Our MBC Life

Send us Fan Mail This week the Our MBC Life podcast hosts a panel to discuss what it’s really like to be diagnosed stage 4 from the beginning of de novo MBC.   Those of us diagnosed de novo don’t get an introduction to breast cancer at earlier stages and that presents some unique issues.  OMBCL Podcast team member, Miranda Gonzales, moderates our panel of Shonte Drakeford, Deltra James, Lisa Laudi...

Send us Fan Mail This is the sixth stop in our series Road to a Cure. With this series our goal is not only to educate and give hope to every listener  but also to ensure that  each of these special interviews feels like an intimate conversation with our smartest friend who also happens to be an oncologist researcher.   Co-hosts Victoria Goldberg and Lisa Laudico, sit down with the Director of the...

Send us Fan Mail The podcast Road to a Cure team meets up with renowned hematologist oncologist, Dr. Hope Rugo of USCF's Carol Franc Buck Breast Care Center. Dr. Rugo is also co-director of UCSF's breast cancer clinical trials program. She is the principal investigator for several clinical trials of potential new therapies. She is also an investigator with the Bay Area's SPORE (Spec...

Send us Fan Mail Our episode this week will focus on body image and diet culture, both within society and the breast cancer community, and how treatment can affect our feelings about our bodies.  Co-host Natalia Green moderates a panel of women currently living with MBC who discuss and share their experiences, as well as our guests, Lor Scannell and Mariah Crenshaw, two women in the breast cancer...

Send us Fan Mail This week we are visiting Dr Stephanie Goff   at the NIH in  Bethesda, Maryland. Dr Goff is a surgical oncologist and a senior member of  a research team led by  Dr. Steven A. Rosenberg , a man widely regarded as the father of immunotherapy.  A friend, who knows  a thing or two about this place. is joining us on this trip. Her name is Judy Perkins, and she is the first MBC patient...

Send us Fan Mail The Road to a Cure series heads to Boston to have Senior Producer and Co-host, Victoria Goldberg and co-host Dr. Paula Jayne speak with Dr. Nancy Lin and Dr. Heather Parsons about the possibilities and the current barriers to considering a cure for HER2+ MBC. Dr. Parsons and Dr. Lin are medical oncologists and professors at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Lin is also the Director of t...

Send us Fan Mail Join us for our annual We Remember episode where we have invited our listeners to share the names and stories of the people they have loved and who have died from MBC over these past 12 months.  In addition, Senior Producer and Co-host, Lisa Laudico, interviews Dr. Andrew Silver, widower of the poet Anya Krugovy Silver, who died of MBC in 2018.  Andrew speaks to us about her posth...

Send us Fan Mail The Road to a Cure series gets on the redeye to LA to have Senior Producer and Co-host, Victoria Goldberg and co-host Kate Pfitzer speak with Dr. Sara Hurvitz. Dr. Hurvitz is the Medical Director of Clinical Researcher Unit of the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Director of the Breast Cancer Clinical Trials Program at UCLA, Dr. Sara Hurvitz. Dr. Hurvitz is also the Ass...

Send us Fan Mail Our special series, Road to a Cure, makes its first stop at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, with an interview with Dr. Larry Norton. He is the Norma S. Sarofim Chair of Clinical Oncology, Senior Vice President in the Office of the President, and Deputy Director for Clinical and Translational Science in the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.  Dr. Norton’s a...

Send us Fan Mail In the middle of October, we are embarking on something quite ambitious.  The idea of a cure for metastatic breast cancer - the only kind that kills - is complicated.   But this is the season of virtual travel and not shying away from the hard questions.  So Co-host Victoria Goldberg with Shonte Drakeford, Natalia Green,  Paula Jayne, Ellen Landsberger, and Kate Pfitzer go to the...

Send us Fan Mail Grab those negative covid tests and passports because we travel around the world in this episode!  Oh yeah, get your proof of vaccination and N95s too since this thing ain’t over yet sadly.  We wanted to learn how others living with and advocating for MBC deal with it all in other places. So we travel virtually to Canada, Japan, Kuwait, Egypt, Australia, Portugal, Kenya, Nigeria,...

Send us Fan Mail We begin the Season 3 Trailblazers with a twist. We’re taking Trailblazer on the Road! Our first stop will be the wonderfully, philanthropic city of Charlotte, NC. Join us as we speak with representatives of two truly grassroots organizations, dedicated to supporting the Charlotte breast cancer community in two very different ways. Interestingly enough, both organizations were sta...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to the Season 3 Premiere episode!  We missed you all!  To start this season off right we have real conversations about the stuff we don't talk much about  - relationships and intimacy while living with MBC.   Co-hosts Lisa Laudico and Natalia Green speak with fellow Co-host, Deltra James about how she is looking for something new, with Tim & Dione who navigated th...

