Dying to Tell You

Some mornings, Emily can't wait to get to her classroom of four- and five-year-olds at a Christian school in Memphis. Other days, she has to stop, lie in bed in the quiet, and let her body catch up. She is a mom, a wife, a daughter, and a teacher, and she is determined to be all of those things for as long as she can. She wants to cheer on her kids at Tennessee football games, pop in on their activities across campus, and one day see them through graduation.

Then came a diagnosis of scleroderma, a disease that changed how she sees the most ordinary moments. Going to the grocery store is no longer simple, so on a good day she savors the chance to wander the aisles. Her children's memories are on her mind, and so is the question of how many more games, school years, and milestones she will get to see.

In this week's conversation, Cody talks with Emily about the "what ifs" that creep in, the guilt of missing things she loves, and the deep and enduring faith that keeps her grounded. She laughs at the hard parts, too. And when she imagines today being her last day, she is at peace with the answer.

If you want to connect with Emily on Tik Tok: @emilyclairebrock

"There really is nothing like spending time with someone who knows the story." 

One of the crucial elements to navigating a cancer diagnosis and its treatments is community. This is what Emily shared with us last week. Alongside "cancer can't hit a moving target" and "nature is nurture," "community is treatment" is one of Emily's three important reminders about how to face her cancer.

And like many topics we cover on the podcast, this advice isn't limited to those who are facing a life-limiting illness or dealing with the grief of loss. As Cody shares in this heartfelt reflection, community just might be the answer to nearly every question we face in life. Not just being around people, but being around people who truly, deeply understand what we are going through. 

Whether it's your co-workers, your friends, your siblings—anyone who identifies with the parts of you that are in need, that's your community. 

"I hate that cancer is the reason, but I have, and continue to, become more of my authentic self."

Emily used to be more comfortable behind the scenes—the one who helped others take the stage. But a cancer diagnosis...and then another cancer diagnosis...showed her how to embrace her life and her authentic self more than ever, and even take the stage herself.

Emily was 32 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She went through chemotherapy, a double mastectomy, and 28 rounds of radiation, and came out with no evidence of disease and some complicated feelings about having had what she calls a relatively good experience. A therapist offered a reminder that stays with her: just because other people are going through harder things doesn't mean what you're going through isn't also hard.

Then, in the summer of 2025, a question she brought to her oncologist after a conversation with a cabin mate at camp led to a recurrence in her lungs and nearby lymph nodes. Stage four.

Emily talks with Cody from a hotel room in Kansas City, in the middle of a work event, about what changed and what didn't: the way her own mortality now sits front and center, and the way she keeps working, traveling, and hiking anyway. She talks about a panic attack in a swimming pool, a TikTok comment that led to a brain MRI, and a surprising sense of relief when the thing she feared most finally showed up.

She and Cody also talk about community as treatment, why she has never asked about her prognosis, living in six-month stretches of planning, whether everything happens for a reason, and her belief that there has to be something beyond this life. And about what comes with having nothing left to prove: "I hate that cancer is the reason, but I have, and continue to, become more of my authentic self."

Join Cody for this conversation filled with honesty, humor, and a hard-won lightness.

Topics Covered: Metastatic Breast Cancer · Recurrence & Rediagnosis · Cancer Community & Peer Support · Prognosis & Living Without a Timeline · Authenticity & Identity · Fate, Faith & the Afterlife

Connect with Emily Online:

Join us over on Patreon for free to watch the video of this interview and connect with a community of life-minded folks who are living life to the fullest: https://www.patreon.com/DyingToTellYou

"If the worst happens, I don't want to have spent years living like the worst was happening."

Following last week's conversation with Kimberly, Cody reflects on worry, caution, and the illusion of certainty. From his grandpa's green-light caution to guests and patients who did everything right and still weren't safe, he explores Kimberly's idea of trusting your future self with whatever comes, and living like the best is happening today.

Join Cody for this short reflection on worry, trust, and letting the worst wait.

Kimberly has an astounding way of facing her cancer diagnosis. Not just because she does it with humor and pragmatism. But also because of her ability to say to herself, "You don't have to handle that specific part of all this today. In fact, I know you can't handle that right now. You're not ready. But Future You can handle it, and I know she will." 

That takes a deep understanding and trust in yourself, and it's truly inspiring to hear.

