Sorry, I'm Sad

On their 14th wedding anniversary, Chris and Kelsie talk about how Chris' ALS has impacted their marriage, how they communicate, how they parent, as well as the different ways they process and deal with their sadness and grief. Support the show

When Sheldon Kennedy was just 14 years old his hockey coach began sexually abusing him. Terrified, ashamed and certain nobody would be believe him, Sheldon kept the abuse a secret. It continued for five years. Years later, as an adult by then years removed from the actual abuse but still reeling and utterly broken from it, Sheldon finally opened up about what happened to him and, by sharing his st...

Cookbook author, journalist and radio personality Julie Van Rosendaal, founder of the wildly popular food blog Dinner With Julie , joins Kelsie for a conversation about how food impacts our relationships with others and with ourselves. Julie shares her experience growing up, as she puts it, a size that was not socially acceptable and speaks about her evolution with hunger, cravings and her own bod...

Meet Drew Robinson, a 29-year-old who lives in his hometown of Las Vegas, Nevada, loves his dogs, has an infectious smile and was drafted out of high school in the fourth round by Major League Baseball’s Texas Rangers. Drew spent more than a decade playing professional baseball, including about a year total in the big leagues. His first hit in the majors was a home run. He is a goofball with his f...

Not long after the COVID-19 pandemic began, award-winning journalist and former Esquire magazine staff writer Chris Jones started telling Friday afternoon stories on his Twitter account, @enswelljones. Because of his time profiling celebrities for Esquire and because Jones is the kind of guy who often finds himself in hilariously embarrassing situations, many of the stories went viral (one was rea...

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 mo...

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 y...

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 gutti...

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 abou...

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 o...

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 w...

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 naggin...

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 dow...

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  dep...

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 mon...

In Part 2 of "I Get by With a Little Help My Friends," Kelsie talks to two of her friends who have been with her before, during and since Chris' ALS diagnosis. They talk about the things that have stood out to them in this time, about how they think Kelsie has changed and stayed the same, and how they have navigated their roles as supportive and loving friends.  Support the show

Grief can be isolating, but it rarely happens in isolation. In this two-episode arc, Kelsie talks to friends who have been there before, during and after Chris' ALS diagnosis. In Part 1, she talks first to Flames Assistant General Manager Craig Conroy, who was hired to the Flames front office the same year as Chris, and next General Manager Brad Treliving, who has been Chris' boss since...

Immediately after Chris was diagnosed with ALS at 37 years old and given 6-18 months to live, we learned he could join an exciting clinical trial for a drug that would be the only hope of saving his life or, at the very least, extending it. The one thing dampening our hope was the fact that Chris had a 1-in-3 chance of getting a placebo rather than the medication during the trial. This, along with...

We all have a sad story, and in this episode I will start to tell mine. Here's where I tell you what it's like to be told your 37-year-old husband has 6-18 months to live, and what it's like when an experimental drug gives him a chance to rewrite his diagnosis. Support the show