Match Made in Marrow

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Speaker 1 Hey, this is Radio Lab. I'm Latif Nasser.
Today, as we are in the thick of the giving season, we have a story about a really remarkable gift giver and gift receiver.

Speaker 1 Two people, basically strangers, who couldn't have been more different,

Speaker 1 but who managed to find a deep kind of connection despite those differences through a single gift. This episode was originally reported in 2017 by yours truly

Speaker 1 with Jad and Robert at the helm.

Speaker 1 Enjoy.

Speaker 1 Wait, you're listening.

Speaker 1 You're listening

Speaker 1 to Radio Lab.

Speaker 1 Radio Lab from

Speaker 1 WNYC.

Speaker 1 Hey, I'm Jad Abu Mrod. I'm Robert Krowwich.
This is Radio Lab.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 we got an email from you. Yes,

Speaker 1 you did.

Speaker 1 Not long ago, our editor Soren Wheeler and I, we got into a conversation with this woman.

Speaker 3 I live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Speaker 1 Her name is Janelle Jenny.

Speaker 3 I like the Packers. Of course you do.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 I guess photographer would technically be my job, but I do a whole lot of different things,

Speaker 3 none of which really pertain to the story at hand, but that's.

Speaker 1 And our story really starts when Janelle sent an email to the Radiolab inbox basically saying, I need your help.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Something had happened to her that was kind of wondrous and unexplainable and very weird.

Speaker 1 And as a result, Janelle had found herself stuck in a story. A story told to hundreds of thousands of people all across the country.

Speaker 1 A story that sits right smack dab in the middle of one of the biggest cultural divides in our country right now.

Speaker 1 But it was a story that wasn't hers. And she wanted us to help her find a way to finally tell her story.

Speaker 3 So to speak,

Speaker 3 do you want me to kind of just

Speaker 1 explain you?

Speaker 3 Sure. Well,

Speaker 3 when I was 18, I went to a concert.

Speaker 1 A rock concert.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it was actually a warp tour. So it's like a festival of you have rock concerts.

Speaker 1 Tons of bands on different stages all over the place. And Janelle is walking around between all the different stages and merchandise tables when she sees this tent.

Speaker 3 10 by 10 white tent with just a little table in front. A table with a sign on it that said, Be a bone marrow donor, sign up to be on the registry, save a life, something like that.

Speaker 1 So this was rock music and good deeds brought together.

Speaker 3 Essentially, right, which is a pretty good mix in hindsight.

Speaker 1 So Janelle read the sign and she thought to herself, I'll sign up. Sure.
Why not? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Did you know what bone marrow was?

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 You knew that that would mean that they'd take a really long needle

Speaker 1 and stick it in you and suck out bone stuff?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I suppose at that point that was probably not the fore thought.

Speaker 3 I think the altruistic, like,

Speaker 3 I'm trying to do something. Yeah.
That was probably the main motivation.

Speaker 1 And all Janelle had to do standing in front of that tent was sign some papers and swab her cheek because with a bone marrow donation, they actually have to figure out if you're a genetic match with someone who would receive the donation.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Which was part of what Janelle thought was cool about it.

Speaker 3 I always thought that, you know, it would just be an amazing opportunity to be the one person who could do something for somebody that like literally no one else in the world could.

Speaker 1 That's a deep kind of connection with someone there.

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah. There's, you know, I don't know if either of you are only children, but it's, yeah, it's, you know, how there's just like.

Speaker 3 You have cousins, you've got friends, but at some point there's not that, it sounds so stupid, but that biological connection, like besides my parents or whatnot.

Speaker 1 That you missed the idea of someone who was muchly like you and muchly in your world and muchly.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and also even the kind of the need, like somebody out there dependent on me on kind of that almost otherworldly level.

Speaker 1 So Janelle swabbed her cheek, signed the paper, and then went about her normal life. And then about six months later, she got a call.

Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah, it was a phone call to my landline. That's how long it was.

Speaker 1 Oh, my gosh. So, what year are we talking here?

Speaker 3 It's 2009.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 3 It was a phone call, and I remember very specifically it was voicemail because I hadn't had the chance to answer it.

Speaker 3 And they said something to the extent of, you know, hi, we're from the National Bone Marrow Donor Registry. We've done some tests, and we've narrowed you down to be a preliminary match for a patient.

Speaker 3 So, we need you to come in and do some further tests that involve blood and stuff.

Speaker 1 Did you think, oh no, I forgot that I did that? Or are you thinking, oh boy, or what were you doing?

Speaker 3 Well, I was so

Speaker 3 overcome with emotion. I remember just to think there's somebody, there's somebody out there that might be my person.

Speaker 3 So absolutely no hesitation on my end. I went right.

Speaker 1 So Janelle heads into the clinic because, well, so bone marrow, the stuff in the kind of core of your bones, actually produces all your blood cells and importantly, including your white blood cells, which are a key part of your immune system.

Speaker 1 So what you're doing with a bone marrow transplant is taking a healthy immune system out of one person and putting it into another person whose immune system is, you know,

Speaker 1 cancer or messed up in some kind of way.

Speaker 1 The key is, though, because the immune system is that part of you that like recognizes you from not you and attacks anything that's not you, you have to like fool the new body into thinking that this immune system is them.

Speaker 1 And so the parts of your DNA that have to do with your immune system, a couple key parts of that have to match with the donor. So that's what they're doing with Janelle.

Speaker 1 They're taking her in to like test her DNA to see if the stuff that marks out her immune system matches closely enough with this, you know, recipient so that the bone marrow transplant will work.

Speaker 3 And then maybe a month later, I get like another call and this one I was able to answer and they say, well,

Speaker 3 we've done tests and you are the ideal person in this 8 million person registry to donate for this patient.

Speaker 3 You are a perfect match

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 3 will you do it?

Speaker 3 And I was like, absolutely.

Speaker 1 So did that feel to you like the call of destiny? Like, oh, maybe this was meant to be then.

Speaker 3 Yeah, there's something I feel that's like bigger than myself that's happening.

Speaker 3 and I don't really, I mean, I can't really explain it yet at that point, but I know there's like, okay, here's a, there's a big thing.

Speaker 3 So I go in and unfortunately to disappoint you, Robert, the way that I donated bone marrow wasn't actually the real

Speaker 1 bad way with the big needle. I'm no, I mean, I'm not disappointed.
I'm grateful for whoever. Have they come up with a small needle version?

Speaker 3 Yeah, well, what they

Speaker 1 straw or something?

Speaker 3 It's sort of what they essentially do, and this is actually the far more common way of doing it now is they inject you with all these drugs

Speaker 3 and it is like eight injections that boost your white blood cell count up to astronomical heights.

Speaker 3 And you know, like when you get sick, when your immune system kicks in overdrive and you feel sick, imagine that like eight times over.

Speaker 1 It's nauseous, achy, shaky.

Speaker 3 So achy, every bone hurt.

Speaker 1 And while Janelle is feeling achy and sick, inside of her, her bone marrow is pumping out a bunch of new baby blood cells.

Speaker 3 Unmatured stem cells that can really become almost anything.

Speaker 1 Then they just go in and grab those cells.

Speaker 3 They harvest you, I guess.

Speaker 3 So you have a needle in both arms, and you pretty much sit still for six hours until they suck all your blood out of your body, put it in a machine, and give you back what they don't need.

Speaker 3 So I think they've got about...

Speaker 3 you know, one of those little IV bags.

Speaker 1 Just a quart-sized plastic bag. Full

Speaker 1 of

Speaker 3 my

Speaker 3 stem cells.

