Hayley Arceneaux: The G Monster
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Hey, everybody. Welcome to Literally. Today is a very special show. We've done 100 plus episodes, and I really want to start getting into folks like this. Although there aren't many folks like this. This young lady is one of a kind. Haley Arsenault.

is joining us. Some of you may already know her, but for those of you who don't, she was diagnosed with bone cancer at the age of 10, eventually had to have a prosthetic in her leg. The St. Jude's Children's Hospital was instrumental in saving her life. She then devoted her life to getting a job at St. Jude's and then, through a twist of fate, which we will get into, became, at the time, the youngest woman ever.

to go to space. So to say that this lady has had an insane life is an understatement, and she is an inspiration to everybody. So as I like to say, let's get ready for liftoff with Haley Arsenault in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Haley, how are you today? I'm good. It's good to be here. Where am I finding you today in Zoom world? Where are you actually?

I live in Memphis. I moved here two years ago when I got my St. Jude job. Amazing. I love St. Jude. I know you do, obviously. Someone told me the other day the Danny Thomas story of how he got involved. Have you ever heard this story of Danny who founded St. Jude's? You know the story, right?

It's a beautiful story. And I just heard it literally last week out of nowhere. Somebody told me this story. So this goes back to when Marla Thomas was born and he was, she was Danny Thomas's first child and he couldn't pay the bill for

for whenever she was born. And so he prayed to St. Jude, who's the patron saint of hopeless causes, that he would show him his way in life. And if he did, then Danny Thomas would build him a shrine. And so after that, Danny Thomas found a lot of success.

as an actor, and he never forgot that promise. And so he wanted to build a hospital that helped kids with hopeless causes. And at the time, childhood cancer was very far from being cured, and it was considered a hopeless cause. And a lot of people discouraged him from starting the hospital, saying it would break his heart, but he wanted to do it. And

St. Jude was founded in 1962 and has helped so many children around the world and has helped raise the childhood cancer survival rate so much since then. It's amazing. Can you imagine starting a hospital? How would you even start a hospital?

Imagine. No, I, and he could have done an easy little shrine, like, you know, made a statue or something. And, um, to start a hospital that has just been become such an influential player on the world stage is in terms of childhood cancer. It's an honor to work there and to see what an impact we have at St. Jude. And was it originally the first one was in Los Angeles. Is that right?

It was actually founded in Memphis. It was. And Danny Thomas was not from Memphis. Why Memphis? It's because at the time with the civil rights movement, Memphis was very segregated. And Danny Thomas wanted to prove a point that this hospital would treat kids from all walks of life, from all nationalities and backgrounds. And St. Jude was actually the first fully integrated pediatric cancer hospital in the South. Wow. I had no idea.

It's a beautiful story. Yeah, I visited St. Jude's a bunch in the one in L.A., but I just assumed because Danny was, you know, a show business person that it was that it was in was in L.A. That's unbelievable. So on your daily life working there, walk me through what a regular day looks like for you. I'm a PA, a physician assistant, and I work inpatient with kids with leukemia and lymphoma.

So I get there very early in the morning and go through all the kids' charts, their vitals, their labs, their overnight events. I go around and talk to the kids, hear from them, examine them. We do rounds with the physician, pharmacist, nursing team, dietician, and we talk about every kid and what they need. And then I spend the rest of the day kind of making that happen, consulting, discharging, admitting, and consulting.

It this was my dream job. It's all I've ever wanted to do. And then getting to do this job. I love it more than I even knew I was going to. It is truly the greatest honor of my life getting to work with these brave kids. They're so fun, too. And why specifically those two types of cancer?

this is kind of where I ended up with leukemia lymphoma. I was treated at St. Jude when I was a child for bone cancer. And so that's really when my love for St. Jude truly started, when they saved my life and they gave me hope that I didn't have before getting to St. Jude. And it was 18 years later that I

I walked through the doors of St. Jude as an employee and I ended up on leukemia lymphoma team. And it's a lot of fun. You were 10 years old when you first started noticing something was wrong with your leg. You're 10. Is that right?