Send us Fan Mail Need a dash of Joy in your day? Join Dar as she takes us on a joyful journey. Dar's Dash of Joy airs the last Friday of each month along with our Trailblazer episode. So on this final Friday of July we have a special bonus episode to share with all of you. And be sure to check out our all of Trailblazer episodes. Season 3 starts Sept. 20.  We’re so happy you joined us! If thi...

Send us Fan Mail As part of our summer programming, we are releasing special full interviews from Season 2.  Here Host Lisa Laudico speaks with Shirley Mertz,  who is the President of the MBC Network, a founding member of the MBC Alliance, and the most recent former Chair of the MBC Alliance.  Shirley received a diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer in 2003, twelve years after being treated for DC...

Send us Fan Mail Are you living with ER+/HER2- or triple negative MBC and tired of hearing about new HER2 therapies and wondering when it will be your turn? This podcast is for you. Welcome to this bonus episode of Our MBC Life.  The 2021 ASCO Annual Meeting was held during the first week of June.  Just after the meeting SHARE welcomed Dr. Timothy Pluard from University of Missouri-KC School of Me...

Send us Fan Mail We are ending season 2 on a positive note with a dash of joy from Dar Finkelstein and a conversation with our Trailblazer of the Month Caroline Johnson,  founder of  Kentucky-based non-profit organization Twisted Pink whose sole mission is to raise funds for MBC.  Even though there is still no cure,  our odds of getting to a cure through better funded research and science are impr...

Send us Fan Mail Join us for our discussion about the LGBTQ2S+ community and MBC.  Co-host Natalia Green moderates a panel with Bob DeVito and Rainy Orteca,  two guests living with MBC, and who are part of the LGBTQ2S+ community along with the co-founder of Queering Cancer, Dr. Evan Taylor.  Dr. Taylor is an assistant professor in Social Work and Human Services at the University of the Fraser Vall...

Send us Fan Mail A metastatic breast cancer diagnosis comes with an array of emotions and concerns. A few months ago SHARE invited Dr. Anne Kane, a renowned clinical psychologist who had been a student of Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and whose specialty is helping people cope with traumatic grief, to discuss the implications of facing mortality while also living as fully, richly, and deeply as possib...

Send us Fan Mail We continue our focus on supportive/palliative care in part 2 of our series.  This week, we hear directly from those living with MBC about their own experiences with palliative care, including its impacts on their physical, mental, and even sexual health. Special co-host Dr. Paula Jayne joins hosts Natalia Green, Lisa Laudico, and Anne Woodward as they speak with Leda Dederich, Sh...

Send us Fan Mail “It is very important for those of us who are living with MBC to be able to go to a place where we know it’s safe to just be who we are.” This month’s Trailblazer is Project Life, a virtual wellness house  that recently set up residence in cyberspace. The co-hosts Victoria Goldberg and Dar Finkelstein  speak with the founder and the CEO of Project Life Lesley Glenn and its COO Jac...

Send us Fan Mail This month we have focused on quality-of-life issues and this episode is part one of a two-part series on the “Magic of Palliative Care”. At times the term “palliative care” is misunderstood and so we also use the newer term ‘supportive care’ to better explain how this care supports your quality of life as you go through MBC treatment. We first turn our focus to the medical provid...

Send us Fan Mail Join Host Lisa Laudico as she speaks with the Metastatic Breast Cancer Alliance's BECOME Project Lead, Stephanie Walker, and BECOME committee member Sheila Fuhs.  The BECOME Project stands for Black Experience of Clinical Trials and Opportunities for Meaningful Engagement and was initiated by the work of the late epidemiologist and MBC advocate, Marina Kaplan.   For individua...

Send us Fan Mail Following up from last week’s episode on the healing power of writing, with special guests, April Stearns, Editor of Wildfire Magazine, writer and psychotherapist, Erin Weiss, and the poet and writer Ilene Kaminsky, we are joined today for a special bonus episode of readings from the Wildfire magazine community.   You will hear from Alison Greenberg, Melody Mansfield, Grace Murphy...

Send us Fan Mail During this month dedicated to Mental Health Awareness, we want to take a deep dive into the healing power of writing for those of us in the MBC community.  I have admired the writing of so many greats in our community:  the poet Anya Silver, memoirist and poet Nina Riggs, and the great blog writing found on Nancy’s Point, or the spunky writing of my friends Rebecca Timlin-Scalera...