Liz Benditt is currently President and CEO of The Balm Box, a self-care and gifting site for breast cancer patients. In addition to teaching undergraduate business marketing courses at the University of Kansas, Benditt also serves on the Education First Shawnee Mission board of directors and volunteers with National Charity League. She lives in the Kansas City suburbs with her husband and two children.

• 01:54: Take us back to the very beginning.  
• 04:16: We'd like you to have surgery within the week.  
• 05:58: 11 months after having been diagnosed with melanoma, I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. 
• 08:32: I ended up in the hospital for two weeks while they tried to figure out a drug protocol that would get me off I.V. Calcium. 
• 10:27: Thyroid cancer is very common.  
• 11:36: For whatever reason, my body needed a higher-than-normal range of calcium for normal calcium production.  
• 13:38: It was on my nose, and it was just big enough that it required plastic surgery to cover it.  
• 16:06: This was what was going to help me avoid being disfigured.  
• 18:47: The fatigue hit me like a brick.  
• 20:53: What was your best moment? 
• 21:52: What is the one thing you wish you had known at the very beginning of your cancer journey?  
• 23:03: If you could only do one thing to improve health care in the US, what would it be and why? 
• 24:31: Thriver Rapid Fire Questions  
• 25:59: Aside from Cancer U, what is one resource you would recommend for cancer patients and caregivers? 
• 26:54: Then the pandemic hit and suddenly, I wasn't super busy anymore.  
• 30:52: My vision is to get beyond breast cancer and to offer packages for a whole variety of cancer treatments.  

Resources

• The Balm Box
• Email Liz at [email protected]
• Liz on LinkedIn