Sorry, I'm Sad

Meet Evelyn Faye Roy, a beautiful little girl from Calgary, Alberta, who loved music and dancing and art and books and Star Wars and her friends and family, whose light was blazingly bright and whose life on earth was heartbreakingly short.  Evelyn was 11 years old when she died of neuroblastoma in February 2020. This is a conversation about every parent’s worst nightmare, but it’s also so much more than that. It’s about finding a way to hold on in the depths of despair. It’s about choosing joy and light in the darkest spaces of life, about gratitude pulling us through the most traumatic events imaginable and about the power of sharing our stories. It’s about Evelyn, her mom, Heather, her dad, Mike, and her sister, Harper. This is the Roy’s story. To learn more about Evelyn and the Roy's mission to better fund research for childhood cancer, go to www.teamevelyn.ca and follow Heather on Instagram @happilyheath.

Support the show

Imagine realizing one day that foods you love and have always eaten easily are suddenly impossible to swallow. Imagine that a gulp of cold water ends up in your lungs and leaves you gasping for air. And imagine waking up every day for weeks unable to swallow foods you ate the day before. 

Sorry, I’m Sad is back for Season Two, and in this first episode Chris and Kelsie talk about their life last year at this time, when, over the course of just a few months, Chris went from eating normally to needing a feeding tube because of severe atrophy of his swallowing muscles. They discuss the fear and anxiety surrounding Chris' choking during that time and what it’s like to lose the ability to eat. You'll also hear them talk about the different ways this loss has affected their family and the challenges of navigating a terminal illness when the healthy partner has more of a prepare-for-the-worst mentality than the sick one.

Support the show

In 2013, Christina Frangou and Spencer MacLean were packing up their life in Calgary, Alberta. Spencer was just finishing up his surgical residency, and the young couple had everything in place to move to California, where Spencer was set to start a fellowship in orthopaedic trauma. The future that stretched out in front of them was exciting and and, it seemed, vast. And then it wasn’t. In a gutting span of 42 days, Spencer was diagnosed with Stage IV kidney cancer and, at just 36 years old, he died. At just 36 years old as well, Christina was left behind with a shattered heart and a shattered future. The day they were supposed to start their drive to California, the day their new life together was set to begin, she buried her husband and embarked on a different new life – one as a widow. Three years after Spencer's death, Christina, a freelance journalist, wrote a moving story about life before, during and after Spencer's diagnosis and death. 

This is a conversation about the enduring heartache of losing your person. It’s about how to keep going when the future you thought you were getting is completely obliterated. And it's about the lasting love that exists between two people, even after one of them dies.

Support the show

Emmy-award winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author Kate Fagan is back for a special bonus episode. Kelsie and Kate continue their conversation about Kate's most recent book, All the Colors Came Out, a memoir about her relationship with her dad, Chris, who died of ALS in 2019. They talk honestly about the heartbreakingly difficult discussions ALS families have to have and about the guilt and second-guessing that can remain in the wake of those conversations. 

Support the show

Emmy-award winning journalist and New York Times best-selling author Kate Fagan joins Kelsie for a two-part series to talk about her latest book, All the Colors Came Out, which chronicles Fagan's relationship with her father, Chris, who died of ALS in 2019. Weaving through lessons her dad imparted on the basketball court during her youth, Fagan writes with love and honesty about how the two of them grew apart and about the steps she took -- quitting her high-profile job at ESPN to move home and help her mom and sister care for Chris in the last year of his life -- to close that gap.  Kate and Kelsie talk about their dads, about life lessons and making amends, about what it looks like to care for someone through this disease and about advocacy.  Be sure to listen next week when Kate and Kelsie continue their conversation in a special bonus episode. Part two offers an unvarnished discussion about difficult end-of-life decisions ALS families have to make, about the relentlessness of the disease for both patients and their families and about why Kate decided to become an advocate.

