The 30 Stories Podcast

Patricia shares how her own cancer diagnosis in her early 30s changed the way she understood healing, fear and the need for support. Diagnosed with uterine cancer at a young age, she remembers feeling overwhelmed by uncertainty, including questions about fertility, relationships and her future. In the absence of formal support groups, she turned to what felt natural to her: writing, doodling, breathwork, visualization and creative reflection.That personal practice eventually grew into Create to Heal, the core program of the Women’s Wings Foundation. Through her work with cancer patients, caregivers and health care providers, Patricia has seen how creative expression can help people process emotions, communicate their needs, connect with others and recognize their own strength. She describes creativity not as a “nice to have,” but as a meaningful tool that supports the emotional, spiritual and mental sides of healing.Throughout the conversation, Patricia reflects on gratitude, humor, silence, faith, community and the small moments that help people keep moving forward. She shares stories of patients who used creativity to find joy, make meaning and leave something behind for others. The episode closes with a simple breathing and writing exercise, offering listeners a practical way to quiet their minds, notice what rises to the surface and begin turning emotion into expression.

Steven’s story begins with a chance conversation that changed the course of his health. After reconnecting with a friend who survived a sudden cardiac arrest, Steven decided to schedule routine cardiology tests. His heart checked out well, but the exam revealed an incidental thyroid nodule. What seemed like a small, low-risk finding eventually led to a diagnosis of medullary thyroid cancer, setting off a period of uncertainty, scans, surgery and emotional shock.
Throughout the conversation, Steven reflects honestly on what it means to live with cancer as part of his daily reality. He describes the weight of hearing the word “cancer,” the difficulty of waiting for answers and the challenge of explaining such a personal experience to the people closest to him. He also shares how yoga, breathwork, walking with his dog and focusing on the present moment helped him build physical and emotional resilience after surgery.
One of the most meaningful threads in Steven’s story is his commitment to self-advocacy. He encourages others to stay focused on their own case, avoid spiraling through online comparisons and lean on trusted medical professionals. His message is grounded in gratitude, not because the experience was easy, but because it gave him a deeper appreciation for early detection, family support and the importance of taking an active role in one’s own health.

In this episode, I spoke with Dr. Mahadi Baig, a medical oncologist and oncology leader whose work focuses on advancing research for people with recurrent and metastatic head and neck cancer. Mahadi reflected on how growing up in India shaped his understanding of cancer, access to care and the devastating impact of disease when patients do not have the support or treatment options they need. His early experiences gave him a clear sense of purpose that continues to guide his work today.
Mahadi also describes how head and neck cancer can be especially challenging for patients and caregivers. Because these cancers can affect speaking, swallowing, breathing, eating and appearance, the physical and emotional toll can be significant. He discusses the promise of more personalized treatment, the importance of understanding tumor biology and the need to bring scientific advances to patients in ways that are practical, timely and centered on what matters most to them.
Throughout the conversation, Mahadi returns to the power of patient voices. He shares why listening to patients and caregivers helps researchers, clinicians and advocacy organizations better understand the real-life impact of cancer, beyond the science. His message to patients is clear and reassuring: take things one step at a time, ask questions, lean on your care team and remember that you are the expert on your own experience.

When Symptoms Are Dismissed as Anxiety
Yesenia shares how her thyroid cancer journey began with symptoms that felt alarming but were repeatedly dismissed as anxiety. She describes hair loss, air hunger, mood changes, irregular periods, hot flashes and extreme fatigue, yet says multiple providers told her she was young, healthy and simply stressed. After seeking support through online thyroid communities, she learned about thyroid ultrasounds, pushed for one and eventually discovered thyroid nodules that led to surgery and a cancer diagnosis.
The Toll of Not Being Believed
A major theme in the conversation is the emotional toll of not being believed. Yesenia explains that her diagnosis, radioactive iodine treatment, isolation from her young son and long-term health issues left her feeling angry, overwhelmed and underprepared. She speaks candidly about the lasting physical and mental effects of treatment, including difficulty adjusting after thyroid removal, dental problems, fatigue, inflammation, brain fog and the ongoing frustration of having had to navigate much of the process on her own.
Listen to Your Body & Keep Asking Questions
Yesenia’s central message is the importance of self-advocacy, community and being taken seriously. She credits her mother, her son, her faith and thyroid cancer support groups with helping her through the hardest periods. She also pushes back against the phrase “good cancer,” explaining that thyroid cancer can still carry serious, lasting consequences. Her advice to others is to listen to their bodies, seek multiple opinions when something feels wrong and find people who understand what they are going through.