Speaker 3 and once you're done they put some band-aids on you and they're like all right um

Speaker 3 let us know if you need anything

Speaker 3 and do you know anything about like what happens to your blood cells like who gets it or what yeah they're um the whole uh registry is very very strict about patient confidentiality but they did tell me that it was um a 29-year-old man with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and that's literally that's all i knew for a whole year.

Speaker 1 Did you look that up in the in the

Speaker 3 of course but I did endless Google searches of 29 year old man acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Speaker 1 Trying to get a real peek. Right.

Speaker 3 I was like, oh, maybe he's worded it that way. And I mean, didn't find anything, of course.
But once that year is up, if both parties agree, then we can talk.

Speaker 3 And that's, that's kind of really interesting because I definitely was looking forward to that year mark. But once that hit, I kind of got cold feet.

Speaker 3 I really just wasn't ready to know exactly who he was.

Speaker 3 And then I was also worried that maybe this guy is like a real piece of crap. Like maybe he's a clan member or a criminal or something.
So there's a part of that, too.

Speaker 1 So you worry that you'd open up the Sentinel and it would say, formerly ill person robs three banks and hits old ladies. Yes, I think that's a good idea.
Yes. Horrible man saved by Janelle Jenny.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 3 It's so stupid to say, but I thought that.

Speaker 3 So I did end up eventually sending this email or whatnot in, I think about October. It took them a couple weeks to actually give my info to my patient and vice versa.

Speaker 4 I was eating lunch with a friend of mine, and I remember having chips and guacamole.

Speaker 3 By the way, my patient's name is Jim. So they gave...
Jim my info.

Speaker 4 And my phone went off in my pocket. There was an email in my inbox, and

Speaker 4 there was a scanned PDF attached to this email, and I opened it up, and she had filled this out with her own hand. And I just broke.

Speaker 4 I totally, I just wept like a little baby in a booth in a Mexican restaurant in the middle of Grapevine, Texas.

Speaker 4 And I got on Facebook. I saw a picture.
I saw a picture of her, and I was like, oh my gosh, it's got to be her.

Speaker 3 I'd gotten an email, or not email, Facebook friend request from

Speaker 3 this guy named named Jim Monroe in Texas.

Speaker 3 And I was like, oh, okay, I don't know anybody in Texas. And then it clicked all of a sudden.

Speaker 3 This is the guy. This is him.
I can see his picture. I can look.

Speaker 1 Oh, what does he look like?

Speaker 3 Not very much like me.

Speaker 1 It wasn't Janelle with shorter hair.

Speaker 1 Right, yeah.

Speaker 1 Tall.

Speaker 4 At least before I've got blonder hair.

Speaker 3 Blonde hair, I think fake blonde.

Speaker 4 I should say it's dyed right now, but I have like strawberry blonde hair.

Speaker 3 But tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, white guy. Blue eyes.

Speaker 4 I'm very handsome.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 What are you, by the way? Short, blonde-haired, blue-eyed person.

Speaker 3 So I guess

Speaker 1 you're in the same. Okay.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4 We could be cousins, I think.

Speaker 3 And yeah, so when I looked at all of his pictures and his wife, who was a model, and these kids were so adorable, and he tried to find as much as I can.

Speaker 3 And as far as his profession, I was like, oh, he appears to be some sort of magician.

Speaker 3 So I guess we'll talk about that later.

Speaker 1 So I don't even know, like, I guess, why don't we just find out like where you're from and where you were raised and okay, let's do it that way.

Speaker 4 So I was born in Orange County, California, Fullerton, California. I went to school in Anaheim, high school in Anaheim.
I was a baseball player.

Speaker 4 So I ended up going, I was a very, very good baseball player.

Speaker 4 I got drafted by the, at the time they were called the Tampa Bay Double Rays. Now they're just the Tampa Bay Rays.

Speaker 1 Oh, you were that good?

Speaker 4 Yeah, I turned down a professional baseball contract to go play at the University of Texas in Austin.

Speaker 1 What did you play?

Speaker 4 I was a pitcher. I was a hard-throwing right-hander

Speaker 4 and ended up getting, like I said, drafted and went to the University of Texas to play baseball. And that's what I thought I was going to be.

Speaker 4 I thought I was going to be a professional baseball player. And then my sophomore year of college, I blew out my shoulder.

Speaker 4 I had a surgery my freshman year and then came back and was thrown harder than ever, then did it again.

Speaker 4 So baseball was kind of over.

Speaker 1 Over at like 19? Like that's.

Speaker 4 Yes, sir. Yeah.
It was a pretty, it was a big kick in the head.

Speaker 1 But he finished up school.

Speaker 4 I maintained my scholarship as a medical redshirt.

Speaker 1 Majored in business and psychology. Yeah.
Then moved up to Boulder, Colorado, got married and had a couple kids.

Speaker 4 And one of my really good friends during this time was, his name was Tennyson, and he became one of my best friends. He was, he wasn't just my best friend.
He was like my brother.

Speaker 4 He was an athlete too, so he's a former college football player. And he had also lost his football career based upon an injury.

Speaker 4 And then also new magic, an illusion.

Speaker 1 And magic was actually something that Jim had been fascinated by ever since he was a kid. Yeah.

Speaker 4 I saw a trade show magician when I was 10 or 11. It was at the Anaheim Convention Center of all places at an optometric convention.
Both of my parents are optometrists.

Speaker 4 And he was just doing trade show stuff at a booth.

Speaker 1 Do you remember what he was doing?

Speaker 4 He did a version of this trick called Cards Across. He made a cigarette appear.

Speaker 1 Which he pulled out of your head or out of somebody's?

Speaker 4 No, no, just he's just casually holding his hand and was holding a zigzag in the tips of his fingers and he goes to light it and

Speaker 4 there's a puff of smoke and there's a real cigarette.

Speaker 1 And the thought you had at that moment was, I want to do that?

Speaker 4 It was how did he do that? And that is cool. And, you know, I'm going to go learn how that's done.
So I just began to.

Speaker 4 Look at card tricks and read books on all how all this stuff was done to figure out how it was done.

Speaker 1 So when you met Tennyson, Tennyson, you know, they started practicing together and doing shows in front of friends and family. And pretty soon, sure enough, we start doing gigs.

Speaker 1 I want to say, but they started doing these shows at like schools and festivals and stuff.

Speaker 1 And they would do these tricks, like a lot of kind of card tricks and number tricks, say where you pick a random number and it would end up written on a piece of paper in the shoe of an audience member or something like that.

Speaker 1 But then the show would turn into something else. Because the thing is, Tennyson was a believer.

Speaker 4 Overwhelmingly so.

Speaker 1 Like believer-like in God, you mean? Yeah, a Christian.

Speaker 4 And Tennyson was very convinced.

Speaker 1 And so after an hour or so of magic tricks, just pure entertainment, Tennyson would say to the crowd, This has been great.

Speaker 4 We're going to take a quick break. We're going to give you guys a chance to take off.

Speaker 4 Because during the second part of this show, we're going to talk about what the Christian perspective is and why we believe this Christian thing. If you want to stick around, great.

Speaker 4 If you don't, take off.

Speaker 1 Now, Jim says during this part of the show.

Speaker 4 Tennyson, in particular, was way more of the evangelistic piece of this.

Speaker 4 And I considered myself more of a producer.

Speaker 1 Now, Jim had actually grown up going to church.

Speaker 4 Yeah, so I was, my parents went to Lutheran church. I was at one point doing that.

