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.
Roberta Lombardi and Infinite Strength
Roberta Lombardi wanted to do something for the Connecticut moms and kids with breast cancer, but that *something* quickly morphed into a nonprofit effort to help break through barriers in the lives of moms with MBC. Laser focused on single moms with kids under 19 living at home and financial need, Roberta took her nonprofit (she calls it her fourth child) nationwide in mid-2023 and is already serving women in 27 states. While providing 6 months of financial support to approved applicants remains the core of Infinite Strength, Roberta has added to the support through one-day local (Connecticut) mom-and-kid retreats, in-person and online panels with some of the best experts in cancer care, a 2024 MBC conference, and a groundbreaking effort to change the picture through the Connecticut Coalition of Oncologists. This is a woman who does not sit still and we are so lucky to have her as an ally for people living with MBC. This episode may inspire *you* to get out there and do something!
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!
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?
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.
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.
Season 5: Interviews, MBC101, Giveaways, and Much More…
The Our MBC Life senior producers and co-hosts, Victoria Goldberg and Natalia Green join Anne Woodward in a conversation about the upcoming season 5 of the podcast and some new things the team is doing and exciting details for very special giveaways for the Our MBC Life merchandise.
Psilocybin-assisted Therapy: One Patient vs. the DEA
Welcome to the third and final episode in our series on the potential of psilocybin-assisted therapy to relieve the existential distress of, and help us live as well as possible with, metastatic breast cancer.
In this episode, we speak with two women taking action to increase legal access to psilocybin-assisted therapy in the United States. The first is a patient living with MBC who, along with her doctor, have brought a lawsuit against the Drug Enforcement Agency which is denying her access to psilocybin in the palliative care setting and under existing Right to Try laws for promising investigational medications for the terminally ill. The patient petitioner, Erinn Baldeschwiler, tells us why she joined the lawsuit, what she hopes to gain from psilocybin-assisted therapy, and what it’s been like to deal with all the legal proceedings on top of a progressing MBC diagnosis.
Our second interview in this episode is with the attorney who is leading the legal case to open access to psilocybin under Right to Try legislation, Kathryn Tucker of the Emerge Law Group. Kathryn explains why psilocybin should be immediately available to patients suffering from distress, anxiety, depression under FDA rules and state and federal Right to Try laws. But the DEA is continuing to block access and hold psilocybin on Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substance Act.
It’s confusing, but we explain it all here. Lastly, see the Episode Notes for a current petition to the DEA to step out of the way and grant access to psilocybin for anyone with a terminal illness.
This series has been led by series producer, Dr. Paula Jayne with assistance from co-host Lynda Weatherby, and senior producer and host Lisa Laudico.
Thanks for listening!
Healing our Distress: The Potential of Psilocybin-assisted Therapy
Welcome to our series on the potential of psilocybin-assisted therapy to help us live as well as possible with metastatic breast cancer.
In this first episode, co-host and producer of this series, Dr. Paula Jayne and co-host Lynda Weatherby interview Dr. Boadie Dunlop, Director of the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program at Emory University. Dr Dunlop shares existing and emerging data on how psilocybin may help those of us living with MBC and discusses an upcoming pilot trial of psilocybin-assisted therapy at Emory University’s Palliative and Supportive Care Clinic.
MBC & Parenting: The Kids Are Alright
What does a metastatic diagnosis mean for our children?
Grief, Loss, & Faith
All of us approach life and death in general from the perspective of our faith traditions, our family cultures, and the traditions and culture we choose as adults.
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.
November Trailblazer and A Dash of Joy
The Season of Giving is upon us. Purely by chance, we may be starting a new tradition here on the Trailblazer series - guests bearing gifts. This gift will be symbolically unwrapped during this interview with this month’s Trailblazer - national nonprofit United for HER and Susan Weldon, Founder and CEO.
Living with a de novo MBC diagnosis
The Our MBC Life podcast hosts a panel to discuss what it’s really like to be diagnosed stage 4 from the beginning or de novo MBC. Those of us diagnosed de novo don’t get an introduction to breast cancer at earlier stages and that presents some unique issues.
We Remember
Join us for our annual We Remember episode where we have invited our listeners to share the names and stories of the people they have loved and who have died from MBC over these past 12 months. Together we share the grief and loss of everyone who has died from MBC. Thanks for listening.
Road to a Cure - what it means to us
The podcast team has embarked upon something quite ambitious. The members of the team have traveled virtually to speak with the leading clinicians and researchers in the field of breast cancer, specifically on the topic of where we are in terms of a cure for metastatic breast cancer. It is impossible to cover it in a neat single episode, so, instead, we created a very special series of episodes that we call “Road to A Cure.” In this premiere episode the members of the creative team share with the audience what it means to live with an incurable disease. We talk about a possibility of a cure, address the real fear of hoping, and tackle these and many other important issues.
MBC Around the World
Grab those negative covid tests and passports because we travel around the world in this episode! Oh yeah, get your proof of vaccination and N95s too since this thing ain’t over yet sadly. We wanted to learn how others living with and advocating for MBC deal with it all in other places. So we travel virtually to Canada, Japan, Kuwait, Egypt, Australia, Portugal, Kenya, Nigeria, and the UK. Co-hosts Natalia Green, Sheila McGlown, Lisa Laudico, and Anne Woodward find out what it’s like to get a second opinion in Europe & Canada, or why MBC is called Advanced Breast Cancer in some places, or how getting drugs in some countries is like applying for a car loan, or the debilitating stigma of cancer and so much more.