I Saved You. Now, Do the Dishes

Welcome to the I Saved You, Now Do the Dishes podcast! This episode marks the close of Season Two. After nine deeply personal and honest episodes, some solo and some with Carrie and Gavin, we’re pressing pause—not to end the story, but to evolve it. I Saved You. Now Do the Dishes has always been about telling the truth of caregiving, advocating, and marriage. It's a messy, sacred, exhausting, and...

So much of caregiving happens in the waiting. Waiting rooms. Hospital lobbies. Spaces where time slows down—but your nervous system doesn’t. In this episode, I’m sharing simple, real-life ways to take care of yourself in those moments—nervous system support, grounding practices, and tools you can actually use while you’re sitting there holding it all together. Because caregiving doesn’t pause for...

Welcome to the I Saved You, Now Do the Dishes podcast! Join Carrie Severson as she shares stories from her experiences as an advocate and caregiver during her husband's cancer journey. This podcast offers insights into patient care and navigating the complexities of cancer treatment. We also touch on important topics like mental health and preventing caregiver burnout.🎧 I Saved You. Now, Do the D...

Welcome to the I Saved You, Now Do the Dishes podcast! Join Carrie Severson as she shares stories from her experiences as an advocate and caregiver during her husband's cancer journey. This podcast offers insights into patient care and navigating the complexities of cancer treatment, including chemotherapy. In this episode, I’m sharing what it actually looks like to be two years past my husband’s...

Welcome to the I Saved You, Now Do the Dishes podcast! Join Carrie Severson as she shares stories from her experiences as an advocate and caregiver during her husband's cancer journey. This podcast episode offers insights into patient care and navigating the complexities of cancer treatment, including chemotherapy. It's been a while, and with the two-year milestone here, Carrie felt called to star...

In this intimate and heartfelt episode of I Saved You. Now Do the Dishes podcast, Carrie sits down with her husband, Gavin—the very person who inspired this podcast after his head and neck cancer diagnosis two years ago. With honesty, humor, and the kind of raw vulnerability that only comes from living through it, they revisit the milestone that changed everything. Carrie and Gavin unpack the days...

In this candid and heartfelt episode of I Saved You. Now do the dishes, Carrie Severson and her husband, Gavin, open up about navigating cancer and pain management with marijuana gummies. While the gummies helped Gavin finally get some much-needed sleep, they didn’t do much to ease the pain. Together, they unpack the frustration, trial and error, and emotional toll that come with trying to find re...

In this heartfelt (and hilariously off-track) episode, Carrie is joined once again by her husband, Gavin, for an honest conversation about marriage, recovery, and the wild ride of caregiving—especially when your spouse has ADD. Despite Gavin’s best attempts to derail the story with his signature tangents, Carrie keeps steering them back to one powerful moment: the day he faced his fear of eating....

Season 2 of I Saved You, Now Do the Dishes kicks off with a deeply personal and heartfelt conversation between host Carrie Severson and her husband, Gavin, the inspiration behind the podcast. This episode is full of love, laughter, and the kind of real-life banter only a husband and wife can bring. Carrie and Gavin reflect on what “healing” really looks like for both the caregiver and the patient,...

In this final episode of I Saved You. Now, Do the Dishes Season One, I share the deeply emotional, long-awaited moment my husband rang the bell—his last day of radiation. After months of caregiving, chaos, and constant crisis, something I craved began to happen: I leaned into what I had to do to heal myself. The very day he finished treatment, I felt the shift. I realized I could no longer put my...

On what was supposed to be Gavin's last day of his cancer treatment, everything changed in an instant. In this episode of I Saved You. Now, Do the Dishes, I share the story of an unexpected and frightening detour — a rush to the ER that none of us saw coming. This episode dives into the emotional whiplash of caregiving: the mental load, the constant uncertainty, and how quickly a “normal” day can...

In this episode of I Saved You. Now, Do the Dishes Podcast, Carrie Severson shares the moment she realized they'd fallen through the cracks. Despite all the check-ins, appointments, and protocols, Carrie learned—after Gavin was nearly finished with his cancer treatment plan, including several rounds of chemotherapy—that he was never even scheduled to see an oncology nurse. That same day, his essen...