Speaker 4 But still, there's, you know,

Speaker 4 at the end of the day, it was just, there was nothing in it that

Speaker 4 seemed to be satisfying.

Speaker 1 And so at this point in the show, Jim would sort of stand back a bit as Tennyson talked about how magic is actually all about the unseen and behind the veil of reality, there's a God watching over us.

Speaker 1 And Jim says he would be standing there on stage watching these people in the audience who are feeling this real connection with God.

Speaker 4 However, I wasn't having that experience.

Speaker 1 He's just like, I don't feel what they're feeling.

Speaker 4 And he started to think to himself, I didn't want to be the guy that said, well, I'm a Christian because my friends were, or I'm a Christian because I was raised that way. I want it to be true.

Speaker 1 And he just wasn't sure that it it was. Right.

Speaker 1 And then after he and Tennyson had been doing this show for a year and a half or so, Jim got a call.

Speaker 1 Tennyson had been out hiking in the mountains just outside of Boulder, and he was found

Speaker 4 in a river.

Speaker 1 His body was partially submerged just at the edge of the water at the base of a 40-foot cliff.

Speaker 4 In Peaceful Valley, is what it was called. No one really knows how he passed away.

Speaker 1 It looked like he might have actually fallen from the cliff.

Speaker 1 The police thought maybe suicide.

Speaker 4 But it could be, you know, exposure to the elements, that kind of thing.

Speaker 1 Jim says he was just, you know, devastated.

Speaker 4 Yeah, he's probably the closest male friend I've ever had.

Speaker 1 Just felt like he was, you know, in the bottom of a hole.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Bottom of a hole, kind of figuring it out. Best friend.
passes away. My wife and I, as a result, kind of got into this really strange season where, you know, I'm depressed, she's depressed.

Speaker 4 we're pretty much on the verge of calling it quits and then my leg starts hurting really badly where in the leg underneath my right knee

Speaker 1 Jim says he started popping Advil every day at first just a couple then more and more and I'm trying to gut it out then he came home one day and he says the pain was so bad he couldn't even get out of his car and so his wife was like look we're going to the hospital now and i'm sitting there in an emergency room and this man walks into my room and he looks at me he says um you have cancer Jim had leukemia, which is cancer of the blood cells.

Speaker 4 So the white blood cells inside of your bone marrow have literally exploded out of control. And the reason why your leg hurts so bad is because your bone is breaking on its own.

Speaker 1 From the inside. Wow.

Speaker 4 And he said, if you don't do anything, you're going to die in two months.

Speaker 1 Just before Christmas of 2008, Jim checks into the hospital, and right away they do two things. One, they put Jim on the bone marrow registry in the hopes that he can find a donor.

Speaker 1 And two, just to keep him alive while he waits they start putting him through round after round of chemo and get this wicked concoction of stuff and then be let out he loses his hair his body starts to fall apart and all you can do at that point is just

Speaker 1 hope

Speaker 4 you know like tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock yeah

Speaker 4 yep

Speaker 4 That's when you think you know what you believe to be true.

Speaker 4 Is in con is in adversity.

Speaker 4 That's when you find out. So for me,

Speaker 4 it was not a Christian worldview. If there is an all-loving, omnipotent, powerful being that makes the universe go round, then why would things like

Speaker 4 suicide or murder or rape exist

Speaker 4 in this constructed world of his?

Speaker 1 Jim just couldn't get himself to believe in the existence of a god like that, or really any god.

Speaker 4 you know it wasn't any rhyme or reason or purpose it's just this is this is my lot

Speaker 4 this really sucks

Speaker 4 and then when he was at his lowest point i remember driving back to houston texas for more chemo and my phone rang and i didn't recognize the number and i said hello and this woman on the other line she said uh there's a one person

Speaker 4 That we've been able to identify on the planet out of all the databases, everything, there's one.

Speaker 3 You are the ideal person in this 8 million person registry to donate for this patient.

Speaker 4 Think about that.

Speaker 1 This is in the world.

Speaker 3 You are a perfect match. Will you do it?

Speaker 3 And I was like, absolutely.

Speaker 4 My wife and I were in the car together and it was just tears. You know, it's like,

Speaker 1 wow,

Speaker 4 that's amazing.

Speaker 3 So, April 20th, and this is important to remember. April 20th was when I donated.

Speaker 1 And as they were pulling the cells out of Janelle's body up in Wisconsin.

Speaker 3 You know, one of those little IV bags full of

Speaker 3 my

Speaker 3 stem cells.

Speaker 1 Down in Texas, Jim's doctors were telling him.

Speaker 4 Your bone marrow transplant is scheduled for April 23rd. On April 23rd, the nurses, they come inside of your room to celebrate your second birth.

Speaker 4 And then I remember Dr. Druart telling me, are you ready to put your boxing gloves on? Well, what he was preparing preparing me for was

Speaker 1 a death.

Speaker 4 Come to find out later on, they pulled my wife out of my room and they said, we're going to give this to him with all this medication.

Speaker 4 He could potentially receive this and reject this violently and pass away.

Speaker 1 Because remember, they're essentially replacing Jim's immune system with somebody else's, in this case, Janelle's.

Speaker 1 And in a very real way, they're replacing that part of Jim that determines who he is with someone who he clearly isn't. And so there's a real chance that the body will just short-circuit.

Speaker 4 So they give this drug the nurse's nickname Shake and Bake.

Speaker 1 It's designed to basically wipe out whatever is left of Jim's immune system, his white blood cells.

Speaker 4 Put inside of your IV, and your body just starts convulsing.

Speaker 1 And then they put Janelle's cells in.

Speaker 4 And they monitored me.

Speaker 1 And over the next couple weeks, Janelle's cells enter Jim's body. They get into his bone marrow and they start producing new white blood cells.
Basically producing a whole new immune system.

Speaker 1 And eventually, Jim is cancer-free.

Speaker 4 I mean, it's literally like new life, you know?

Speaker 4 Now, I will say this.

Speaker 4 Some bells kind of began to go off in my head a little bit.

Speaker 1 Jim says before he even got the transplant, his doctor had come into his room and told him, you're going to be like a baby inside your mother's womb, literally being born again.

Speaker 4 Because on April 23rd, and once again, this is their terminology, there's someone else that's going to be living on the inside of you. And this new system of blood is going to be your life.

Speaker 4 Why is that interesting? You know, April 23rd, my new birthday is April 23rd. My old birthday, it's April 20th.
My new birthday is on April 23rd. That's on the third day.

Speaker 1 And on the third day is significant because of the biblical echo.

Speaker 4 The biblical echo.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 I came back from whatever I was in because of the only blood on planet Earth that could save me in my disease. So,

Speaker 1 you know, does this land on you the way it sounds to me like it lands on you now? Or did you go through a like, like, what happened?

Speaker 4 Those words,

Speaker 4 yeah, those words in particularly, bells went off in my head.

Speaker 1 But does that, right? Does that mean that you now suddenly

Speaker 1 believe in God again or for the first time?

Speaker 4 I mean, it's a process, right? You follow, and then I think the puzzle pieces are kind of all swirling and coming together.

Speaker 4 But everything changed on that demarcating day, April 23rd.

Speaker 1 All thanks, obviously, to Janelle. And not long after they got each other's information and saw each other on Facebook, they hopped on a phone call.

Speaker 4 So she gets on and I get on.

Speaker 4 But it's all kind of like, hey, oh my gosh, this is crazy.