I was 10. I was young. And so cancer was not on my mind. I started having pain in my leg. We went to see a doctor who thought it was from Taekwondo because at the time I was very involved in Taekwondo. And I actually got my black belt just a few days before I was diagnosed with cancer. But then I started limping and we noticed I had a lump above my knee.

And it was at that point we went back to the doctor and she took an x-ray and told us straight up that it was bone cancer. And that was the scariest moment of my life. It changed everything. What did your family do? Where were you living at this point? Louisiana.

a small town. So at that time, we didn't even have a radiologist in town. We had x-ray films that were usually shipped across the river on a ferry boat to be read by radiology. Yes. And so we had taken the films to my pediatrician and she read them in the office and was very astute and made the diagnosis. But when I heard that word cancer, I just kept saying, I don't want to die. I don't want to die. Because for me at age 10, everyone I had known with cancer had

And I thought cancer was a death sentence. Um, but then my, we got home and my parents just Googled my type of cancer and found the website for St. Jude. My dad called and asked that they would take me. And then a few days later I was walking in the doors of St. Jude. You know, I, I've done a lot of work, um,

In this field, in honor of my great-grandma, grandma, mom, all breast cancer—well, they were breast cancer survivors for a very, very long time, but ultimately they passed from breast cancer. And then my dad is a non-Hodgkin's lymphoma survivor, got diagnosed at 50, and he's now 82? Yeah.

And that's incredible. He's beaten it back twice. So it's all over in my family. And one of the things I've learned in my work and raising money and all of it is how important it is to have a team around you to support you. Because I mean, not just I mean, for a kid, obviously, it would have been almost impossible. But even for grown people, like there's a stat that when you go into the doctor and the doctor gives you

The news, the instructions, whatever it is, as the patient, you retain only about 20% of what he's saying because it's so overwhelming. So just on that level alone, how important it is to have somebody being your caregiver. And so many people don't have that. They just don't. They either...

don't have somebody in their lives to do it and they're on their own. And that is brutal. You, you're so blessed. Everybody's so blessed to have someone who really takes control to do the, the, you know, the logistics, the thinking comforting really an advantage to have that. Yes. And I come from a very supportive family. They were there every step of the way, but, but really from the moment we walked in the hospital, I started feeling hope from the staff.

Um, because when we first walked up to the front desk, my mom trying to say my name and she burst into tears and the receptionist came from around the desk and gave her a hug and said, don't worry. You're part of the family. Now you're part of the St. Jude family. She said, we'll take care of her and we'll take care of you. And so, um,

having such a support system was so important in that year that I was going through treatment and now getting to be on the other side. And I know that stat that you're talking about. And so we tell the families, we're just going to keep repeating ourselves because we know it's physically impossible for you to take in all this information that we're throwing at you. Um, but just getting to be there and to support them is just, uh,

It's just such an honor and such a privilege. Eventually, you had to get a prosthesis, correct? Correct. They removed the part of my bone that was affected by the tumor, and they replaced it with an internal prosthesis. And because they had to remove my growth plate in that surgery, this prosthesis could expand as I grew through a different procedure. And so I had the limb sparing surgery, and then I also had a year of chemotherapy. Wow. And then you became an astronaut. Yeah.

Yeah, that's the main, the shocker. It's something I never saw coming. But yeah. Can you imagine, can you imagine you're at the lowest point of your treatment and somebody, some magical person from the future comes in and goes, you're going to be an astronaut. You know, it's actually something I've thought about a lot. And people have asked me, like, would you go and tell your younger self in the midst of cancer treatment that she would one day become an astronaut? Yeah.

But I tell them, no, I would not tell 10 year old Haley that she would want to become an astronaut because I think that's the beauty of life is you don't know what's going to happen. And so when you're going through the tough days, you have to hold on to hope that there's going to be better ones.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Okay, you got to walk me through. It's so insane. Your whole astronaut story, I don't even know where to begin because it's so nuts to me. It's nuts to me too. I still can't believe I'm an astronaut. Do you ever go, wait a minute, did I? Is it a dream? Did that really happen to me? Do you ever have? I would. All the time.

all the time. And sometimes I'll even like, I'll just kind of casually say something. They're like, oh yeah, that time I went to space. And then I laugh. I'm like, I can't believe I went to space. Okay. What's the very first you're leading, you know, as much of a normal life as somebody can live has had your, your history and challenges and successes, but you're living that, that life that let's call that the normal life. What's the first moment that leads you on the path to space? A phone call.