In this episode of I Saved You. Now, Do the Dishes, I open up about one of the most exhausting and vulnerable parts of our caregiving journey—feeding Gavin. At first, I was feeding him by hand through 10 different syringes. And, since he had to be sedated 30 minutes before every radiation session, he was often unconscious or groggy during the times he needed to eat. It was lonely, sacred, and exha...

In this deeply personal podcast episode of, I Saved You. Now, Do the Dishes, I share the raw, nerve-wracking experience of bringing my husband home from the long-term cancer wing before I was ready. He wanted out of the hospital, but I wasn't prepared for everything I had to do for him. I shared my anxiety with the internal medicine department in hopes that they would keep him longer, but the team...

After filing formal complaints against the doctors who violated my husband’s patient rights, everything changed. In this episode, I share what happened next—how advocating for Gavin led to a new physician assistant, a new nurse, and finally, the right medications. It wasn’t easy, but standing my ground shifted the entire course of his care. Gavin was still in the hospital, newly reliant on a feedi...

In this powerful and deeply personal episode, I share the day that marked a turning point in both my husband’s cancer journey and my role as his caregiver. It was the day he got a feeding tube—and the day I said enough. After witnessing a series of unacceptable medical missteps, I filed formal complaints against a radiology physician assistant, a resident, and a nurse. My husband’s patient rights...

In this deeply personal episode, I share what it was like to get Gavin admitted to long-term cancer care—and the whirlwind that followed. From internal medicine to palliative care, social work to surgical consults, the first few days were a blur of faces and emotions. One moment stands out: the unprofessional and dismissive physician assistant who reduced my husband’s unimaginable strength to a ju...

In this raw and unfiltered episode of I Saved You. Now Do the Dishes, I walk you through the moment my husband finally faced what he’d been resisting: the need for a feeding tube. What should have been a moment of compassionate care turned into something else entirely—his physician assistant laughed, told him he made her job harder, and actually said we should pray to our lucky stars she could “wo...

In this episode of the, I Saved You. Now Do the Dishes Podcast, I talk about my husband’s not-so-subtle obsession with donuts—and how chasing those sugary circles became our unexpected act of rebellion against the crushing weight of head and neck cancer. While he battled relentless pain and I tried everything to avoid pulling out the Narcan, we clung to small joys like they were life rafts. This o...

On this episode of I Saved You. Now, Do the Dishes podcast, I'm getting my husband connected with a palliative care team member to help manage his cancer pain. If you've followed this season, you know what it took to get there, and the emotional weight of saying yes to more help. I talk about my exhaustion at that point and now, managing the two different forms of oxy prescribed to help him find s...

In this episode of I Saved You. Now, Do the Dishes., I’m sounding the alarm for caregivers walking the brutal line between cancer treatment and pain management. This one is personal. My husband had just been prescribed opioids for pain. And nobody gave him any additional or alternative instructions for days he had chemo. No one warned us about side effects chemo has with Oxy. This episode outlines...

This week, I take you inside one of the hardest chapters of our journey—Week Five. My husband was deep in the trenches of treatment for head and neck cancer, and everything was unraveling. He could barely speak, eat, or drink, and his body was giving out. As his caregiver and medical advocate, I was doing everything I could to keep him alive—but we didn’t agree on how to do that. He didn’t want a...

In this episode of I Saved You. Now, Do the Dishes., I pull back the curtain on the chaotic world of cancer treatment scheduling and pain management. Spoiler: it’s less “organized care plan” and more “full-time logistical nightmare.” From juggling 12 appointments in a week to coordinating three different pharmacy pick-ups (yes, really) for five different drugs, I talk about what it’s like to be th...

In this episode of the I Saved You. Now, Do the Dishes podcast, I open up about the unexpected challenges of caregiving in a hospital setting—specifically, the overwhelming and overstimulating experience of the chemo floor. From the constant beeping of machines to the emotional weight of the space, I share how it all became too much and what I did (or didn’t do) to cope. If you’ve ever felt like y...

In this episode of I Saved You. Now, Do the Dishes., I share how I discovered unexpected silver linings throughout my husband’s cancer journey, as well as my alter ego (hello, Spicy Viking!).  And, even though I shared the importance of finding simple joys in episode five, I dive in a bit more in this episode. Finding small, simple joys that brighten even the darkest days is important as a caregiv...