Ten years before her diagnosis, Kimberly was told her exhaustion was nothing — just take a nap. After all, she had two kids and work and just...life. Of course she was tired. But it continued on and seemed like more than just life. 

It took a decade to find out it was cancer that had already reached her liver. In this episode, Kimberly and Cody talk about choosing how much medical information to carry and when, the rhythms she built to survive a brutal chemo schedule, and the online community she started — Cancer Is a Joke — built on the belief that humor and hope both have a place in a hard diagnosis.

You can find Kimberly online at cancerisajoke.com

This episode is sponsored by Iliff School of Theology's Death Care Collective, with courses available at https://www.iliffdeathcare.com/

Alan Watts said "The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance." This week, Cody reminds us that change isn't something we control but how we react to it is.

Without exception, every single guest on Dying To Tell You has come face-to-face with something they neither expected nor wanted. Change has crashed into their lives, shattering their sense of a normal world.

Last week's episode with Bridget is a perfect—and somewhat literal—expression of that idea. After being cancer free for years, a car crash brought cancer back into her life and now she's facing it once again, but with a different perspective.

In this week's Reflection, Cody talks about the whiplash he's felt in the past several weeks, bouncing from life event to life event (to life event), all of them momentous, none of them the same. He turns to the teachings of Eckhart Tolle for support. And the words of Alan Watts set the beat for he and the rest of us can keep moving. 

Five years cancer-free, Bridget thought she was in the clear — until a scan the day of a minor surgery revealed stage four metastatic breast cancer. A hospice and palliative care nurse practitioner herself, she talks with Cody about the oncologist who told her "we don't talk numbers, we talk living," the financial toll no one warns you about, her faith, and why she's determined to outlive every statistic she's ever been given. Join us for a conversation about living fully, on her own terms.

Sponsored by Iliff Death Care Collective - https://www.iliff.edu/death-care-collective/

Sitting with someone facing difficulty—an illness, a crisis of any kind, even their own mortality—is in itself difficult. And how we react in those moments can either make it easier for that person, or harder. 

Many times, our instinct is to soothe. And while that's not wrong, the way we go about it might be. 

This week, Cody reflects on something Courtney brought up in last week's episode, when the people around her offered what they thought was comfort but instead delivered the exact opposite effect. 

Be sure to listen to Courtney's full episode "Living Inside I Don't Know" and find all episodes at dttypodcast.com

Courtney was in the best shape of her life — and also the most exhausted she'd ever been. Her body had started sending signals that no one, including herself, knew how to read yet. A stroke scare that turned out to be a misdiagnosed migraine. Weeks of worsening symptoms she chalked up to ordinary aches. And then, on a family trip to Mexico, a swollen neck that sent her home and straight into emergency surgery.

What followed was a diagnosis so rare that her own doctors didn't have statistics to give her — she was told, at first, that she had "the good kind" of cancer. She didn't. She asked, point-blank, whether she was going to die, and got the only honest answer available: I don't know.

Four years later, after a successful treatment, she's still living inside that answer. Courtney and Cody talk about the twelve days between diagnosis and chemo, the slow stretch from three-month scans to yearly ones, and the arm lump she's mid-wait on right now — a fresh round of "I don't know" playing out in real time.

They talk about the strange, hard-won gift of learning to trust herself after years of not being able to, the unsettling nature of strangers projecting their faith onto her, and why "I'll pray for you" can be the emptiest thing a person can say — and what to do instead.

And they talk about what she wants to leave behind for her kids: not a diagnosis, but a habit of kindness.

Find Courtney online as @cancercourtney and at https://cancercourtney-press.cliniewski.chatgpt.site

Dying to Tell You is sponsored by the Iliff School of Theology's Death Care Collective. Learn more about their educational programs for end-of-life care at https://www.iliffdeathcare.com

As a palliative care chaplain, Cody has helped hundreds of people transition from life to death. This past week, he faced a different but maybe more relatable situation for the majority of us—his dog died. And as he and his wife sat on the floor and helped their dog through his final moments, they told him, "Good job." 

We should all be so lucky.

In this week's reflection, Cody talks about his conversation with Jonathan and how it reminded him of the moving and hopeful vision he has about a peaceful end of life, when all your loved ones come to tell you that you've done well and to thank you for all you've done.