So I had been leading my normal life. And I remember about a week before I got this phone call, I remember sitting there and just kind of thinking, I've peaked. Like, life could not get better. I have my dream job and all is well. And then about a week later, I get an email from the chief of staff at St. Jude. He had never reached out to me before. And he said he wanted to talk to me about a unique opportunity.

And so I joined a call with them and they start telling me about a fundraiser for St. Jude. And I've been doing fundraising for the hospital since I was 10. And so but then it gets weird and they start telling me about a space mission fundraiser for St. Jude. And they shocked me by asking if I wanted to go and be the St. Jude ambassador on this mission, this all civilian mission, which would be raising money for St. Jude.

And I actually laughed. I said, are you serious? And I followed that with yes. And then I was like, okay, let me check with my mom. But my answer is yes. It's like...

Let me check. I mean, I would be like, so like space, space, I'm going to go. And by the way, I'm not so sure I'm comfortable with all civilians. Wouldn't you want an actual astronaut up there? That was kind of one of my concerns at first. And I remember when I called my mom and I tell her, I'm like, you're not going to believe this, but it's true. I just got invited to go to space. And she's like, well, how many NASA astronauts are going to be with you guys? And I say, none. None.

And there's silence on the phone. I'd say. Yes. But I was like, I have to do this. And she was fully supportive. And actually, my brother and my sister-in-law both happen to be aerospace engineers, real life rocket scientists. So we called them and asked if they thought it would be safe. And they said yes. And that was January of 2021. And then I spent nine months after that training becoming an astronaut and then blasted off in September of 2021. ♪

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Do they still use the word blasted off? I heard that they don't like to use blasted because it implies explosion. I hadn't heard that, but I could see it. That's why they go liftoff. We have liftoff. I mean, that makes a lot of sense, but I think blast off sounds kind of fun. You go to space and it falls to me to tell you not to use blasted off? What's going on? You're so current. Yeah, I'm on top of it. What...

Okay. How do you, okay. I have to go to, let's say that I have to go to space in nine months. What do I need to start doing immediately? It is so much studying. And from someone who has like, I had no background in aerospace. My background was in medicine. So it was a huge learning curve, but we, we really studied our spacecraft and the ins and outs of it and the orbital mechanics behind it all.

We spent a lot of time studying what we would be doing in space. And then we spent time in the spacecraft simulator. This was a SpaceX mission. So we were out in California at the SpaceX facility. But we were just practicing for hours on end what it would be like if everything was going right. And then our trainers would put us through simulations where things were going very wrong.

wrong. And we would have to work through that as a team. And then we did all the cool classic astronaut training. So we did centrifuge training, getting our bodies used to G-forces that we would experience with launch and reentry. We did water survival training. We did a zero gravity flight, hypoxia training, and we climbed a mountain together as part of our crew bonding. The centrifuge is the one that spins around in a circle, correct? Yeah.

Yes. And I did not know what a centrifuge was before this training, but it spins you so quickly that you have increased G forces on your body, which are gravitational forces. And basically we hit six Gs in this centrifuge. So six times the amount of normal earth gravity. And what are the Gs at blast off? We hit four and a half. What does that feel like? Well, you're laying down and it feels like four and a half people are lying on top of you.

And so it can be kind of hard to keep your lungs inflated. And so part of what we were doing with that exercise was just learning how to breathe and learning how to not freak out in that situation that is very out of your control. But I actually love G-forces. And after centrifuge training, I got my nickname, the G-monster. Oh, my God. That's very good. Thank you. I'm pretty proud of it.

No kidding. G-Monster. When you say you love the G-Force, is it just the adrenaline of it? Just the excitement of it? I think it's the adrenaline and it's also the challenge that this is, it's very heavy and it's something that you've never quite experienced before, but just learning to ride it out.

