Bloody Feelings

Stories about the power of blood. Prologue: Host Ira Glass talks to writer Mitchell S. Jackson about how his mother’s blood donations made him think about just how much feeling there is in those little plastic pouches. (5 minutes) Started From Phle-Bottom, Now We’re Here: When Adele wrote into our show last summer, she described herself as “the worst phlebotomist in the whole hospital.” Producer Diane Wu couldn’t resist calling her up to find out exactly what she meant by that. (9 minutes)   Adele is the author of Run, Don’t Walk, a memoir about working as a physical therapist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Blood Ties: The discovery of 30 century-old postcards written in old Yiddish by a distant family member challenges David Kestenbaum’s ideas about the unimportance of blood ties. (10 minutes) Stage Fright: Fifteen years after a bloody Shakespeare production that, at its height, had people fainting night after night, producer Bim Adewunmi talks to its director, Lucy Bailey. (9 minutes) There’s No ‘Us’ in Uterus. Oh, Wait...: When Neena Pathak found out she had a fibroid, it didn’t seem so bad. But then it got bigger, more uncomfortable, bloodier… and she had to decide if she was going to have to get surgery to get it removed. She turned her imagined confrontation with her fibroid into a one-act play. (6 minutes) Neena Pathak wrote this piece in part at the Third Coast Radio Residency at Ragdale. Woman was played by Sohina Sidhu, Fibroid by Kate Arrington, and Therapist by Jena Friedman. Un-Break My Heart: Producer Sean Cole scrubs in to observe heart surgeon Dr. John Elefteriades, or Dr. E — whose job it is to maintain, repair, and restart the machine that keeps the blood moving — at work. (11 minutes)