Doing End-Of-Life Right
How does one do things right at the end of life? There are many ways to answer this question, as varied as all of us.
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.
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.
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 - 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.
MBC & the LGBTQ2S+ Community
join us for our discussion about the LGBTQ2S+ community and MBC. Co-host Natalia Green moderates a panel with Bob DeVito and Rainy Orteca, two guests living with MBC, and who are part of the LGBTQ2S+ community along with the co-founder of Queering Cancer, Dr. Evan Taylor. We also sit down with Kimiko Tobimatsu , a Canadian human rights lawyer and an award-winning graphic novelist whose book, Kimiko Does Cancer, tells the story of her breast cancer diagnosis at the age of 25 and the challenges she faced as a queer person, living with breast cancer.
The Magic of Palliative Care: Our Stories
Want to know why we call it “magic?” Hear from people living with MBC about their experiences. While they all agree and encourage others to seek Palliative Care they also are aware of the barriers to access. Our guests cover it all. And it gets real.
Project Life and A Dash of Joy
“It is very important for us who are living with MBC to be able to go to a place where we know it’s safe to just be who we are.” This month’s Trailblazer is Project Life, a virtual wellness house that recently set up residence in cyberspace. The co-hosts Victoria Goldberg and Dar Finkelstein speak with the founder and the CEO of Project Life Leslie Glenn and its COO Jackie Seiner about the origin of the project, MBC wellness and survivorship.
The Magic of Palliative Care -Patients and Their Providers
This month we have focused on quality-of-life issues and this episode is part one of a two part series on the “Magic of Palliative Care”. At times the term “palliative care” is misunderstood and so we also use the newer term ‘supportive care’ to better explain how this care supports your quality of life as you go through MBC treatment. We first turn our focus to the medical providers who help us manage symptoms and treatment side effects and, by doing so, improve multiple aspects of our lives.
The Healing Power of Writing - Live Readings
In this special bonus episode we bring to life some of the readings from the Wildfire Community. Several writers living with MBC voice their own work to share thoughts on nature, dating, grief and so much more. Thanks to April Stearns and Wildfire for making these available for us to share.
The Healing Power of Writing
We’ve talked about many MBC related topics this season but mental health is one we ask about in every interview we conduct. Writing as a self-care tool is one we wanted to explore. April Stearns talked about it as the “legacy of story.” On this episode we explore living with MBC and the healing power of writing.
Policy and the Power of Patient Advocacy
“I see so much in the metastatic community this idea of just paying it forward, this idea of, yeah, this might not actually help me right now, but I'm still going to bring it up and I'm still going to advocate for it because it will help somebody else.” This is the story about the power of advocacy. Meet some of the individuals and organizations who are advocating for metastatic breast cancer every day wherever the work takes them.
A conversation with Judy Perkins
Judy Perkins joins co-host Victoria Goldberg to share her incredible story. She is a unicorn and a clinical trial success. Judy tells the whole story - the good, the bad, the joyful, the difficult, the grief, the friendship. And when asked is MBC chronic - well we don’t bleep out her reaction.
A Dash of Joy
Meet Dar Finkelstein, the new team member of this podcast and the future host of a monthly segment “A Dash of Joy.” It will air along with our Trailblazer series on the last Friday of each month. All of us need a dash of joy in our lives. Dar is a professional clown and runs not just one, but two Facebook groups devoted to this very subject: She knows of what she speaks.
What Cancer Patients Need to Know About COVID-19 Vaccines
Welcome to this bonus episode of Our MBC Life. We are pleased to again highlight a program from our parent non-profit SHARE Cancer Support.
For many of us living with cancer there are numerous questions about COVID-19, the vaccines, and what we need to know to best take care of ourselves.
On February 11 SHARE invited Dr. Joshua Hill from Fred Hutchinson Research Center to discuss the COVID-19 Vaccine in relation to cancer patients and their treatment
#TheRightDose
Anne Loeser and Dr. Aditya Bardia join the podcast to talk about the importance of getting The Right Dose.