Do you have a G-suit or anything like that? Is there anything you can wear to help it? So we did some additional G-force training in fighter jets, which was a really fun part of training. But we hit eight Gs in the fighter jet. And as soon as we were getting – when I was in my jet ride and we were getting close to eight, I realized my G-suit was not working. Okay.

Oh, no. And so the point of the G-suit is to put pressure on your legs to keep your body, to keep the blood from pulling down there and to keep you from passing out. And so I just had to like, they teach you how to tighten your legs and tighten all your muscles to keep your blood where it's supposed to be. So you never passed out or vomited or any? You must have. No? Not in the vomit comet even? No. No.

Um, which was great. And then, uh, in, in space, it's actually a lot of people that don't get nauseous on earth will sometimes get nauseous in space, but luckily I didn't get nauseous in space either. The vomit comet is the, is the, um, the ship that, that goes up, up and down and up and down and creates zero gravity. Um,

I had Ron Howard on the show who directed Apollo 13 and Bill Paxton was a great friend of mine and he was in the movie and he talks about they shot in the vomit comet. They actually shot some of, isn't that insane? That's insane. And I imagine how difficult that was because it's when you're first exposed to zero gravity and our first taste of zero gravity was in that vomit comet. You

you realize like how out of control all of your movements are and you go to, you're like floating towards a wall and you go to push off of it. And then it like slams you in the other direction because you just, you have to learn that it only takes very fine movements to, to move around. Otherwise you're just all over the place. Yeah. That, so I know this sounds like an idiot, a duh question, but it's, it's so goes against everything we know. Cause very, like you say, we've not, very few people have experienced zero gravity, but

The minute you start moving, you will not stop moving, right? Mm-hmm. I would notice this with, I would do, I love zero gravity. And so I would do a lot of spins in space, like over and over, I would just spin. And I wouldn't stop until I ran into something, which was very cool. So you go into a spin, you're, you, you, in theory are going to, you literally will spin until something stops it. Mm-hmm.

Yes. And usually it was running into my crew member or the wall. But yes. You would have been a hell of a roommate there. Here she goes spinning around. One of the things I love about the SpaceX capsules, they named the chairs, right?

For our mission, yes. So our mission was Inspiration 4, and all of us represented a pillar of inspiration. But my crew members were generosity, prosperity. Our commander was leadership, and I was selected to represent hope. I mean, come on. Yeah.

This is some West Wing shit we're talking about right here. This is amazing stuff. So do you have your uniform still? You must. I mean, was that just sick when you're like, here's your flight suit or whatever they call it? Yes. So in our space suit took about the whole nine months to make. And I remember getting fitted for it. Then they measured 220 different parts of my body.

And I didn't know. Wait, I didn't know anybody had 220 parts of their body. I didn't know either. I remember when they told me that being like, what are they going to measure? But that space suit was very tailored to me. But actually, I'm donating it to St. Jude.

because I really want the kids to be able to see it every day and envision themselves in a space suit or whatever big dreams they have. Oh my God, totally. 100%. What about helmets or whatever you're putting on your head? Did you have one of those things or not? It was huge. The whole thing weighed about 25 pounds. And so all that's going to go to St. Jude, but

But I was able to bring a lot of stuff to space that I now have and will keep forever. And so all that was able to go to space and I have. And it's fun to look back at it and think, like, that went to space with me. What did you bring into space? I brought some jewelry. Some of it was some that, like,

that family members had given to me that was special to me and some work from, for my friends and family for them to have a little piece of space. Like my mom and I have matching stars from space on an S. Um, and then I brought some pictures, um, of,

of friends and family. And I brought like some little, a plush astronaut for my future kid and just different things that have kind of impacted me through the years. What were some of the things that you saw in space that blew your mind? Well, the first time I saw the Earth was

It was very shocking. And on our spacecraft, we were lucky that we flew this giant window. It was the largest window that had ever been flown in space. And we could put our whole bodies in it and see the whole 360 degree space.

curve of the earth and like all at once we could see the whole wait a minute so the earth is round I'm just checking it's apparently yeah this is kind of controversial for me to say but I can assure you I saw with my two eyes it's round one of the things I just makes me laugh about the internet and Twitter and TikTok and all of this is like

the flat earth thing is actually a thing again. Oh, I know. Yeah. Um, cause I've been posting videos and, uh, and yeah, they, you're in a green screen studio CGI. Yeah.

