Lara MacGregor: How To Decline Well With Hope
Welcome to our premiere episode to Season 4! We wanted to bring you something very special and our guest, Lara MacGregor certainly delivers on that and more. Host Lisa Laudico spoke with Lara in November of last year.
In 2012, Lara MacGregor founded Hope Scarves, which to date has sent over 20K scarves to people facing cancer in every state in the US and 29 countries around the world. In 2014 when Lara was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer, the focus of Hope Scarves broadened to include support for metastatic breast cancer research. Lara died in January of this year of MBC and in her last year of life, Lara turned the camera on herself to share the unvarnished truth of declining well with hope. Always hope, as she would say.
This is an interview that doesn’t shy away from the hard conversations that we have when diagnosed with a terminal disease and gives Lara the opportunity to tell us what it has all felt like for her. We are also joined by April Stearns, founder and editor of Wildfire Magazine and The Burn Podcast. April had been working with Lara on her book A Hopeful Life and we hear all about that too. This episode felt like a gift to be part of, to edit, and to produce and the perfect way to kick off a very ambitious season.
Meet the Guests of this Episode
Lara MacGregor
Lara was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007 at the age of 30 and 7 months pregnant with her second son. A woman Lara had never met, but with whom she shared a mutual friend sent her a package. Inside were beautiful scarves she wore during cancer treatment and a note saying, “You can do this.” The scarves were both practical and inspiring, and knowing someone else had worn the scarves and faced cancer helped Lara believe she could do it, too. That gesture led Lara down the path of creating Hope Scarves in 2012, as a way to capture the stories of treatment and living with cancer. Today, Hope Scarves is a bustling office of volunteers and staff, sending over 100 scarves a week all around the world. Hope Scarves has sent over 20,000 scarves to every state and 30 countries, to people facing over 90 different types of cancer.
After almost 7 years in remission, Lara faced cancer again. She was diagnosed with Stage IV Metastatic Breast Cancer in January 2014. Scarves and stories were encouraging, but they weren’t going to extend or one day save lives. So in 2016, Hope Scarves established a Metastatic Breast Cancer Research Fund. To date, $925,000 has been given to support MBC Research, all matched 1:1 by anonymous donors for a $1.85 million dollar impact.
Lara started Hope Scarves to spread hope, which she held onto for 15 years. Lara passed away on January 18, 2022 at the age of 45.
April Johnson Stearns
April Stearns was diagnosed at 35 years old with Stage 3 breast cancer that she found while breastfeeding her daughter. Four years later, while struggling to “go back to normal” and find other women in similar circumstances, April launched Wildfire Magazine. Now she enjoys not only publishing the stories of those “too young for breast cancer,” she also finds pleasure in helping others heal through learning to write and share their stories. April lives with her family on the coast of central California.
Wildfire Magazine & Writing Community is a multi-platform media company specifically designed with the young breast cancer survivor and fighter in mind. We provide a bi-monthly narrative magazine, weekly podcast, and small-group writing workshops. Our audience members are all diagnosed under the age of 50 – a growing population decades younger than the average breast cancer fighter with few age-appropriate resources available. Our belief is that experiencing the stories of others diagnosed young provides a much-needed community and support network for today’s young breast cancer survivors. We go further than that, though, and help them learn to tell their own stories to the survivors coming up behind them. This has the dramatic effect of turning a traumatic cancer experience into an empowering one! Learn more at wildfirecommunity.org.