Support the show

Five years ago, Melanie Masterson was a healthy, fit mom of three little girls. She ran behind her double stroller, did yoga, ate a plant-based diet and, at 39 years old, she was getting ready to rekindle her work as a freelance writer. She found herself feeling increasingly exhausted, but with a 7-, 5- and 2-year-old at home, who wouldn’t be? Then she started coming down with terrible colds and would cough so much she'd break ribs. Eventually, her ribs started breaking for no reason at all. By the time she sat in a doctor’s office to hear a diagnosis that would change the trajectory of her life, she had seven broken ribs. The cause? Metastatic breast cancer that had spread so thoroughly into her bones that her oncologist didn’t think Melanie would live for a year.

In the years since Melanie has undergone chemotherapy and radiation, a double mastectomy, a hip replacement,  broken more ribs and suffered compression fractures in her spine. She lives with constant and chronic pain. But she is still living.

This is a conversation about how to keep going when you take up permanent residence in what author Susan Sontag called, "the kingdom of the sick." It's about finding joy and peace despite living with both debilitating pain and debilitating sadness. It's about what illness takes from us, what makes life worth living and what we want to leave behind for the people we love when we die.

To follow Melanie’s story, go to  www.themelimello.substack.com. 

Support the show

In 2017, Sandra Abrevaya and Brian Wallach had it all. She was the president of Thrive Chicago, a non-profit in her hometown aimed at bettering the lives of the city's young people, he had his dream job as an Assistant US Attorney, and together they had two beautiful little girls. Then, on the day they brought their second daughter home from the hospital, Brian went to the doctor for a nagging cough. During the appointment he shared other strange symptoms he'd been having, most notably difficulty grasping a pen. The doctor eventually said he thought Brian had ALS and as little as six months to live.  Over the next many months, Brian and Sandra, who met while working on Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, realized there was a void in the ALS advocacy sector, and they could fill it. They founded I Am ALS, an organization that in just two years has propelled $83 million in federal money toward ALS research and treatments and, through its website, www.iamals.org, has given ALS patients and their families a place to go to find community, support and answers. This is a story of hope against the odds, of creating the change you want to see and of pressing on even as Brian's ALS has almost completely robbed him of his ability to speak and walk.

Support the show

When trauma comes at a young age, it doesn’t change us, it shapes us. Ryan Straschnitzki was just 18 years old and on his way to play in a playoff junior hockey game with his team, the Humboldt Broncos, when a semi-truck ran a stop sign and collided with their charter bus on a rural Saskatchewan highway. Sixteen people died in the crash. Thirteen were injured. Ryan was paralyzed from the chest down. In this episode, Ryan, now 22 years old and three years removed from that day, talks with Kelsie about determination, optimism and how the Covid-19 pandemic forced him to reckon with his grief.  

Support the show

When Chris was diagnosed with ALS, Kelsie and Chris' biggest concern was for the littlest people in their family. At the time, Cohen and Willa were just 7 and 4, respectively, and people often told Kelsie that the kids would be all right. But how do we make sure of that? How do we help our kids navigate their own grief and loss -- whether it  be a loved one's illness or death or the  depression, anxiety, stress and loneliness that's surfaced for so many during the Covid-19 pandemic? And how do we help them with those heavy emotions when we are struggling with them ourselves? In this episode, psychologist Cara Lizzi joins Kelsie to talk about what we can do to make sure that, in the end, the kids are, indeed, all right.

Support the show

When Chris started a phase-three clinical trial for a promising ALS drug, the Snows were hopeful. As the months wore on and Chris' disease didn't seem to be progressing at all, they were thrilled. Each month with no change to Chris' health made the notion that this experimental medicine could stop his ALS in its tracks seem like a real possibility.  And then, in April 2020, nine months after Chris joined the trial, that possibility crumbled with one photograph. Looking at that picture, Kelsie realized Chris' smile had changed slightly and that their story and the trajectory of Chris' illness had changed completely. In this episode, Chris and Kelsie talk about how devastating the loss of his smile and all of the losses that came after it have been and how, even amidst the most painful developments since his ALS diagnosis, they still cling to hope.

Support the show