So you saw the whole curvature of the earth. That was beautiful. Yeah. So I wasn't expecting to see the whole earth at once. I thought we might be able to like see segments of it. And then the first time I saw the earth from that cupola and I could see the whole earth at once with the blackness of space around it, surrounded by stars and,

It was so shocking. And I actually was like in the middle of doing an activity as part of like the procedure that was like my task when we were opening that cupola. And I look up and I'm just so mesmerized that I'm paralyzed. I'm just suspended in the air staring at our planet. And it was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. And it's kind of hard to describe, but

I think I was so shocked by seeing it from space because it felt so 3D. And all my life, I'd seen pictures and videos of the Earth, but just seeing it from that vantage point, it was so 3D and real and alive.

And, um, and so I, I, we were busy in space, but all the time that I could look at the earth, that's what I did. And I loved whenever it was daylight over the earth and we were moving quickly. So we were, we'd spend like 45 minutes in daylight and then 45 minutes in nighttime. We went around the earth about every 90 minutes, um, for three days. And, um,

The day passes were beautiful because you could really see the land masses. And I loved the South Pacific islands. They were so gorgeous, just surrounded by turquoise water. And it was, I got to see a wildfire in Australia and the smoke was billowing towards us, which I just found really interesting. And I could see mountain ranges and like chilly Argentina and it,

It just, I've always been a lover of exploration and international travel. And it just gave me so many more places that I wanted to go see on our planet. But the night passes were also exceptionally beautiful and getting to see city lights. And we saw lightning from above, which was, it was just, it was spectacular. I could stare at the earth all day, every day and never get sick of it. Can you see?

stars like you see them on Earth in space? Is it that insane? It actually does look very similar to how we see them on Earth. Whenever I see a photo from the International Space Station or the video feed or any of that stuff in the blackness of space, I never see the stars. But you see them when you're up there, right? Sometimes. If we dimmed all of the lights in our spacecraft.

And I think that's why a lot of times they're not visible in pictures and videos from the International Space Station because there's so much light on in the station. But also the Earth light and all the glow from the Earth, like we could never see them on a day pass. But we could usually always see the moon, which it was so fun because as we were orbiting, the moon would just show up in different places from our perspective. And it was just beautiful. ♪

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All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I'll never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel. ♪

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Who else was on the flight with you? So I had a very special crew. And the guy who served as our commander is this guy, Jared Isaacman. He bought the mission. And it was his idea to use this first all-civilian mission, this big first, as a fundraiser for St. Jude. And he wanted good to come out of it. And so the recipes were kind of random. I was chosen by him and St. Jude to represent hope.

And then also we had a seat with my crew member, Chris Imbroski eventually filled, but that was a fundraiser for St. Jude. So basically a lottery people donated to St. Jude and could win a seat to space.

And then my other crew member, Cyan Proctor, she won her seat through, it was kind of a social media contest where she showcased her business idea. But so all of us, like we didn't know Jared ahead of time, but we came together, we trained together, we got incredibly close and we had a wonderful time in space together. And we're still very close. I just love it. These are my friends from space. Isn't it crazy? I know. Yeah.

I need to talk to you about your memoir. Ah, yes. I mean, okay, the title is great. Hit us with the title. I love the title. Wild Ride, a memoir of IV drips and rocket ships.

