Black Cancer

In this episode, Yejin Lee tells Jodi-Ann about losing her mother to breast cancer during her first year as an undergraduate student at Boston College (where Jodi-Ann and Yejin met) and its impact on her then and now.

This conversation hits on hard lessons about how we, as women of color relate to our bodies as we process pain. We explore the blessing and the curse that is our strength, our embodied expectation to be strong, and what it takes to heal. We talk about the 2020 movement for Black lives, the tools we use to grieve, and the power of our voices to survive.

You can find Yejin at yejinlee.co. She is an equity informed career coach and non-profit organizational consultant.

Post Show Goodies:

Jodi-Ann asks Yejin about her mother’s name.

Here are Yejin’s recommendations:

Episode transcripts are available at: blackcancer.co

This episode was created during the 2020 global COVID-19 pandemic and the movement for Black lives.

In this episode, Jodi-Ann Burey speaks with Shayla Martin, who was diagnosed with Invasive Ductal Carcinoma - IDC. Shayla shares how her journey of surviving cancer and her mastectomy has completely changed the trajectory of her life: how do you cope with cancer when it's the thing that put you on the path for your purpose? Shalya provides details on the happenstance way she found her tumor and her path towards treatment. There are several parts of the cancer journey others do not see and this episode reveals a bit more of what that looks like for Black women. 

Jodi-Ann and Shayla bond over always having appointments with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center on the calendar, Black natural hairstyles and the markers we have in our lives because of cancer.  Jodi-Ann and Shayla also discuss passages from Audre Lorde’s book, The Cancer Journals, and how breast reconstruction has changed her relationship with her body and what it means to face your own mortality.  

Post show goodies: 

Here are Shayla’s listener recommendations: 

Episode transcripts on blackcancer.co. Click here for the transcript for this episode. 

This episode was created during the 2020 global COVID-19 pandemic and the movement for Black lives.