-
This back here was my brain cancer.
-
Isn't it nice?
-
(Laughter)
-
The key phrase is "was,"
-
phew.
-
(Applause)
-
Having brain cancer was really,
as you can imagine,
-
shocking news for me.
-
I knew nothing about cancer.
-
In Western cultures, when you have cancer,
-
it's as if you disappear in a way.
-
Your life as a complex human being
is replaced by medical data:
-
Your images, your exams, your lab values,
-
a list of medicines.
-
And everyone changes as well.
-
You suddenly become a disease on legs.
-
Doctors start speaking a language
which you don't understand.
-
They start pointing their fingers
-
at your body and your images.
-
People start changing as well
-
because they start dealing
with the disease,
-
instead of with the human being.
-
They say, "What did the doctor say?"
-
before even saying, "Hello."
-
And in the meanwhile,
-
you're left with questions
to which nobody gives an answer.
-
These are the "Can I?" questions:
-
Can I work while I have cancer?
-
Can I study? Can I make love?
Can I be creative?
-
And you wonder, "What have I done
to deserve this?"
-
You wonder, "Can I change something
about my lifestyle?"
-
You wonder, "Can I do something?
-
Are there any other options?"
-
And, obviously, doctors are
the good guys in all these scenarios,
-
because they are very professional
and dedicated to curing you.
-
But they also are very used
to having to deal with patients,
-
so I'd say that they sometimes
lose the idea that this is torture for you
-
and that you become,
literally, a patient --
-
"patient" means "the one who waits."
-
(Laughter)
-
Things are changing, but classically,
-
they tend to not engage you in any way
to learn about your condition,
-
to get your friends and family engaged,
-
or showing you ways
in which you can change your lifestyle
-
to minimize the risks
of what you're going through.
-
But instead, you're forced there to wait
-
in the hands of a series
of very professional strangers.
-
While I was in the hospital,
-
I asked for a printed-out
picture of my cancer
-
and I spoke with it.
-
It was really hard to obtain,
-
because it's not common practice
to ask for a picture of your own cancer.
-
I talked to it and I said,
-
"Okay, cancer,
you're not all there is to me.
-
There's more to me.
-
A cure, whichever it is, will have
to deal with the whole of me."
-
And so, the next day, I left the hospital
against medical advice.
-
I was determined to change
my relationship with the cancer
-
and I was determined
to learn more about my cancer
-
before doing anything
as drastic as a surgery.
-
I'm an artist, I use several forms
of open-source technologies
-
and open information in my practice.
-
So my best bet was to get it all
out there, get the information out there,
-
and use it so that it could be
accessed by anyone.
-
So I created a website,
which is called La Cura,
-
on which I put my medical data, online.
-
I actually had to hack it
-
and that's a thing which we
can talk about in another speech.
-
(Laughter)
-
I chose this word, La Cura --
-
La Cura in Italian means "the cure" --
-
because in many different cultures,
-
the word "cure" can mean
many different things.
-
In our Western cultures,
-
it means eradicating
or reversing a disease,
-
but in different cultures,
-
for example, a culture from Asia,
-
from the Mediterranean,
from Latin countries, from Africa,
-
it can mean many more things.
-
Of course, I was interested
in the opinions of doctors
-
and healthcare providers,
-
but I was also interested in
the cure of the artist, of the poet,
-
of the designer,
-
of, who knows, the musicians.
-
I was interested in the social cure,
-
I was interested in
the psychological cure,
-
I was interested in the spiritual cure,
-
I was interested in the emotional cure,
-
I was interested in any form of cure.
-
And, it worked.
-
The La Cura website went viral.
-
I received lots of media attention
from Italy and from abroad
-
and I quickly received
more than 500,000 contacts --
-
emails, social networking --
-
most of them were a suggestion
on how to cure my cancer,
-
but more of them were about
how to cure myself
-
as a full individual.
-
For example, many thousands of videos,
-
images, pictures, art performances
-
were produced for La Cura.
-
For example, here we see
Francesca Fini in her performance.
-
Or, as artist Patrick Lichty has done:
-
He produced a 3D sculpture of my tumor
-
and put it on sale on Thingiverse.
-
Now you can have my cancer, too!
-
(Laughter)
-
Which is a nice thing,
if you think about it,
-
we can share our cancer.
-
And this was going on --
-
scientists, the traditional
medicine experts,
-
several researchers, doctors --
-
all connected with me to give advice.
-
With all this information and support,
-
I was able to form a team
of several neurosurgeons,
-
traditional doctors,
-
oncologists, and several
hundred volunteers
-
with whom I was able to discuss
-
the information I was receiving,
which is very important.
-
And together, we were able to form
a strategy for my own cure
-
in many languages,
according to many cultures.
-
And the current strategy
spans the whole world
-
and thousands of years of human history,
-
which is quite remarkable for me.
-
[Surgery]
-
The follow-up MRIs showed, luckily,
little to no growth of the cancer.
-
So I was able to take my time and choose.
-
I chose the doctor I wanted to work with,
-
I chose the hospital I wanted to stay in,
-
and in the meanwhile, I was supported
by thousands of people,
-
none of whom felt pity for me.
-
Everyone felt like they could
take an active role
-
in helping me to get well,
-
and this was the most important
part of La Cura.
-
What are the outcomes?
-
I'm fine, as you can see, pretty fine.
-
(Applause)
-
I have excellent news:
-
After the surgery --
-
I have -- I had a very low-grade glioma,
-
which is a "good" kind of cancer
which doesn't grow a lot.
-
I have completely changed
my life and my lifestyle.
-
Everything I did was thoughtfully
designed to get me engaged.
-
Up until the very last few
minutes of the surgery,
-
which was very intense,
-
a matrix of electrodes
was implanted in my brain
-
from this side,
-
to be able to build a functional map
of what the brain controls.
-
And right before the operation,
-
we were able to discuss
the functional map of my brain
-
with the doctor, to understand
which risks I was running into
-
and if there were any I wanted to avoid.
-
Obviously, there were.
-
[Open]
-
And this openness was really
the fundamental part of La Cura.
-
Thousands of people shared
their stories, their experiences.
-
Doctors got to talk with people
they don't usually consult
-
when they think about cancer.
-
I'm a self-founding,
continuous state of translation
-
among many different languages,
-
in which science meets emotion
-
and conventional research
meets traditional research.
-
[Society]
-
The most important thing of La Cura
-
was to feel like a part
of a really engaged and connected society
-
whose wellness really depends
on the wellness of all of its components.
-
This global performance
is my open-source cure for cancer.
-
And from what I feel,
-
it's a cure for me, but for us all.
-
Thank you.
-
(Applause).
Brian Greene
A correction was made to this transcript on 1/15/16.
At 8:24, the subtitle now reads: "I had excellent news after the surgery --"