I mean, who's not going to buy and read that? I know I would. Well, thank you. I'm proud of it. It came out in September and it came out about a year after we went to space. And as soon as I got back from space, I just wrote about my experience. And I'm so glad I did because it

It was so fresh in my mind. And even it's been a year later, I go back and read it. And I think there are parts of it where I kind of think like, oh, I didn't, I almost like forgot that that happened. Um, and so it's just a very fresh account and it's my life story. I go through overcoming childhood cancer and then, um,

eventually getting my dream job, which wasn't the easiest experience I really had to work at. And then getting this incredible opportunity to go to space and then training to be an astronaut from a regular person's perspective and going to space again as a regular person and kind of how the whole experience has impacted me. So you've had these amazing chapters in your life. You're super young.

still. Do you, can you foresee, I mean, we already, you already said your favorite thing about life is that you don't know what's next, but, and you're so clearly content and happy. And do you ever think about if you were to have a different or additional chapter, what you would like it to be? Or are you just like good to go as you are? I think there's a lot more to come and I don't know what it's going to be, which I find exciting. But I think that,

that overcoming childhood cancer and surviving this disease, it gave me so much love for life and so much zest and just, I'm so happy to be here. And so, yeah,

that comes with embracing the opportunities that life gives me. And, and so I think there, there will be more opportunities in life. And, and I just, I know that I'm going to go with, go with them as they come. And so I think there, in a way there will be more chapters, maybe not more books, but, but definitely there's a lot more life to live. You're such a good spokesperson. I foresee staying at my dream job. I,

I love my job. And I want to continue exploring our planet. I definitely added some new places to my bucket list being in space. And going to space was incredible, but there's a lot to see and learn here on Earth. I just had to, when they count down, I just, I'm so, I know we keep talking about it, but it's so nuts. I mean, I'm right of that generation where I grew up

space was everything. You know, I watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. My mom woke me up. In fact, I wrote about it in my book, but the very first chapter of my book is, is my mom waking me up to watch Neil Armstrong. It's life changing. It's life changing. And I was barely can remember. I think I was four years old, but I remember it. Um, and then I met Neil Armstrong. He was from Wapakoneta, Ohio, which is near where my grandparents lived. Um,

So in all of the moon launches, it was a part of everyday life and it was such a big part of our culture. And then it all kind of went away. And then we had the space shuttles, which were great, but they're not really the same. So it's kind of baked into my interest in DNA in that way. Can you hear the countdown when they –

And it is very exciting. And if I can say what I actually said when they're counting down from 10. Yes, you can say anything on this show. I say, let's fucking do this. Yeah, we were just so hyped. And I knew as they were counting down that in nine minutes, I was going to be in space and everything I had trained for everything I had prepared for. I was just so ready.

I like didn't even want to wait nine minutes. I was just so ready to be there, but I loved launch. And as soon as, uh, as we lift off and it's like this huge jolt and it's all these G-forces come on pretty quickly. Uh, the ride was so smooth, but it was so fun. I had the biggest smile on my face. The internet even made a meme about it.

because I was just like having the greatest time of my life on launch. And I remember I'm on audio with my crew and I say, I cannot believe we're launching a space right now. It was just so unbelievable, but it was a fun ride. Any countdown gets me hyped. Anytime they hit you with going on live television, whatever it is. I was literally in a wave pool the other day. Kelly Slater has this wave pool. That sounds fun. It's amazing, by the way. And it's the perfect wave for a surfer.

What I wasn't prepared for is they count you down because they're manufacturing the wave. So they hit you with wave in 10, 9, 8, 7. And I'm like, like anytime they hit you with that, I don't care what you're doing. You're like, yes. It's like all the good butterflies. Actually, there was a recent launch to space on a SpaceX mission and I was watching it

And I think I felt more butterflies watching that crew launch than whenever I did. Because I don't know, I just, it was, I was so excited, so hyped for my launch. And just, yeah, I was ready to be there. What do you think the future of space flight is going to be? More things like yours where more and more people are going to get the opportunity, obviously. Like what do you, what do you, based on your experience, or what would you like to see it be?

I think there's going to be a huge market for commercial space missions. And we actually did a lot of research in orbit because we all felt very much that we were incredibly fortunate to be there and we needed to contribute to science. Like it was our duty. And so we spent the three days in orbit doing research the majority of the time. And as we've seen, there haven't been more commercial crews that have come after us, but the

they have been very open to research. And I think a lot of our aerospace research is going to be carried by the commercial industry.

