Maureen Callahan

Just because they're living longer, you know what that means?

That means they're often sicker.

in their 80s and their 90s, they're getting catastrophic illnesses.

And modern medicine keeps them alive sometimes for far too long when the kinder thing to do would be to let them go.

So it's known as the sandwich generation where you've got a generation like Gen X, now mid-age, older parents who need a lot of care,

They're trying to raise their own children.

And now that they're in middle age, they are at risk for the kinds of cancers that often show up.

Just about almost every guy is going to get prostate cancer at some point.

It's very treatable.

Some people live with it forever without really getting it treated.

This piece belongs in People Magazine at best as an interview piece.

Amanda Peet, and it's a breast cancer journey.

Now, it's not a diagnosis.

It's a journey.

She's been making the media rounds, and we're going to listen to some of this.

And, you know, listen.

She's saying that she wrote this piece with no objective or goal.

She just wanted to write it.

It was therapeutic.

In order to get an assignment like this at the New Yorker,