Speaker 4 I cannot believe this. Isn't this nuts? Yeah, this is so crazy.
And then she drops this on me.

Speaker 4 She said, I went and got a tattoo of a jigsaw puzzle piece on the very spot where they stuck that IV in my arm to pull out the new blood knowing that I was the missing piece in someone else's life and without me that person wouldn't be alive and I said do you I was like would I was like do you have a ton of tattoos and she said no I have one

Speaker 4 you know what Christians believe to be true right

Speaker 1 what

Speaker 4 is that their savior rolled up and showed them the very spot on his body where blood came out so that they would believe

Speaker 1 so you're just coming down this road.

Speaker 1 You're just driving like at 100 miles an hour towards this.

Speaker 4 For me, it was like I was being introduced to a person.

Speaker 4 There was an experiential understanding of

Speaker 4 that which was going on behind the scenes of this existence that was answering my prayer.

Speaker 1 The prayer is for, it's the prayer is called, Are You There? That's the prayer.

Speaker 1 Yep. Are you there, God?

Speaker 1 Basically, Jim saw Janelle and her donation to him as almost more than just allegory, as like something close to a literal proof of the existence of God. Like a very real, very present sign.

Speaker 4 I told her to, uh, I told her that we need to meet. I said, can I please bring you out to Dallas, Texas?

Speaker 3 He said, I have to bring you to Texas, which is my nightmare.

Speaker 1 I'm just kidding.

Speaker 1 But absolutely.

Speaker 3 I wanted to go right into it.

Speaker 4 I remember her tone. She's like, yeah,

Speaker 1 sure.

Speaker 4 Super excited. So, yes, I flew her to Dallas, Texas.

Speaker 1 Michael's camera act. You know, it's coming down.

Speaker 4 I actually recorded it. Somebody you've met.

Speaker 5 This girl saved my life.

Speaker 1 Oh, really? Yeah, that's all. In the video, you see Jim sort of standing at the bottom of this escalator in the Dallas-Fort Worth airport.
He's, you know, looking pretty thin and pale and nervous.

Speaker 1 And then the camera turns, and there's Janelle. Hi!

Speaker 1 Coming down the escalator.

Speaker 1 Charlie, the last time.

Speaker 1 Hi.

Speaker 1 And they hug.

Speaker 1 And then his kids come up.

Speaker 1 This is my daughter. Hi, can I rob too?

Speaker 1 Oh, you're so cute.

Speaker 1 And eventually his wife.

Speaker 1 Nice to meet you. Okay, so now you go home.

Speaker 3 We go to his house.

Speaker 3 Right, and he lives in a very big house outside of Dallas.

Speaker 1 They had dinner with the family, and then, you know, once everybody else was kind of heading off to bed,

Speaker 1 Jim and Janelle started to talk.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 I think, if I remember correctly, we were just outside by the pool and just talking and figuring out who each other was. And, you know, I was like, so, you know, magician?

Speaker 1 What is that?

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 he started telling me about what kind of magician he really is. And he is a Christian magician.

Speaker 4 I'm sure that in her mind, she's thinking, oh my gosh, I just saved a Christian magician from Texas' life.

Speaker 4 And jokes on me. Isn't that wonderful? You know,

Speaker 1 when we come back, Janelle becomes Jim's greatest magic trick. So don't go away.

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Speaker 6 That's why in the rare event of a network outage, AT ⁇ T will proactively credit you for a full day of service. That's the AT ⁇ T guarantee.

Speaker 6 Credit for fiber downtime lasting 20 minutes or more or for wireless downtime lasting 60 minutes or more caused by a single incident impacting 10 or more towers.

Speaker 6 Must be connected to impacted tower at onset of outage. Restrictions and exclusions apply.
See ATT.com/slash guarantee for full details. AT ⁇ T, connecting changes everything.

Speaker 1 Radiolab is supported by the National Forest Foundation, a nonprofit transforming America's love of nature into action for our forests.

Speaker 1 Did you know that national forests provide clean drinking water to one in three Americans?

Speaker 1 And that national forests and grasslands cover nearly 10% of the U.S., hosting 150,000 miles of trails and providing habitat for over 3,000 species of plants and animals.

Speaker 1 The National Forest Foundation supports the places where we come alive, keeping the trails, rivers, and forests we love healthy.

Speaker 1 Last year, they planted 5.3 million trees and advanced over 300 projects to protect nature and communities nationwide.

Speaker 1 Their work creates lasting impact by restoring forests and watersheds, strengthening wildfire resilience, and expanding recreation access for generations to come. And when forests struggle, so do we.

Speaker 1 The water in our taps, the air we breathe, and the trails that connect us all. Learn how you can help at nationalforests.org.

Speaker 1 Radiolab is supported by the National Forest Foundation, a nonprofit transforming America's love of nature into action for our forests.

Speaker 1 Did you know that national forests provide clean drinking water to one in three Americans? And when forests struggle, so do we.

Speaker 1 The National Forest Foundation creates lasting impact by restoring forests and watersheds, strengthening wildfire resilience, and expanding recreation access for all.

Speaker 1 Last year, they planted 5.3 million trees and led over 300 projects to protect nature and communities nationwide. Learn more at nationalforests.org/slash radiolab.

Speaker 2 WNYC Studios is supported by Apple TV.

Speaker 7 It's 1972. A young British family is attempting to sail around the world when disaster strikes.
Their boat is hit by killer whales and it sinks in seconds.

Speaker 7 All they have left is a life raft and each other. This is the true story of the Robertson family and their fight to survive, hosted by me, Becky Milligan.

Speaker 7 Listen to Adrift, an Apple original podcast produced by Blanchard House. Follow and listen on Apple podcasts.

Speaker 1 Okay, we're back. I'm Jad Abumrod.
I'm Robert Krilowich. This is Radio Lab.
And okay, well, let's return to a story from Soren Wheeler. So, Soren, you left us in the backyard.

Speaker 1 They were about to talk, right? Yep, sitting in Jim's backyard by the pool, and he's basically telling her his whole story about his sort of loss of faith and the cancer and how she saved his life.

Speaker 1 And then he tells her that right after she saved him, he started doing the magic show again, that show that he used to do with Tennyson.

Speaker 3 And the show is called The Maze.

Speaker 4 My name is Jim Monroe.

Speaker 1 This

Speaker 4 is The Maze.

Speaker 1 So we actually got to see Jim's show, and I have to say, he's a pro.

Speaker 1 It's an impressive production. He gets big venues.

Speaker 1 Usually a thousand people or so. There's crazy laser light show stuff.

Speaker 1 And he does these really complicated illusions that are sort of half pennanteller, half David Blaine.

Speaker 3 Like, for example, picking a random phone number out of the phone book.

Speaker 1 4700.

Speaker 3 And it ends up being someone in the audience.

Speaker 1 And then their phone will end up like hidden somewhere.

Speaker 3 Something like that. And they're very good.

Speaker 1 So Jim is telling Janelle about all these tricks, but then he says.

Speaker 3 The second half of the show is about

Speaker 1 us.

Speaker 1 He explains that the magic show at this point ends. He tells people they can leave if they want to.
And he starts to talk openly, confessionally, to the audience. Where I quickly found out that I had

Speaker 1 cancer.

Speaker 1 In very personal terms, about what happened to him. So my wife and I raced down to M.D.
Anderson Cancer Center. And at a certain point, he shows a video.

Speaker 1 But they say that the

Speaker 1 stuff in the chemo is always starting to kick in.

Speaker 1 Because I can't keep.

Speaker 1 I can't keep anything down. He's in the hospital.