And then, you know, from from a NASA standpoint, they will be going back to the moon, hopefully in a few years. And the first woman is going to walk on the moon, which is very exciting. And then there's going to be missions to Mars to follow that I think we're going to see in our lifetime. Incredibly exciting. But I do think I think commercial missions are going to have a huge impact on what we know about the human body in space because of all the research that we're going to do.

Going to Mars at this point, though, how many years in flight to go to Mars is it? I forget. I knew at one point. Is it two years? I was going to say I think it's two years, which is pretty wild. Two years in a tube. I know that in the big island of Hawaii, I think it was in the big island of Hawaii,

They just finished a test where they literally put people in that space for two years. Wow. That's just to see just to see, you know, like, are you going to go berserk for two years?

I'm pretty sure they did that. Maybe I'm misremembering, but I don't think so. Or would they knock you out like that movie Passengers where you're just like, I could sleep for two. I might be the perfect astronaut because anybody who knows me knows I could sleep for two years. I could. I'd like to. It sounds like you would be the perfect astronaut. I mean, you just give me and I don't even need the drugs to do it. I'm like just down. I love sleeping. So it would be.

I'd be like, and I'm also one of those people that when I wake up, they be like, dude, we're on fucking Mars. It's here. I'm like, just five more minutes. I can respect that. Yes. Yeah. And there's been a lot of debate or a lot of people talking recently. Like, oh, would you go to Mars? Would you go to Mars? For me, I love Earth. But like, yeah, maybe we'll see you on Mars. I mean.

Kind of almost, I mean, to me, it's like the way you felt when you were asked, you kind of got to do it. I mean, I'm not going to be the, I would never be the one to say no to that kind of amazing, life-changing, dangerous, interesting thing.

Right. All the above. But I will say there's, there's two types of people. And then there's the people like us that are like, you can't say no to this. This is amazing. And then there's also the people. And a lot of them would tell me like, you're crazy. I cannot believe you're going to space. And yeah, some people, you know, want to stay on earth. Yeah. I have friends like that. I have, I,

I absolutely think my wife is like that. I mean, I know a lot of people are like, are you kidding? But those are also for me, though, the kind of people that go like, I'm going to go on a deep dive today. I'm going to I'm going to dive this wall off of the coast of whatever. And they're like, you do that for fun. Yeah, that does sound very cool. It's adventurous. You know, it's people who really, really, truly have adventure in their life.

being and other people were just like perfectly happy without it. Yeah. And sometimes I think back, like if I didn't have cancer, would I be this adventurous? I don't think so. I think like everyone has, um, has that drive and, and what exactly like spurred that. But for me, I think like having cancer really, really made me want to just live my life. Let's finish this with

the amount of talking a little bit about the amount of hope that's out there for people with cancer, because that's the thing that I, um, was always struck with. Um, like, like you said, St. Jude is the hopeless causes. Childhood cancer was a hopeless cause. My, my family had dealt with breast cancer and my, I remember when my grandmother had it in the seventies, it was not what it is today. I mean, it was like, if you had it, you were in trouble.

And, you know, there are a lot of breast cancers that are, you know, 80 percent, you know, survival rates and even better. So I would love you to share with with with folks who may have people in their lives who who are dealing with it, the amount of great stuff that is here and that is right around the corner.

I truly believe that. And kind of what helps, like you said, like how far we've come, like that helps me feel a lot of hope about cancer. But like, for example, I work with leukemia and for the most common type of leukemia, when the hospital opened, the survival rate was 4%, 4 out of 100. And now it's 94%.

Wait, wait, wait. Let's take a minute to digest that. I know we all heard it the first time, but say it again because it's amazing. In 1962, 60 years ago, the survival rate for the most common type of childhood leukemia was 4%. And today that survival rate is 94%. That's amazing. We've seen it come a long way. We have a ways to go.

