This special episode of The CARTI Hopecast serves as a poignant recap of the season, weaving together the profound lessons expressed by individuals who have confronted unimaginable challenges yet persevered with remarkable resilience. We delve into five significant narratives that illuminate the transformative power of hope and the strength found in adversity. Each story encapsulates a moment of profound change, signaling a transition from a life before a traumatic experience to one that embraces courage and community in the aftermath.

As we reflect on these journeys, we recognize that while pain may not simply dissipate, it often catalyzes a mission, urging us to share our experiences and support one another. Ultimately, we invite listeners to consider the weight of their own burdens, and to find solace and strength in the stories shared within this episode.

Takeaways:

• This special episode conveys the profound lessons learned from individuals who faced unimaginable challenges and emerged resilient.
• In moments of profound change, our response can define our path forward and shape our experiences.
• The necessity of community and connection becomes apparent as we navigate the turmoil of life's unexpected turns.
• Confronting the harsh realities of life fosters a deeper understanding of compassion and empathy towards others' struggles.
• Each story shared in this episode serves as a reminder of the transformative power of hope amidst adversity.
• The overarching theme emphasizes that sharing our journeys can inspire others, creating a ripple effect of hope and healing.

Founded in 1976, CARTI delivers leading-edge cancer care in a compassionate, patient-centered environment. Our mission is to make trusted cancer care accessible for every patient we serve through compassion, innovation, and purpose.

The CARTI Hopecast shares authentic, meaningful stories that focus on human experiences. Every day, we see patients and families navigating unimaginable hardships, sometimes feeling alone in their journey. Through The Hopecast, listeners hear stories of resilience and transformation, fostering a sense of connection and hope.

Welcome to a special episode.

Today we'll move through five lessons told by individuals who faced the unthinkable and kept going.

These are the lessons that emerge.

Welcome to the Car Tye HopeCast, where we explore stories that shape us journeys of resilience, hope and perseverance.

We seek the lessons that emerge when we face the unexpected and find strength in the struggle.

Let's begin with the moment everything changes.

There's a before and then there's an after.

Sometimes it arrives with a phone call, a doctor's look, a few clinical words that replay forever.

Episode 7 Tonya Stripling and he said.

Well, and he put his hands on my shoulders and he looked at me and he said, you, husband has brain cancer.

And I can just remember just the gut feeling, feeling of just pain, you know, and just like, what in the world?

Like, my life has just turned upside down completely.

And so he went and showed me the.

The scan and showed me how it was bleeding out.

And at this point, Eric's trying to get up off the table.

He goes, I gotta get home.

I gotta get home.

And.

And then he said, and let's don't tell anyone about this.

Which was kind of funny because it.

Was like, oh, really?

Okay, you've got a brain tumor.

We don't want to tell anyone.

So.

So anyway, that next morning, they made me go home that night and they said, you sleep at home because we're going to need you for surgery in the morning.

You're going to need to be alert.

Episode 5 Lindsay March I pretty much knew the day that I had the mammogram that I had cancer.

The radiologist looked at Drew and I after the ultrasound that they had performed along with the mammogram, and she said, I've been doing this for several decades and I've noticed, really, ever been wrong.

I'm 99.9% sure that this is breast cancer.

Episode 12 Jennifer O' Brien it's devastating to get to get that kind of news.

I'm sure for yourself and certainly for loved ones, it's just absolutely devastating.

And of course, Bob had been a physician in a small community, and so medicine was there for him.

There were a number of doctors that were right there for him the minute the diagnosis came across.

And that was wonderful.

But on some level, it still leaves us where we are, which is with this terminal diagnosis.

I had learned along the way through my career, actually working many, many years prior in a hemonc, about the notion of balancing hope and preparation.

Hope for the best, prepare for The Worst Episode 11 Jason and Sarah Palak.

And we got a phone call from our doctor and she asked if we were together and if we were sitting down.

And that's never what you want to hear from your.

From your ob.

And she told us that they had just gotten the results back from our testing and that there was a. I think it was a 99.5% probability of our baby having down syndrome.

And I fell apart.