Speaker 1 My mouth's dry.

Speaker 1 Throwing up into a bucket, and he's pale, thin,

Speaker 1 huge circles under his eyes.

Speaker 1 And then

Speaker 1 he explains that right when he was on the edge of death.

Speaker 3 That at his lowest point,

Speaker 3 this thing happened.

Speaker 1 A miracle happened.

Speaker 1 There is one.

Speaker 5 One person.

Speaker 1 Just

Speaker 1 one.

Speaker 3 When his blood was literally poisoning his own body, somebody substituted their blood on his behalf so he could be reborn, I guess.

Speaker 3 Three days after his birthday.

Speaker 1 The third day, I came back from the bench. It was the only blood on the planet that could save me my disease.

Speaker 3 So there's a whole three days thing there, which is the story of Easter and the rebirth. It's just...

Speaker 3 I mean, he sees this as like definitive proof that there's a God.

Speaker 1 I am either the statistical anomaly that continues to propagate this false ideology about supernaturalism and miracles and also.

Speaker 1 I'm either that statistical anomaly that's so wild that it's like being bitten by a shark and struck by lightning at the same time, twice in the same lifetime, or you might have to believe what I believe is true, and that is there is something bigger going on behind the scenes, and his name is Jesus.

Speaker 3 So, yes, this is all being thrown at me.

Speaker 1 And is he he saying all this to you by the pool? Is it all it all comes tumbling out? Yeah. Yeah.
And

Speaker 1 how are you

Speaker 1 feeling inside?

Speaker 3 Stranger and stranger, going down the wormhole because I am an atheist

Speaker 3 in the sense that I don't... I don't believe in the tenets of Christianity.
I don't believe really in the tenets of any established religion I've ever seen.

Speaker 3 Honestly, I just think that once things are labeled and you're pigeonholed, and the exclusivity of really any religion is

Speaker 3 the cause for a lot of problems throughout history.

Speaker 3 But faith can be beautiful, and there's definitely parts of me and there's moments in my life that

Speaker 3 boy, praying and really feeling like that was going out to somebody would feel great, but I just can't.

Speaker 3 I just can't do it.

Speaker 3 So at that moment, he's telling me this, and

Speaker 3 he's like, well,

Speaker 3 you're here in Texas for this weekend. And would you be willing to come on stage for one of my shows? So I can introduce you.

Speaker 3 And

Speaker 3 of course I said yes.

Speaker 1 Really?

Speaker 1 Of course. Of course you said yes.

Speaker 3 Yeah, of course. I've always kind of looked at our story as

Speaker 3 something bigger than what he believes, than what I don't believe. It's bigger.
It's capital B underline bold. It's big.

Speaker 1 Partly because Jim, at every show, he has the bone marrow registry people right there ready to sign folks up.

Speaker 3 And because of the show they just saw, he can get hundreds. I know that dozens of people have gone on to be matches.

Speaker 3 This was truly the culmination of from

Speaker 3 the moment I signed up up to be on that registry, this felt like the zenith of this entire thing.

Speaker 1 So, next night.

Speaker 3 At Texas Christian University, packed house.

Speaker 1 Janelle's in the audience.

Speaker 3 I was in like the front row.

Speaker 1 And during the second part of the show, when Jim goes through the rebirth part, he stops and he says, Guess what, everyone? That person who saved my life, she's here.

Speaker 3 He has me walk up on stage.

Speaker 3 Crowd went wild.

Speaker 3 The first time in my life I got a standing ovation.

Speaker 1 Because you're genius. That's why the castle is crazy.
It's because...

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 All of these kids in the audience, who are all pretty much my age as well at that point, are seeing my being on stage as the...

Speaker 3 quite possibly the biggest proof they've ever had that there is

Speaker 3 a God.

Speaker 1 Were you now?

Speaker 1 Was there any part of you that said I shouldn't be here, or were you all there?

Speaker 3 There was a part of me that felt

Speaker 3 a little bit of an imposter.

Speaker 1 But for Janelle, she says that feeling was outweighed just by the number of people that were lining up at the bone marrow donation table.

Speaker 1 And so the next time she had a chance, she did it again.

Speaker 1 And again.

Speaker 1 And again.

Speaker 1 She's now appeared at the end of the show around a dozen times all around the country, playing the role of Jim's personal savior.

Speaker 1 And she says the more times she did it, the more that feeling, that sort of fraud feeling kept popping up, each time a little bit louder.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 There's parts of me, there's little fibers in my being that are like, wow, if this is a sign, if there is a God, I'm a real jerk. This is such a beautiful and really literal

Speaker 3 story being told to me about like, hey, you know, maybe there is a God.

Speaker 1 She says she started to feel that like if she's both perpetuating that story and refusing it, there's a special place in hell for me.

Speaker 1 And this is why Janelle got in touch with us, because she wanted us to help her figure out a way to tell a story that let

Speaker 1 her way of seeing the world into the room.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 let's stay tuned for that.

Speaker 1 Radio Lab is supported by Capital One. Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees.

Speaker 1 Just ask the Capital One Bank guy. It's pretty much all he talks about in a good way.
He'd also tell you that Radio Lab is his favorite podcast, too. Aw, really? Thanks, Capital One Bank Guy.

Speaker 1 What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capital1.com slash bank, capital One NA, member FDIC.

Speaker 6 Radiolab is supported by AT ⁇ T.

Speaker 6 There's nothing better than that feeling like someone has your back and that things are going to get done without you even having to ask, like your friend offering to help you move without even having to offer drinks and pizza first.

Speaker 6 It's a beautiful thing when someone is two steps ahead of you, quietly making your life easier. Staying connected matters.

Speaker 6 That's why in the rare event of a network outage, AT ⁇ T will proactively credit you for a full day of service. That's the AT ⁇ T guarantee.

Speaker 6 Credit for fiber downtime lasting 20 minutes or more or for wireless downtime lasting 60 minutes or more caused by a single incident impacting 10 or more towers.

Speaker 6 Must be connected to impacted tower at onset of outage. Restrictions and exclusions apply.
See ATT.com slash guarantee for full details. AT ⁇ T, connecting changes everything.

Speaker 1 Radiolab is supported by Apple TV. It's 1972.
A young British family is attempting to sail around the world when disaster strikes. Their boat is hit by killer whales and it sinks in seconds.

Speaker 1 All they have left is a life raft and each other. How will they survive? The true story of a family's fight for survival, hosted by Becky Milligan.

Speaker 1 This is Adrift, an Apple original podcast produced by Blanchard House. Apple TV subscribers get special early access to the entire season.
Follow and listen on Apple podcasts.

Speaker 1 Radiolab is supported by the National Forest Foundation, a non-profit transforming America's love of nature into action for our forests.

Speaker 1 Did you know that national forests provide clean drinking water to one in three Americans?

Speaker 1 And that national forests and grasslands cover nearly 10% of the U.S., hosting 150,000 miles of trails and providing habitat for over 3,000 species of plants and animals.

Speaker 1 The National Forest Foundation supports the places where we come alive. keeping the trails, rivers, and forests we love healthy.

Speaker 1 Last year, they planted 5.3 million trees and advanced over 300 projects to protect nature and communities nationwide.

Speaker 1 Their work creates lasting impact by restoring forests and watersheds, strengthening wildfire resilience, and expanding recreation access for generations to come.

Speaker 1 And when forests struggle, so do we, the water in our taps, the air we breathe, and the trails that connect us all. Learn how you can help at nationalforests.org.