Um, especially for other types of cancer. But, um, but one thing that really just helps me on my, on my tough days at work is, um, is just thinking that every single day we're getting closer to a cure. And, um,

And, you know, so many of us here in the U.S. are so fortunate to have gotten that, the treatment that we do in the U.S. I think one future direction for cancer research and treatment is going to be on the global stage. Because in the U.S., overall, children with cancer, the survival rate is 80%. But in low and middle income countries, that survival rate is still 20%.

And so I think that's going to be a huge future direction of where we need to go and to work. But yeah, just a message to all those who are touched by cancer. And it's most people have some kind of cancer relation or someone they love so much who is going through treatment.

but just the importance of holding onto that hope. Um, and I, I like to tell my friends and my patients going through cancer treatment, like, you know, it's, it's so easy to just to focus on the light at the end of the tunnel and, and how many more treatments you have to just be done, but try to enjoy where you are. And, um, and for me, I really found that when I was 10, I would find these like little jobs at the hospital or I would put on dance shows with my friend. And, um,

Those helped me feel like a normal kid and they helped me look forward to going to the hospital. And I realized I was a child going through that. And so other people might have a different perspective, but any way that you can just enjoy the day that you're in and look around and be happy where you are instead of only focusing on the light at the end of the tunnel. I think that's really important and a really important part of hope as well.

Haley, this was so awesome. Thank you for visiting our show. Thank you. I really enjoyed being here. I'm going to go look you up on YouTube and I want to see if I get your launch. I'm sure it's on YouTube somewhere. It has to be. Well, I'm in a happy bubble now. I need to just get her information so I can just every morning have 30 seconds of her and my day will be great no matter what. I mean, you guys couldn't see her. I had her on Zoom. So she's just like radiates energy.

Like you just look at her and you're like, yeah, I feel good today. But you got to listen to her. And that was pretty damn great. All right. Just one more thing before we end today's episode. Let's check the lowdown line. Hello. You've reached literally in our lowdown line where you can get the lowdown on all things about me, Rob Lowe. 323-570-4551. So have at it. Here's the beep.

Hello, Mitch. Hello, Thomas in Valdosta, Georgia. I was turned on to a movie that you recommended called Celeste and Jesse Forever. Great movie.

I watched it, loved the cast and everybody in it. So my question is, what are some other movies you can recommend to us that maybe we, for some reason, have not heard of or just kind of fell through the cracks over the years? I love those kind of movies and those actors that were in it. So thanks for your movie recommendations. Wow, Thomas, what a great question.

Love that. Okay. So here, here are some movies that I love. Some of them are super, super famous. And if you love movies, you've probably seen some of them. And then some of them aren't in no particular order network, obviously good fellas. And then on the obscure one, I got a really, I'm warning you. It's gnarly. If you are queasy and don't like violence, this movie is not for you, but if you can take it,

It's a Kurt Russell movie and he's spectacular in it. It's called Bone Tomahawk, one of the great titles. And then the other one, Wind River, is a great movie. It's by the creator of Yellowstone. It stars Jeremy Renner. That's one of my favorites that kind of got overlooked a few years ago. That's amazing. There's an old Albert Brooks comedy I love called Modern Romance.

which is super good. Made, I think, in the early 80s. And I could go on and on, but I love this. I hope I should do this more often. I should do my favorite movies. I'm going to create a segment in literally to do this. Thanks for listening. We can all go about our days feeling great now. Thank you, Haley. You were amazing. And thank you out there, wherever you are, for listening. And we'll be back next week. Tell a friend about our show.

Send them a link to this show, the episode you just listened to, or maybe one of your favorites and spread the word. I'm getting a lot of great feedback. People are stopping me on the street, really liking it. So I would love to grow it and help me grow it. If you're in the literally family, let's grow this damn thing. Thank you. I'll see you next week. It's Rob Lowe signing off.

You've been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe, produced by me, Rob Schulte, with help from associate producer Sarah Bagar. Our research is done by Alyssa Grahl. The podcast is executive produced by Rob Lowe for Low Profile, Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and Joanna Solitaroff at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson at Stitcher. All of the music on this podcast was composed by Devin Bryant. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time on Literally with Rob Lowe.

This has been a Team Coco production in association with Stitcher.

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