I was sobbing uncontrollably.

I had to just didn't speak the rest of the conversation.

And Jason had to kind of take over.

And our doctor told us that.

She said, I really struggled with whether or not to call you.

I didn't want to send you guys into Thanksgiving holiday with this news.

I also didn't want to sit on it myself for a long weekend without you guys knowing.

So take the time process, come up with whatever questions you have, and we'll get together next week and, and talk about it.

Episode 8 Thomas Cheney going to the.

Hospital basically wake up and I don't have a left leg.

My right leg is basically gone.

There's no function of my foot in a worldwide pandemic is going on.

I honestly felt like I woken up in a Twilight Zone.

It.

It was.

It was surreal.

I was in a lot of pain, so I was under a lot of pain medication.

So in the hospital I was actually doing okay.

People were surprised by my good attitude that I had just given the circumstances of losing a leg and everything.

But it wasn't the realization till that what had happened till after I got home.

While we can't always choose the moment our world shifts, we can choose how we meet it with courage, clarity, and eventually finding community.

Episode 2 J. Brennaman I fought vulnerability.

With Janine's diagnosis and her initial decline for at least a year and a half or two because it was impossible for me to believe that a person who had taken as good a care of herself as we might say as she had for 30 years, would actually be, in common parlance, losing her mind.

And so what's behind the resistance to accept a chronic disease like cancer that you're working with or with dementia is how vulnerable we actually are.

Episode 10 Jeremy Swearengen I started out.

Very, very privately, but I got to a point where I felt like there was some ownership that I had at a point where I was going to use my experience to say, okay, I have this and I'm going through this.

And if I can encourage you by letting you know that I'm going through that same experience, then great, we're in this together, you know, and if I can come out on the other side and get to a point where I can kind of loosely call myself a survivor even, you know, which I. I still kind of for sure am reluctant to use the term because I don't know that I was ever in real mortal danger like a lot of people face.

But there's a kinship there.

There's a.

And a friendship that I have with other people who are going through that.

And by all means, let's.

Let's fight together and encourage each other.

Episode 1 Agalia Baker.

I had 54 days and 13 hours between the time I heard the words, I'm sorry, it's cancer to doing.

The first actionable step was.

Was being admitted in the hospital for my mastectomy.

And that was 78,540 minutes of pure torture.

And I didn't want anyone else to go through that.

Episode 9 Lakeisha Johnson.

And I'm not talking about a broken image that stays broken.

I'm talking about a broken image that gets to be rebuilt and then someone else gets to come back and.

And grab your story and say, oh, me too.

Right?

Like, okay, if she's a single mom that can start her own business, that lost her husband, that had five sons, that is still dealing with adversity and conflict and still in this fight and still making it and still trying it.

If your hope can be restored through my story and it gives you a glimpse of.

To fight, because I think part of our making it or pushing forward is something inside of us tells us or gives us strength to fight.

And my story gives you a fight, then I'd rather give you my story.

So that you can fight pain isolates.

It tells us no one could possibly understand but grief, loss and fear lose power when we speak them aloud.

Episode 6 Jill and Brad Sullivan We've been to Botswana a couple of times.

You know, it doesn't matter where you live in the world.

If you've lost a child, you're broken and you need support and you need community and you need connections with others that understand.

And cultures are different, but that loss is the same.

Common language.

Yeah, yeah.

That no one wants to speak.

Exactly.

It was interesting.

We got to go to Botswana and we were hoping to get 20 families to be a part of this retreat.

And within eight days, we had 128 families from all over Botswana.

So we gathered in the capital city and got a big room.

But it was just amazing to see the bond that these families that didn't know each other had.

And they started talking on Friday night and they really didn't shut up until they left and they didn't know each other.

But their culture is that when you lose someone, you have a week and then it's over.

You don't talk about it.

And we gave them a chance to talk and they just, oh, it was powerful.

And we will never forget that experience and they encourage us.

So we got encouraged by them and so that was a powerful moment.

Episode 4 Becky Russell so over time, I thought I needed to be able to help others.

