, just the position that I was in with the
show at the time. So it was, it was, it was, it
was, it was very difficult to navigate, you know?
Because everybody wants a piece of you commercially and.
Well, and then also like the when Freddie got finger came, I
got the bad reviews and then, you know, things, you know,
things, you know, things weren't necessarily everything wasn't
going great. All of a sudden, You know, we
had a lot of eyeballs on me at that moment, you know, with the
cancer and the show and the movie and and personal
relationship with Drew and all that stuff.
It was kind of like, you know, and so then you're sort of
trying to put on a brave face, but really inside you're kind of
like, you know, Oh my God, this is this is not that pleasant,
you know, having my, you know, this sort of burning sensation
running down my entire spine basically is what it felt like.
It felt like my entire spinal cord was sort of like had like a
Hot Chili pepper poured all over it for about, you know, two or
three years. They didn't understand why I was
still in pain. You know, it was sort of, you
know, very, very odd, you know, was.
There a single lowest point for you during that period.
Just sort of a Goodyear there where I was just kind of really
just terrified that I was going to be in this kind of pain for
the rest of my life. And I was feeling that I wasn't
going to be able to kind of keep doing what I love to do, which
is perform and be funny. And you got to you got to be in
a good mood when you're when you're doing comedy, you got to
be happy. You got to have, you know, smile
on your face. You got to feel good physically.
And and it was hard for me to do that.
I had to kind of had to kind of kind of power through there.
So it was just terrifying, you know, but.
Who do you confide in? Or is there like back then, was
there somebody? You were, I think.
My parents have been extremely important to me in my life.
Like they've always been people that I, you know, my mom and dad
are there for me always. I trust their judgement and, and
I value it. And they've, they've always
guided me well through, through things.
They've always made a lot of decisions with their, with
their, with their advice and counsel.
So it's been, it's been, it's been good.
If somebody was in that same position debating whether or not
to do what you had done with the lymph nodes, would you recommend
it or would you? Say I would hold off.
I would I would recommend it. Having gone through that pain
actually has made me who I am in a certain extent, you know, like
I'm, I'm a different person because of it, right.
And so, and I and I like who I am now, believe it or not, you
know, I mean, you may wonder why that would be the case, but I
do, I do, I do. I do think it's given me a
different sort of perspective on life, having to go through
something that challenging, you know, which, which is good.
So, you know, I hate to say it to people, as you get your lymph
node dissection, you'll find out whether you have to have chemo
or not right away. You might have to injure like 3
or 4 or five years of extreme pain.
But then 20 years later you'll be a person that you might
actually be happy with because of it.
So it's, it's and I think it's an individual choice between
someone and their doctor because it's too complicated.
And there's probably been medical advancements and stuff
that have been made since then that probably would make it
easier to make that choice too. So right, it's, it's really
complicated. I get, I get asked a lot about
testicular cancer from people that have just gotten it.
And, and you know, I, I give my opinions, but I always say go to
your doctor, talk to your doctor, do your own research.
Don't listen to me. Although it is whatever, if I
would imagine if you're somebody in that position, it's valuable
to have the benefit of talking to somebody who's.
Gone through it and it's young guys, obviously you get it and
it's younger people get testicular cancer and you, you
wouldn't think you're getting cancer when you're 15 years old.
So if you get a pain in your testicle, often what happens
with young people is they don't go tell anybody 'cause they're
embarrassed and then they walk around with cancer for a year
and then then it's spread too much and they actually could to
die from it, right? So, so I've had a lot of people
come up to me over the years at my stand up shows and say they
went to the hospital because of this and because of the because
of this cancer special that we did on MTV and diagnosed it.
And I've had quite a few emotional sort of reunions and
inter or interactions with people who kind of, you know,
kind of felt that that that episode of the show kind of
saved their life. It's been quite, quite, quite
heavy at times actually, which is.
Good to be the best feeling ever though.
For sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We'll be back with another positive story from a past
interview next Thursday, and we'll pull it from our highest
performing clips according to our digital community.
Head over to youtube.com/graham Bensinger to join us.
Thanks again for listening.