Speaker 1 Radiolab is supported by the National Forest Foundation, a nonprofit transforming America's love of nature into action for our forests.

Speaker 1 Did you know that national forests provide clean drinking water to one in three Americans? And when forests struggle, so do we.

Speaker 1 The National Forest Foundation creates lasting impact by restoring forests and watersheds, strengthening wildfire resilience, and expanding recreation access for all.

Speaker 1 Last year, they planted 5.3 million trees and led over 300 projects to protect nature and communities nationwide. Learn more at nationalforests.org/slash radiolab.

Speaker 1 Okay, we're back. I'm Jad Abu Mr.
I'm Robert Krolwich. This is Radiolab, and we are telling you the story of a woman who saved a man's life.

Speaker 1 The man is so thankful that he comes back to Jesus, wants Christians across the country to hear his story, and wants this lady to help him tell it. But she's an atheist.

Speaker 1 So we're now going to help her find a way to tell her side of the story. Okay, are you guys, is everyone there? I'm here.
Jim, can you hear us?

Speaker 4 Yeah, I can hear you guys. Janelle, can you hear me?

Speaker 3 I can.

Speaker 5 How are you?

Speaker 1 So, our producer, Lattev Nasser, actually started talking to Janelle about what exactly she wanted to do, and they decided that we should just all get in the studio, Jim and her, and all of us, and see if we could hash it out.

Speaker 1 But I guess, like, Janelle, do you want to just kind of talk through what we've been thinking?

Speaker 3 Sure, I can try, and if you want to help me, Latif. So,

Speaker 3 essentially, Latif and I have been talking about what would be the best way for me to kind of tell my side of the story,

Speaker 3 my side of our story, so to speak, without

Speaker 3 so much of the religious stuff.

Speaker 4 Yeah, so when are you guys going to do that?

Speaker 4 Maybe I missed the point. I'm sorry.
So do you say we as in like we are going to do a version of that?

Speaker 3 Well, I thought you could help me.

Speaker 1 Oh, cool. Well, I would have no problem.

Speaker 8 Yeah, I'm kind of just

Speaker 3 with the because you are so not only a magician with magic things, but also with words.

Speaker 1 Uh-huh.

Speaker 3 So maybe if we could, if you could help me.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, totally.

Speaker 4 That's so interesting. My mind begins to spin.

Speaker 1 So at first, we suggested maybe Janelle could come out at the end of one of Jim's shows and just read a statement or something. And Jim said, you know, that's probably not going to work.

Speaker 4 As you guys know, in this world, there's, I mean, audiences come based upon how things are marketed and booked.

Speaker 1 i don't know and jim said you know he has to worry about sort of as a business the expectations of his of his sponsors and and even the audience who are who are looking for a certain thing

Speaker 1 like a producer because i'm i'm totally up so we were like yeah okay fair enough maybe we could be like a q a after the show or something like that i don't know i'd have to really like process it but i i'm totally open to it i would always love to help um janelle figure i mean help her put it all together and like i think though that

Speaker 1 so eventually we landed on a plan jim was going to to be doing his show up in St. Cloud, Minnesota, and we decided, well, we could just do a show with him and Janelle the next night.

Speaker 1 So along with producers Lithef Nasser and Annie McEwen, we headed up to St. Cloud, met up with Janelle, and that night we went to all go see Jim's show.
It's a pretty big venue.

Speaker 1 There was probably like a thousand people there, all college students. And of course, because Janelle was there, right after he did the sort of personal journey back to God.

Speaker 1 Check this out.

Speaker 1 A little bit hard to hear, but there was literally like a shudder of energy that went through the crowd at that moment. Lizzie, I'm looking at the stage.

Speaker 1 It says, Janelle, Jenny, come on up here, Jenny.

Speaker 1 So yeah, I got your accent.

Speaker 1 I want to say.

Speaker 8 Well, you're the much better speaker than me. But what I can say is I encourage all of you to consider signing up.

Speaker 1 So Janelle just pointed out that the National Bone Marrow Registry would be there that night and she encouraged everybody to, you know, sign up and have a chance to save a life and do something good.

Speaker 8 So please do that, or at least consider it.

Speaker 5 Show them a tattoo. Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 And then Jim had her show the whole audience her puzzle piece tattoo.

Speaker 1 Say it on the

Speaker 1 stepped back off the stage.

Speaker 1 Before we close, I wanted to know if I could pray for you. Do you guys still pray in Minnesota?

Speaker 5 Guy down here is like, hell yeah, we do.

Speaker 1 All right, good.

Speaker 1 We're going to pray. Alright, so would you mind? I told you you leave.

Speaker 1 I want you to pray this prayer with me. Just say this in your heart.
Say, Lord Jesus, tonight, I choose to turn and stop living for myself, my own version of my own story, and I want to trust you.

Speaker 1 I don't have all the answers, but I know you do. And tonight, by faith, I choose to follow you.
Thank you for loving me.

Speaker 1 Thank you in the midst of all of this randomness that I experienced coming after me, for being jealous for me. I love you too.

Speaker 1 In Jesus' mighty name, amen and amen.

Speaker 1 And then, just before everybody stepped out.

Speaker 1 Also, this is very important. I'm going to be here another night.
I'm going to be here another night.

Speaker 5 We're going to be here tomorrow night.

Speaker 1 Have you guys heard of the podcast Radio Lab? Have you heard of Radio Lab?

Speaker 1 That was about three people that shouted out. They're in the audience.
I'm just going to say that. I'm not going to point them out, but they're in the audience.
Nobody cared.

Speaker 1 And Rainy Lab is going to be holding this forum. Janelle Jenny is going to tell her side of the story of what happened to her through this process.
All right?

Speaker 5 All right.

Speaker 1 So after the show, we actually got a chance to talk to some of the people from the audience. And then hearing the whole three days thing, like, I was like, oh my God.
That's wow. Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I couldn't believe that she was actually here. She's here in there.
Think about it. I would have been so shocked to sit right next to her.

Speaker 1 Pretty much everybody was totally floored by actually getting to see Janelle in person, and they all seemed to take her story the way Jim does. She was a visual example of everything.

Speaker 9 Put a face to this whole thing.

Speaker 1 So many things fell in mind where

Speaker 1 you just have to believe, in my opinion. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 5 the next night. Good evening, everyone.
Welcome. My name is Mark Springer.

Speaker 1 With much less fanfare in a much smaller room, like maybe 100 people there or so, with the help of the religious studies program at St. Cloud University.

Speaker 5 Hear me okay? Yes, there I am. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 We did Janelle's thing. All right, so I'm Robert Krovich.

Speaker 5 I am one of the co-hosts of a public radio program called Radio Lab.

Speaker 1 I want to introduce also Soren Wheeler who is our managing editor.

Speaker 5 That's him. He's going to be adding his two cents from time to time.
We're a very democratic show and like nobody controls anything and everybody pitches in, so he will too.

Speaker 5 And I want to begin by just telling you a story.

Speaker 1 So we brought Janelle up on stage.

Speaker 5 But Janelle, could you just come up here and sit? I guess, might as well sit here.

Speaker 1 We told her whole story of, you know, donating and then waiting a year to find out, you know, who Jim really was.

Speaker 5 Talk.

Speaker 8 I had no idea.

Speaker 5 I mean,

Speaker 1 then we brought Jim on stage.

Speaker 5 All right, so Jim, the year is up.

Speaker 1 He talked about, you know, his whole process of recovery.

Speaker 5 Trying to get your bearings.

Speaker 1 He talked about how grateful and thankful he was. And then we turned back to Janelle.

