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Am I OK?

2025-01-24 · letter vlog · Hank · 8:33 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Personal life (also: Projects, Nerdfighteria) · mode: Personal update · tags: heavy topic, fundraising ask, self promotion

About 18 months after finishing chemo, Hank reports lingering nerve damage, more anxiety, less sleep and worse short-term memory, then says the projects he loves grew out of Nerdfighteria, argues SciShow needs crowdfunding, and plugs SciShow postcards and the P4A matching fund.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Hank's state 18 months after chemo: body, relapse odds, anxiety, memory, sleep

  • ★★ Hank says he just finished talking with his therapist, which he does now, and will talk openly although he feels shame about showing weakness. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Hank says he is not afraid but ashamed to be weak, feeling he lacks good enough reasons since he has it very good. — 00:00:00
  • ★★★ Hank says he finished chemo about 18 months ago and is probably about as recovered as he will get, which is pretty good. (hedged) — 00:00:00 · chemotherapy
  • ★★ Hank has some chemo nerve damage (tingly fingertips) and nerve pain where he had radiation on top of surgeries, felt only in certain activities. — 00:00:29 · chemotherapy
  • ★★ Hank says that body-wise, aside from an increased risk of secondary cancers, he is pretty much unscathed. — 00:00:51 · cancer
  • ★★★ Hank says people miss that after cancer treatment people almost always live with a different level of ability, sometimes serious disability: being done with treatment is not being done. — 00:00:51 · cancer
  • ★★ Hank is near the peak of his relapse odds, has failed to avoid stress as advised, and expects the odds to start falling around month 24. — 00:01:21
  • ★★★ Hank says mentally it has been a trial: he is far more anxious and maybe has a little less energy than before. (hedged) — 00:01:21
  • ★★★ Hank says his short-term memory is noticeably, substantially worse. — 00:02:03
  • ★★ Hank finds having a brain that does not work as he expects almost existentially weird, like working with a different set of tools. — 00:02:03
  • ★★ Hank says he has evidence cancer treatment changed his mind, which is uncomfortable; maybe we are all ships of Theseus, but he feels more like one than he used to. (playful) — 00:02:32
  • ★★ Hank says that, of his short-term memory loss and his anxiety, the anxiety is probably worse for him. (hedged) — 00:03:01
  • ★★ Hank says his therapist thinks he may not have an anxiety disorder but a normal response to a life full of responsibilities and threats, which seems right to him. (hedged) — 00:03:01
  • ★★ Work and health anxiety cost Hank sleep, which feeds his fear that his immune system will let the cancer return, a loop leaving him tired and cranky at work. — 00:03:01

00:03:30 — Being a fan: Dropout, DFTBA, Good Store, Complexly, all grown from Nerdfighteria

  • ★★ Hank, a fan of Dropout, says he got to do his comedy special there and is in the next season of Smartypants. — 00:03:30
  • ★★ Hank is a huge fan of what the teams at DFTBA, Good Store and Complexly do and feels lucky to be involved. — 00:03:59 · DFTBA Records, Good Store, Complexly
  • ★★★ Hank says those projects were incubated in Nerdfighteria and grew from its values; their energy to exist and continue comes from this small community that has done really big things. — 00:03:59 · Nerdfighteria, DFTBA Records, Good Store, Complexly

00:04:29 — The community answers calls to action; SciShow is not inevitable and needs crowdfunding; where podcast and channel money goes

  • ★★ Hank says far more of this community than of the wider SciShow audience answer SciShow fundraising calls to action; still a minority, but the response rate is much higher. — 00:04:57 · SciShow, Nerdfighteria
  • ★★★ Hank attributes the higher response partly to the community knowing SciShow exists because they made it and is not inevitable; later viewers don't see that a world without it could exist. — 00:04:57 · SciShow, Nerdfighteria
  • ★★★ Hank says a world without SciShow would be worse: we desperately need accurate, well-crafted, popular science information that brings people to respect scientific tools and thinking. — 00:05:26 · SciShow
  • ★★★ Hank says this work is harder than many viewers think, its makers should be able to focus on it, and SciShow definitely needs crowdfunding to be possible. — 00:05:26 · SciShow
  • ★★★ Hank says all Dear Hank and John ad money goes to Complexly rather than to the hosts, as would be normal for a podcast; ideally not forever, but Complexly needs it now. — 00:05:55 · Dear Hank and John, Complexly
  • ★★ Hank says half the money from this channel supports up-and-coming online educators and the other half goes to Partners In Health. — 00:05:55 · Partners In Health

00:06:24 — SciShow postcards sale and the P4A matching fund

  • ★★★ Hank plugs SciShow postcards signed by him and the other hosts, on sale until the end of next week (week of 27 January 2025): four random designs, each linking to an exclusive video with one of his four favorite frog facts. — 00:06:24 · SciShow
  • ★★★ With the Project for Awesome coming soon, Hank asks people who can donate more than $500 to join the matching fund via the description form, which goes to their dad, who runs the program. — 00:06:54 · Project for Awesome, Mike Green
  • ★★ Hank says matching donors are proven to increase donations overall. — 00:06:54

00:07:23 — Pride in what the community built; doing hard things

  • ★★★ Hank is proud of what the community created: even if it all stopped today, it would be one of the coolest things that has happened on the internet. — 00:07:23 · Nerdfighteria
  • ★★ Hank says it is hard and he never knows if he does it right, but they keep going: they thought it would be easy and now care too much to stop. (playful) — 00:07:23

00:07:52 — Sign-off, 'I'm doing okay', and a miniature building made with Katherine

  • ★★ Hank tells John he is doing okay; he could use a break and won't get one for a while, but eventually will. — 00:07:52
  • ★ Hank shows a miniature building he made with Katherine during a break to recenter his brain, which he calls Beanie's office. — 00:07:52 · Katherine Green

In the description and comments

  • ★ In a channel comment Hank adds that things slip out of his brain immediately and he feels he has lost many good ideas. — creator comment

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: cancer · chemotherapy · SciShow

Also: People: Katherine Green · Mike Green

Projects: Complexly · Dear Hank and John · DFTBA Records · Good Store · Project for Awesome

Works: Hank Green's stand-up comedy special on Dropout · Smartypants

Organizations: Dropout · EveryPlate · Partners In Health

Concepts: anxiety disorder · crowdfunding · immune system · personal identity · psychotherapy · Radiation therapy

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