The Deep C

The transition from parent to oncology parent is fast, it’s sudden, and within seconds we’re thrown into a landmine of medical terminology that feels like it's exploding all around us. Words we’ve never heard, let alone can pronounce, are being referenced to our child and their survival. We’re given treatment plans and chemo protocols, radiation doses, surgical procedures, an entire book of meds f...

Denise Bebenek is the Founder, President and driving force behind the Meagan Bebenek Foundation: Creating a Circle of Hope, a foundation that has raised over 6 million dollars to support and fund research for pediatric brain cancers. In late 2000, Denise’s youngest child, Meagan, was diagnosed with an inoperable and malignant brain tumour. She died six months later, only two weeks past her fifth b...

In today's episode we meet Jeff who's daughter Lily was diagnosed with an astrocytoma when she was four months old. In sharing about Lily's cancer treatment, Jeff turns the focus from his daughter towards his incredible wife Julie and the heroic efforts she took to save Lily, and then in turn, the realization that she needed to save herself. Jeff shares the intimate and vulnerable details of...

In recognition of Brain Cancer Awareness Month, today’s episode features Cole who was diagnosed with medulloblastoma when he was 12yrs old. Today, Cole is a 22 yr old soon to be college graduate who dedicates his time, energy and passion to raising awareness and advocating for childhood cancer research. Cole shares his memories of his life before cancer, what it felt like to be diagnosed, and how...

Oncology parents instantly connect on so many levels because our experience is so nuanced and unique, but it's especially familiar and comfortable talking to a parent whose child has the exact same diagnosis as yours. Under the absolute worst circumstances, it turns out that it IS possible to find people who can make you feel seen and supported. In this episode, we share our experience with o...

Today we speak with Jasmine Miller, a Child Life Specialist at the UF Proton Therapy Institute in Jacksonville, Florida. Jasmine gives parents her strategies on working with kids to face the really big scary feelings that come with a cancer diagnosis, and she shares some vulnerable truths of what children confess to her about their treatment when their parents aren’t in the room. Jasmine has her b...

When I first met Julie, I felt this deep enduring strength inside of her. The kind of an embattled solider who had seen war many, many times. I knew she was the perfect person to talk about the roller coaster of this disease, how totally unpredictable and out of control it can be, and how difficult (I actually think we use the word impossible in our conversation) it is to ride it. How do you get c...

My conversation with Erin was special from the second she opened her mouth. She is the most gentle, warm and beautiful soul, and so willing to share and get vulnerable about what life was like after her daughter Arden passed 4 years ago. At Arden’s 12 month check up, Erin mentioned to her paediatrician that Arden had a small bump on her chest, and her doctor brushed it off as a lipoma. But Erin kn...

Kevin’s son Asher was diagnosed at 3 months old with LCH when it was still a very rare cancer diagnosis with minimal research and a trial and error treatment plan. Kevin’s wife Katy became the “medical” parent while he was the parent who kept life running. Kevin speaks candidly about their division of roles and how they kept an open and consistent line of communication with each other throughout A...

My husband and I are VERY different, like we're about as opposite as it gets, but somehow we’ve found a way to intersect where it matters the most to us. We have our outside life where people at parties would think we're strangers, and our inside life where our roots grow so far and widespread you will never find where they end.  When our daughter was diagnosed, our differences for some...

In today's episode Sam talks with her cancer therapist, social worker Laura Pasqualino about the tools and strategies Laura helped Sam apply during her daughter's treatment. Laura believes we already know the way through the darkness, we've just never had to access the resiliency and inner-guides until now. She gives examples of how she helps parents find their way, and how she teaches u...

Host Sam Taylor chats with Dawn who’s son Ollie was 7 when she noticed a tiny bump on his neck that wasn’t going away. After months of trying to get answers, with multiple doctors suggesting it was cat scratch disease or tuberculosis, they finally got a biopsy that concluded it was ALCL. Treatment began, Ollie relapsed, and with the cancer cells now in his central nervous system they attached them...

Host Sam Taylor talks to Cara whose daughter was two years old when she was diagnosed with Leukemia. Due to adrenal complications during treatment, Cara's daughter arrested and was placed on life support for 47 days in the ICU. Cara talks about coping through this dark and scary time, what helped to pull her through, and how once her daughter was done treatment, she felt like she'd lost her identi...

Host Sam Taylor talks to her best friend musician Sarah Blackwood from Walk Off the Earth on all the ways friends and community can support a family through their child's cancer treatment. Sarah shares the ways they built an army of support, how they delegated tasks, and how they knew to ride the waves of treatment by sitting in the pain and fear of cancer and never trying to make it better....

In recognition of International Childhood Cancer Day, join host Sam Taylor on The Deep C as she sits down with Sickboy to share how parents and caregivers learn to cope with their child's cancer diagnosis. Sam talks about how disorienting and lonely it is when a child is diagnosed, and how it feels like being tossed into the depths of the ocean. Sam shares how the only way to survive and to carry...

In this episode of The Deep C, host Sam Taylor speaks with Carolyn, mom to four beautiful babies. When Carolyn's second baby Malcolm was 5 months old he was diagnosed with leukemia. In an instant, Carolyn and her partner were airlifted to CHEO (Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario) and admitted, during covid, while she was pregnant with their third child. For almost 6 months, Caro...

In this episode of The Deep C, host Sam Taylor talks to Tamy, the mom of a 6-year-old powerhouse of a little dude being treated for relapsed neuroblastoma. Sam and Tamy talk about the shock of diagnosis, of what it’s like being in treatment for 5 years, and how it’s never an option to stop moving forward. Tamy shares her well earned coping strategies on scanxiety and relapse results, how she’s fou...

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