As a nurse, you're just kind of hardwired to look out for others and to care for others.

And I wanted to do that.

And so a friend and I, we kind of started a group.

It was called Bereaved Parents of the usa.

It's a national organization with just local chapters.

There's a meeting once a month with.

We have special events, Christmas candlelight events and, and the core members there, there are several of us that have been there for years.

But we all know when someone shows up brand new bereaved and they're just lost, man.

We all, we all know what to do because we've all been there.

And so helping others is just kind of my life's work with this or it has been anyways, given me a lot of healing.

Episode 13 Steve Strasley people value people.

That they consider credible, have the credibility.

So I've learned to not fill that uncomfortable void, you know, with just blather.

I've learned to not go, yeah, well, when I was your age, I did this.

It is a lot of listening and it is a lot of exacting care.

It is a lot of pats on the shoulders and understanding that in expressing that, you know, life is messy, if you're looking for perfection, you'll lose all the good.

And so that's been, that's been a process for me.

Yeah, you know, as I told you before we, we started doing this, I tend to verbose and tend to like to fill that uncomfortable minute with, with a lot of words.

But I've learned that listening, being present is the most important thing that you can do.

Episode 3 Galen McGee Stay the course.

That's my motto.

Stay the course.

And don't walk in there with your head down.

Walking there like you mean it and.

You know, no sad stuff.

Be laughing every time when I go in and do blood work, which is every six months, four to six months.

I promise you, when I walk through that door, everybody's laughing from the Time I walk through at the front station to wherever I go, they're laughing.

And that's patience included.

Man.

I just feel that laughter is powerful.

Life's hardest moments can still produce joy, insight and even beauty.

Not in spite of the pain, but because of it.

Episode 11 Jason and Sarah Palak they.

Had one of their nurses come in and she had a. I remember she had an iPad and it was just full of pictures of other little kids that had been through these surgeries and they walked through like, hey, this is the type of machine she's going to be hooked up to.

And these are the type of incisions and tubes and all the things you're going to see.

And it's going to be overwhelming.

But we want you to hold this tablet and we want you to study these pictures so that like the shell shock is minimalized whenever you go in because it's, it's going to be a lot.

And then they were great about, you know, how often do you want us to come in and update you during the surgery?

And I was like, can I be in the or.

Constant.

Constant update, yes.

Do you want my number?

Can you text me?

So we asked for every half hour and they did that faithfully.

And it's, I'll never forget whenever she came in to say, hey, Iris did great.

The surgery went perfectly.

There is zero leakage of blood anywhere in her heart.

I mean, you could not have asked for a better outcome.

And what a relief that was.

And a weight off of our minds and shoulders, bawling.

And the lady who came in to tell us said, did you hear me?

I said it was good news.

Good news.

Yes, we heard you.

But tears of joy, nothing left.

We're so overwhelmed.

Episode 8 Thomas Cheney I love to fish.

So that was a motivating thing.

I had a friend of mine when I lost my leg before I even had my prosthetic, they brought me trout fishing at the Little Red.

And I, I didn't care.

I was going to get in that boat.

I got my crutches and I went down dirt hills.

I got in that boat and I caught a 16 inch brown trout and limited out that day and had the best time was cracking jokes to people going by in the water about my leg.

Just, that's just who I am.

Just trying to keep the spirits high and everything that I accomplished as far as getting in that boat to my first contract later on and when I started working again, every single thing that I did was, okay, I can do this.

Episode 1 Agalia Baker My dad infected me with a travel bug and I have to do it.

So I just booked some trips all on my own.

That's wonderful.

And I've gotten to do so many things, and I just want people to realize that there is life after cancer.

There's a glorious life after cancer.

Episode 7 Tonya Stripling it was the.

Day after surgery when he decided, you know how you can take a road?

You can either take the better side, or you can be better, or you can be bitter.

And he just took the better.

And he decided, well, I don't know how much time I have left, but I'm going to make it good.

That was his main goal.

When we would get out of the house, he would try to talk to everybody, and he would always say, do you care if we take a minute and let me?

And I was like, no.

I loved it.