Speaker 5 Well, let's make this a little more complicated. Soren, could you just run the

Speaker 5 I asked you how you felt in that first round and this is what you told me in the interview

Speaker 3 there was a part of me that felt a little bit of an imposter

Speaker 5 well now why why would you use the word imposter

Speaker 5 why did you choose that word?

Speaker 8 So so we should start getting into the meat and potatoes of my thoughts.

Speaker 5 I think so.

Speaker 1 Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 8 Part of me,

Speaker 8 and at that time especially, thought that I'm up here

Speaker 8 again as this

Speaker 8 Pretty hard and fast proof or very compelling narrative for a lot of people and their faith that I don't particularly share at all

Speaker 5 Can I ask a question? Yeah

Speaker 5 But I

Speaker 5 knowing that

Speaker 8 You knew it at that point.

Speaker 5 I think we talked about that But I was very concerned knowing that you you know didn't agree with what i believed to be true that that you would feel like you were in that spot

Speaker 5 that's why i asked you i did of course and i could have declined yeah but i mean but at the same time it doesn't make anything different than the fact that it's still what it is you know exactly

Speaker 8 I would have done it regardless of whatever it was.

Speaker 8 If your whole theme of your show was how great the Dallas Cowboys were and it got everybody to join the bone marrow registry. I would have got up there in the Cowboys hat.

Speaker 8 Honestly, Jim, every time I see your show, even though I don't

Speaker 8 adhere to the religious tenets of it, I still get that feeling and everybody,

Speaker 3 all my family, all my friends, whatever their religious, even my Muslim friends that I've told the story get

Speaker 3 you know, that feeling.

Speaker 3 And you know, what that feeling is

Speaker 3 is a little intangible, but I think it's something even a little

Speaker 8 bigger than,

Speaker 8 that sounds so crappy to say, bigger than Jesus.

Speaker 3 That's really blasphemous, but I can't think of a better way to say it.

Speaker 5 Can you explain what that means?

Speaker 8 Well, you know,

Speaker 8 that

Speaker 8 there is good in this universe and there is good in everybody and it is regardless of

Speaker 8 the goodness is at the top of the list of you and everything else as follows your religion and your race and where you're born and your favorite pizza toppings and all of that but at the very top is

Speaker 5 good

Speaker 8 with the capital G and it's underlined too.

Speaker 1 All right, Jim.

Speaker 5 In your show, you have a rather gorgeous take on moral relativism. You have a string of thoughts

Speaker 5 that this idea about being good and doing no harm and living as ethically as you know how is

Speaker 5 satisfying to some people, but in your view it isn't really enough.

Speaker 5 Yeah, this is where we, I mean, obviously there's some disagreement here.

Speaker 5 I think that there is good and I think that there is evil.

Speaker 5 in this world.

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 I think that people in and of their own, left to their own vices, left to their own devices, I think that they struggle with being good. I think that even on our best day,

Speaker 5 I think that we fall short.

Speaker 5 And so in hearing her account,

Speaker 5 you just thinking, what, that she's not...

Speaker 5 Where does she fall short? Where does this idea lose you? I don't, I mean, it doesn't lose me. I think it's phenomenally good.

Speaker 5 I'm not acknowledging it as good. I just think that for the Christian, it's not about being good or bad.

Speaker 5 What is it about?

Speaker 5 I think it's about having a relationship with God.

Speaker 5 Does that make sense? I guess it makes sense.

Speaker 1 At that point, Jim, you know, he made it clear that he definitely wasn't condemning Janelle because she didn't have a relationship with God.

Speaker 1 But then we took a sort of different approach. We started talking about the unlikeliness of this whole story, which is one of the things that Jim talks about in his show.

Speaker 1 And so at that point, I decided I should jump in.

Speaker 5 And I say this and I really say this only because it is our job as a show that when we hear a story like this, we dig in, we investigate, and we do that from a frame that is really focused on math, facts, science.

Speaker 5 And a couple things happen to you if you happen to be in my position. You run across stuff like this, and I'll just read from the Be a Match website.

Speaker 5 A patient's likelihood of finding a match donor on Be the Match Registry is estimated to be between 66 and 97 percent.

Speaker 5 The chances that that you'll find a 10 to 10 match in the way that Jim and Janelle were 10 to 10 matches is around 50 percent.

Speaker 5 Wait a second, wait a second.

Speaker 5 Which that doesn't make sense to me.

Speaker 5 Well, it's only because there's a million people,

Speaker 5 she was the one. Yeah, let me say that this does not actually contradict with Jim and Janelle's experience of it.

Speaker 5 For that to happen to Jim, it is truly staggering. It is truly...
It could be one in a trillion, and you know, like the way winning a lottery is one in a trillion.

Speaker 5 It can't be both. One in a trillion.

Speaker 5 It can because what happens is if you back up away from the individual and ask not what are the chances this would happen to Jim, but what are the chances that this would happen to someone somewhere?

Speaker 5 It's like there's a story about if you're golfing and you hit a golf ball and it goes however many hundreds of yards.

Speaker 5 I don't play golf, so I don't know how far they go, but it lands on a blade of grass, and that blade of grass says, why me?

Speaker 5 Why would this golf ball crush me like this? Which is a valid point. I would feel that too.
But that ball was going to land on some blade of grass. So you

Speaker 5 it doesn't like there the why me is still a true thing. It is a true experience in a way

Speaker 5 there is a there is still this difference I think

Speaker 5 the ball can't point to anything greater no the argument that lurks behind this is

Speaker 5 that these things happen and it is just chance. So this is the random view.

Speaker 5 How do you guys feel about that? That you were randomly there and you were randomly

Speaker 5 chosen isn't the word.

Speaker 5 The ball of mercy landed on you.

Speaker 5 But I'm not, I'm also not coming at it from just that angle. I mean, I wonder if it was just the bone marrow transplant, if it would be, people get that all the time.

Speaker 5 I think perhaps the other bits and pieces of the puzzle maybe help shadow it in, you know, a little bit for me.

Speaker 5 And so, I don't know. To me, it's a multi-layered cake.
I thought you really don't like this idea of...

Speaker 5 Like in this science version, there is no design and there is no first cause except the first random event that sets the thing in motion. Right.

Speaker 5 Do you both, could you, either of you live with that version of what just happened to you?

Speaker 8 Yeah, well, that's perfect because it's exactly what you talk about in your show with

Speaker 8 all the different cards.

Speaker 1 Janelle's referring to a thing in Jim's show where he talks about how unlikely any particular order of cards in a deck is.

Speaker 8 And the idea of a particular set of cards being dealt in a particular way is 52 factorial.

Speaker 5 Which is pretty much impossible.

Speaker 8 It is impossible.

Speaker 8 I mean, it's an impossible number. You couldn't statistically.
Right, right.

Speaker 8 But yet you deal the cards and they happen right there. So

Speaker 8 this really gets into just the different viewpoints on

Speaker 8 the proverbial deck of cards

Speaker 8 and who is dealing them. Is it in a particular fashion? And I think that's

Speaker 8 what Jim believes, is that there is a proverbial dealer, and I don't,

Speaker 5 I guess.

Speaker 5 And you agree that that's pretty much the difference? Yeah, I mean, having given thought to that,

Speaker 5 I believe that there was some sort of

Speaker 5 mind, personality.

Speaker 5 And the I believe part is

Speaker 5 where you stand. It is.
Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 5 Absolutely. It is, it's faith.

Speaker 5 And Janelle, you're his

Speaker 5 savior, I guess, and you saved his life.

