Remembering Natalia
We are honored to start this season with an episode dedicated to the wonderful Natalia Green. We’ll be hearing from those who loved her, as well as clips from episodes that she helmed throughout her time with the podcast. We hope once our listeners hear the episode, they’ll get an idea of how special she was, and is, to so many people.
We Remember
To live with your own diagnosis or to be a loved one, caregiver, or friend of someone with MBC is to inhabit a community of loss. “We Remember” is our opportunity to give voice to the profound grief we share and to honor and celebrate each person lost to this disease. It’s a chance for the MBC community to express gratitude for the extraordinary and unique ways they made our lives richer.
Newly Diagnosed & Trailblazing: An Interview with Michelle Anderson-Benjamin
In this episode, Our MBC Life sits down with patient and advocate Michelle Anderson-Benjamin, founder of The Fearless Warrior Project. During the pandemic, Michelle was diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer and then with metastatic breast cancer shortly after she completed initial treatment. An experienced healthcare professional, a mom of two kids, and a wife who poured all her energy into others, Michelle says the diagnosis of MBC put a "battery in her back" to refocus attention on herself. This candid conversation has a lot to offer those newly diagnosed with MBC, and will inspire all of us.
Newly Diagnosed with MBC: Keeping Your Balance on the Emotional Rollercoaster
Hearing the words “you have metastatic breast cancer” is devastating. Whether your diagnosis comes de novo or months, years, or even decades after treatment for early-stage breast cancer, there is no way to prepare for the terror, anger, despair, and sense of freefall that follows. You’ll hear from oncology social worker Lisa Nelson and a candid group of patients on the challenges of processing the diagnosis.
MBC Advocacy: Finding Purpose in Adversity
After a Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer (MBC) diagnosis, patients and the people around them are often left reeling and looking around to figure out how to make some sort of meaning from the trauma. The guests and representatives from LBBC and METAvivor on this episode share how finding purpose in the midst of adversity has helped them to truly LIVE with MBC. Don’t forget to listen all the way to the end as guest producer, Abigail Johnston, has some specific calls to action to share!
LBBC - Silent Voices No Longer
This season, we are bringing back our Trailblazer series. Our first trailblazer is Living Beyond Breast Cancer (LBBC), a national non-profit that has become synonymous with the word community. That’s because LBBC’s annual Conference on MBC is one of the largest gatherings for women and men living with MBC. In this episode we will speak with Jean Sachs, CEO of LBBC, and sprinkled throughout this episode are your voices, voices of patients sharing their LBBC experience.
Meditation, Mindfulness, and MBC: Finding Your Inner Calm
Can mindfulness and meditation help many of us living with MBC tame anxiety, improve emotional balance, and experience more joy? Expert guests and our patient panel share how this ancient practice can make a daily difference. Bonus: our podcast includes a special guided meditation created with MBC patients in mind.
Laughter as Medicine
Is laughter good medicine? These breast cancer survivors/thrivers say: Yes!
Systemic Racism and MBC in Clinical Trials
Jumping hurdles to get the treatments you want is the reality for people living with MBC. Add systemic racism into the healthcare mix and it’s clear that more needs to happen, and soon, to create equity and greater diversity in one of the most important tools in the MBC toolbox: clinical trials. In this episode, we check in with Stephanie Walker, who led the BECOME project and spearheads the Black Wo(Men) Speak Symposium, patient advocate and clinical trial participant Rev. Dr. Tawana Davis, and Patient Navigator Valarie Worthy. How does systemic racism affect what Black patients learn about MBC clinical trials? And how can those who need it most break down barriers to the best care?
RTAC: FES/Cerianna Screening for Estrogen Positive MBC
There’s a FDA- approved diagnostic imaging agent developed to comprehensively evaluate estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) lesions in recurrent or metastatic breast cancer as an adjunct to biopsy. By creating a “whole-body” picture of ER+ lesions, Cerianna may be a helpful diagnostic tool in helping oncologists better determine the most appropriate course of treatment. Learn more in this episode.
Caregivers: We Can’t Do This Without You!
Celebrate OMBCL’s 100th episode and National Family Caregiver Month by listening to our candid conversations with three committed and courageous caregivers.
We Remember
We Remember honors all who died from metastatic breast cancer over the past year—parents, children, spouses and partners. In this episode, the MBC community gives voice to both the grief and the love that endures after each death.
MBC101: The HER2-Low Show
The DESTINY-Breast04 trial at ASCO 2022 introduced many people to the term “HER2-low.” But how do you know if you’re HER2-low? In this episode, with the help a breast pathologist and a clinical oncologist we dive into this subtype and what it means to us.
The Legacy of Lisa Laudico
Lisa Laudico, who created and spearheaded the Our MBC Life podcast series, died on August 6, 2022 from MBC. In this episode, Lisa’s friends, family, and colleagues remember her amazing life and celebrate the many ways she fostered connection, resilience, and hope throughout the MBC community.
Psilocybin-assisted Therapy: Patient Experiences
Welcome to the second episode in our series on the potential of psilocybin-assisted therapy to help us live as well as possible with metastatic breast cancer.
In this episode, we talk to two women with breast cancer who had legal access to psilocybin-assisted therapy. Journalist and writer Erica Rex participated in a clinical trial at Johns Hopkins after being diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer. Mari Singfield, a young Canadian woman living with MBC, gained access through an exemption to Section 56(1) of the Canadian Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, a process facilitated by the organization, TheraPsil.
Both women shared with us the process that they went through to gain legal access to psilocybin-assisted therapy, what the treatment was actually like for them, and what, if anything, changed in their lives afterward.
Dr. Lidia Schapira: Hey Doc, What Are You Telling Me?
What can we, as patients, do to strengthen our communication and relationships with our oncologists? This episode of Our MBC Life, the first in our MBC 101 series, includes perspectives, insights and suggestions from both sides of the critical doctor-patient relationship
Black History & Health Equity Every Month, Every Day
We believe that Black History Month should always be celebrated but let's agree that it should not be just for one month but every month and every day.
Body Image & Diet Culture
Our episode this week will focus on body image and diet culture, both within society and the breast cancer community, and how treatment can affect our feelings about our bodies. Co-host Natalia Green moderates a panel of women currently living with MBC who discuss and share their experiences.
Road to a Cure - use of immunotherapy
This week we are visiting Dr Stephanie Goff at the NIH in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr Goff is a surgical oncologist and a senior member of a research team led by Dr. Steven A. Rosenberg, a man widely regarded as the father of immunotherapy. A friend, who knows a thing or two about this place. is joining us on this trip. Her name is Judy Perkins, and she is the first MBC patient who has been cured by a revolutionary immunotherapy treatment, known as adoptive cell therapy, that was administered by Dr Goff and her colleagues at the NCI.