It made me happy, you know, and it gave him something where he felt important because it was hard for a man to lose his job, lose his purpose, everything.

After the dust settles, the question becomes, what do we do with what we've lived through?

For many, pain doesn't just leave a scar.

It becomes a mission.

Episode 6 Jill and Brad Sullivan you.

Know, as I look back and, you know, part of our desire to start while we're waiting was to develop that community and be around people that understood us.

And in the analogy that you used of people talking kindergarten all around us, and we wanted to talk calculus, we wanted to have those deep conversations, we were drawn to that community and we found out real quick that that's where we were supported and that was the need that we had.

Episode 10 Jeremy Swearengen I can do.

A slow track mile or something like that.

And they said, you realize you're going to have some stitching in your eye, and you put that at risk if you jar it too much.

And I said, well, I'll go on the track, go easy, and my wife will be there to make sure I'm taking it easy.

So I did.

It was painful, but after that first day, I thought, okay, that one's out of the way.

I can do the next day.

And it became a thing where I knew I was going to get a run in.

So no matter how bad I felt, I could go and I could run a mile.

Episode 2 Jay Brennaman I was inspired.

Not to write a book.

I did not want to write a book.

And I was in a group of supportive men.

And I decided, actually, after I had gotten out of my clinical practice and shut it down, that I might want to practice what I had been preaching to my clinical clients, which was journaling.

So I started journaling, and a couple of these close friends said, may we read what you're journaling?

And I said, not really.

It's journaling.

But they insisted.

And so the genesis of the book was actually inspired by a small group of men that said, keep writing and stop thinking about writing a book.

Just don't think about that.

These are chapters in books, but write.

And you kept going.

But the anecdote that actually was the inspiration was on the second floor of the Denver Art Museum when I was looking at Monet's exhibit of the Truth in Nature.

And I came into the second floor to be detailed about it and saw about five contributions of the haystack out of his series of 25 contributions of the Haystack series.

And Monet's point is that the motif is not the object.

That is, what's actually happening in a series is what's going on between the observer and the motif.

And it was at that moment that it got clear to me what.

Why I was writing, because I didn't want to write a book about dementia, and I actually didn't want to write a book about myself, nor about Janine, but rather what's happening as we find ourselves in a circumstance and situation that might be really unwelcome and might be, in fact, plan B or C rather than a description of.

Of the circumstance itself.

Because, as you know, in a.

In the series that Monet captured, it was morning and afternoon and evening and fall, summer, snow, rain, winter, the seasons.

And so he's.

The motif is not the issue, is not the focus.

Episode 9 Lakeisha Johnson.

The person that I am today is because of everything I've gone through and not just the good things.

It's built my character.

It's taught me to endure.

Oh, my God.

It's made me compassionate.

The compassion that I have for other people I did not know.

It's hard for me to be dismissive.

It's hard for me to see a homeless person on the street and go, oh, they're home.

No.

What's the story?

What's the thing behind it?

They're here for a reason.

Why are they stuck?

You know, like, why is this the end of.

So it's also given me a compassion.

And I.

It's one of the things I always say is, I'm here to deal.

You hope.

I'm a hope dealer.

So my friends are like, I'm here to help you see a different perspective.

And I didn't used to be that person because I feel more intrusive into the lives of people around me.

It's like I feel like I'm supposed to be evolved not to tell you how to do it, but to show you that there is an out, there is a way, there is a possibility.

And before I wasn't that person.

I was trying to get this PhD done, trying to get published, focused on getting tenure.

It was me, me, me, me, me.

Now it's like, no.

How do I give my gift to someone else?

We've heard stories of diagnosis and doubt, of choosing honesty over image, of holding space and holding on.

But the real takeaway isn't just what happened to them.

It's what they made of it.

They didn't wait until they had it all figured out to share what they'd learned.

They just started speaking, healing and showing up.

If you're carrying something heavy, maybe one of these stories gave you hope.

If so, don't keep it.

Pass it on.

If you have a story that could help someone else, we'd love to hear it.

Email us at hopecast@carta.com this is the Carta Hopecast.