Speaker 5 But in some way, you don't...

Speaker 5 you haven't

Speaker 5 do you worry about this at all?

Speaker 8 Yeah, absolutely. And even right now on this stage, there's a part of me that, in front of all of you, that I'm sure a lot of you were at the show last night, there's a part of me that is

Speaker 8 afraid of disappointing, that I don't share what you believe to be true. I mean, your entire experience pretty much points the arrow that like I'm like an alliteration of Jesus in your story.

Speaker 8 And that's really difficult to reconcile as someone who doesn't have faith. And it makes me sad sometimes because I think it would be a lot easier if I just believed exactly what you believed.

Speaker 8 And I think that I

Speaker 8 always am very afraid of letting that be known. Like I'm super like clammy right now just saying it in front of this many people.

Speaker 8 I just feel like people would see your story and it's so tremendously compelling, it's unbelievable, and then see that that last piece of this little puzzle literally doesn't fit at all.

Speaker 5 I mean it's not like I haven't thought about that either and how you might feel and

Speaker 5 I empathize and I don't know how to answer that.

Speaker 5 You know,

Speaker 5 I just want to give you a hug.

Speaker 5 There's an unconditionality to how I feel about you that I just,

Speaker 5 you can do no wrong in my eyes. Here's the, for you, the hardest thing.
I was just trying to think of how difficult this must be.

Speaker 5 You have been saved. Your life has been saved by her.

Speaker 5 She is, in effect, your Savior. And yet your belief is that unless she accepts Jesus, that in some sense she's outside of grace.

Speaker 5 And, you know, I don't know, I don't know what you believe about hell and heaven, but that she might be punished. So, what do you do about this weird contradiction?

Speaker 5 She's insisting, nope, not for me, and you're insisting, oh no, this is the way it is, and oh my gosh,

Speaker 5 is it hard for you? No, not at all. I'll tell you why.
Because it's not my place to do that.

Speaker 5 I'm very sorry to everyone who listens to this, whoever feels like they got judged by a Christian, because it's never their place to do that.

Speaker 5 And this is where I think most of the times, and everybody listening to this podcast is placed, is kind of positioned or pigeonholed Christians and what they don't understand is that I'm not commanded to do anything but to love and to start conversations right I'm not the one I'm the I'm not the I'm not the one who is sent into the world to judge all right but what I so

Speaker 5 so putting it like that I know where I know where you want to go with this no I'm just this is not actually an honest question you have to love the judge that may not love the woman who saved your life That's hard, I think.

Speaker 5 Yeah, but at the same time,

Speaker 5 that's not my place.

Speaker 1 I have to say, I think we were sort of expecting that maybe there would be a sharper edge to the differences between Jim and Janelle.

Speaker 1 But to be honest, their conversation that night and their story started to feel like almost an allegory for how to move through the world and hold your your differences but still be one.

Speaker 5 Let me just finish this way.

Speaker 5 Do you have a sense between the two of you?

Speaker 5 Because I mean, obviously, you stay very, very good friends. I mean, that's obvious.
Is there something that either of you can say

Speaker 5 that explains why you can

Speaker 5 dignifiedly but emphatically disagree and still stake in such extraordinary close touch?

Speaker 8 I think the idea of humility and as Jim might even say grace is

Speaker 8 absolutely essential no matter your tenets of belief and that's really what's gonna get you

Speaker 8 through conflict. So yeah.

Speaker 5 And is it because you're in this big ocean of the world and the two of you are just little little dots in it? And so whatever you think is still you're in the big ocean and there you are together.

Speaker 8 Is that a I think maybe, yeah.

Speaker 5 yeah

Speaker 5 and but you have a bigness thing do you feel small

Speaker 5 do i feel small yeah

Speaker 5 i feel tiny humility at its root word is it comes from uh it's the root is humphumus which means dirt

Speaker 5 so when you become humble you become dirt

Speaker 5 now

Speaker 5 i could keep going i could keep going you know god does with dirt is he creates things but i won't go there um

Speaker 5 But you become dirt. And

Speaker 5 I think where we get hung up is that

Speaker 5 we want to be right.

Speaker 5 That hasn't been brought into this yet. We want to be right.
And right and wrong

Speaker 1 are...

Speaker 5 The words right and wrong

Speaker 5 are dead. I think in relationship are deadly words.
I think that saying I'm right, you're wrong.

Speaker 5 is not good for relationships. I think it's like, let's find where we're at.
And have you ever said you're right or you're wrong to her? No.

Speaker 8 No one said it to him either, I don't think.

Speaker 5 Never. Well, that's a nice place to land.
I think so.

Speaker 5 I think we're done. Now, that doesn't mean we're done, done.
That means that I'm going to let these two people introduce the person who

Speaker 5 brought them together real early from the organization.

Speaker 1 At the end of the show, we had the bone marrow registry people there and encourage people to to sign up, and quite a few did. I think maybe 20 or so.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 that was pretty much nothing compared to what Jim got at the end of his show.

Speaker 3 It's 150 people.

Speaker 8 Wait, Sanny.

Speaker 3 It's like 150 people signing up right now. Did you count them?

Speaker 1 That's our producer, Annie McEwen.

Speaker 3 It's at least that.

Speaker 1 Is this bigger than normal?

Speaker 3 Always like this.

Speaker 3 This is a little bigger than normal. I think anytime that I'm actually in the show, it's a little bit better.
So I've been told.

Speaker 3 And what is it?

Speaker 3 How are you feeling when you watch this?

Speaker 3 It's really overwhelming. Like,

Speaker 3 yeah, it kind of makes me want to cry.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 I mean, without you, this wouldn't happen.

Speaker 3 It's almost too big to think of.

Speaker 1 Well, thank you, Soren. Sure, no problem.
This piece was reported by Letif Nasser, produced by Annie McEwen with help from Bethel Hapte and Alex Overington.

Speaker 1 Special thanks to Julie Schmidt with Be the Match. And by the way, they are one of the several bone marrow registries.
This is the one that Jim and Janelle were connected to.

Speaker 1 It is called Be the Match. And if you want to donate, all you have to do is go to join.be the match.org.
That's capital B, capital T, capital M, one word, and you'll get a Spit Swab thing in the mail.

Speaker 1 And maybe, well, maybe you can save a life. It's free if you are under 45.
So again, that's join.beethematch.org. Also thanks to Ginger Galvin, Bryce Harney, and Stu True with The Maze.

Speaker 1 And to Mark Springer, Kevin Sharp, Jim Gray, Kelly Larson, and the rest of the wonderful faculty and staff at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota.

Speaker 1 All right. I'm Jad Abum Rod.
I'm Robert Krowwich. Thanks for listening.

Speaker 9 Hey, I'm Lemon, and I'm from Richmond, Indiana, and here are the staff credits. Radio Lab was created by Jad Abimrod and is edited by Soren Wheeler.
Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser are our co-hosts.

Speaker 9 Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Our staff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Bressler, W.

Speaker 9 Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Sindhun Yanan Sambandan, Matt Kielty, Rebecca Lacks, Annie McEwen, Alex Neeson, Sara Kari, Sarah Sandback, Anissa Vitza, Arianne Wack, Pat Walters and Molly Webster.

Speaker 9 Our five-checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger and Natalie Middleton.

Speaker 10 Hi, my name is Teresa. I'm calling from Colchester in Essex, UK.

Speaker 10 Leadership support for Radiolab science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, the Seymour Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation.

Speaker 10 Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Loan Foundation.

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