A Doctor Who Felt Right
Wendy opens the conversation by reflecting on a life she genuinely enjoys: retirement, travel and reading anything she can get her hands on. That sense of fullness makes what came next feel even more jarring. After noticing a small lump in her cheek, she found herself moving from doctor to doctor without real answers. One of the most interesting parts of her story is how clearly she trusted her own instincts. Even before she had a diagnosis, she knew she needed someone who would not dismiss her and that search led her to a surgeon whose kindness, honesty and attentiveness immediately stood out.
Choosing Care With Intention
Once Wendy learned she was facing a rare cancer connected to her parotid gland, the uncertainty of it all could have made her feel powerless. Instead, the episode keeps returning to one important insight: care is not just about expertise, it is also about trust, clarity and how a doctor makes you feel. Wendy talks about major surgery, time in the ICU, the discomfort of a trach and a wired jaw, and the difficult decision to forgo radiation after an insurance delay pushed treatment past the original window. What makes the episode especially memorable is how she frames these experiences. She does not tell her story as a string of setbacks. She tells it as a process of learning who would really stand beside her, listen to her and respect her choices.
Faith, Support & Self-Advocacy
The warmest moments in the episode come from Wendy’s reflections on support. She describes how deeply held she felt by her son, her sister, her church and friends praying for her from Barbados and beyond. She also shares small moments that took on huge meaning, including a nurse whose name felt like a sign that she was exactly where she needed to be. By the end, Wendy’s message feels both practical and reassuring: know your body, keep asking questions, follow your intuition and do not settle for care that leaves you feeling unseen. The episode lands on a hopeful truth that feels earned: even in a frightening and uncertain chapter, it is possible to find steadiness, speak up for yourself and move forward with grace.

A Life Changed By One Unexpected Call
Maureen reflects on how a rare osteosarcoma diagnosis began with jaw pain that did not initially raise concern. What followed was a long and difficult path through surgery, chemotherapy, recurrence and proton radiation. One of the most affecting parts of her story is how quickly life split into two versions, the life she had before diagnosis and the life she has had to rebuild ever since.
Strength, Support & The People Who Carried Her Through
Throughout the conversation, Maureen returns again and again to the role of family, especially her husband, children and sisters. She speaks with honesty about the emotional weight of visible changes to her appearance and how much she worried about what her children were seeing and feeling. She also shares how support came from unexpected places, including online survivor groups and the simple but powerful act of asking for help when things felt too heavy to carry alone.
What Survivorship Really Looks Like
What makes this episode especially compelling is Maureen’s perspective on life after treatment. She talks about frustration, adaptation and the daily work of finding ways forward, whether through new routines, prosthetics, counseling or mindset shifts. Her message is not about pretending everything turned out easy. It is about slowing down, focusing on what can be controlled and continuing to find purpose, meaning and hope even after years of loss and change.

When Life Changed in an Instant
Jay’s story begins with a moment so ordinary it feels almost impossible in hindsight: noticing a lump on his neck in the shower, then hearing just days later that it was squamous cell carcinoma. What follows is the kind of shock many listeners will recognize, where life narrows quickly into tests, decisions and the need to keep moving before there is even time to process what is happening. One of the most striking parts of the conversation is how clearly Jay remembers that early blur of fear, uncertainty and the instinct to act.
An Actor’s Body, Voice & Identity
What makes this episode especially compelling is the way Jay talks about survivorship through the lens of performance. He is not only recovering from treatment. He is also trying to return to a profession where the face, the mouth, the neck and the voice are central to how others see him and how he sees himself. His reflections on scars, asymmetry, self-tapes and the quiet grief of physical change give the episode unusual depth, especially because he is honest without becoming self-pitying. He keeps returning to the same hard truth: survival is not the end of the story, it is the beginning of learning how to live inside a changed body.
Even with all of that, the episode never loses its warmth. Jay speaks with real gratitude about the people who carried him, the goals that kept him moving and the ways he slowly found meaning in what happened, from support groups to helping train clinicians as a standardized patient. What lingers most is not just that he survived, but that he kept building a life, a career and a sense of purpose after experiences that could have easily narrowed all three. It is a conversation about fear, adaptation and endurance, but also about humor, honesty and what it means to keep showing up for your life.

Diagnosis, Shock & the Start of a New Reality
Hanley shares the story of his son Duke’s neuroblastoma diagnosis with the kind of detail only a parent can carry for decades. What begins as a snapshot of family life and a multigenerational business quickly shifts into a moment that changed everything, when Hanley noticed something was wrong and a frightening diagnosis followed just before Duke’s third birthday. From there, he walks listeners through the shock, the uncertainty and the sudden need to make life-altering decisions fast.
Treatment, Caregiving & the Long Middle
As the episode unfolds, Hanley reflects on the long stretch of treatment that followed, including chemotherapy, major surgery, relapse, stem cell transplant and radiation. What makes the conversation especially moving is not just the scale of what Duke endured, but the way Hanley remembers it through the small human details: early hospital mornings, the search for the right surgeon, the role of humor, SpongeBob tapes and the exhaustion that comes with loving a child through crisis. He also speaks candidly about fear, trust and the emotional toll that remains even after the hardest chapter has passed.
What gives the episode its power is Hanley’s perspective now, more than two decades later. He speaks with deep gratitude about the life Duke has built, and with humility about how the experience changed him as a father, a husband and a person. The conversation becomes not just a story about survival, but a reflection on instinct, family, faith and the quiet ways hope keeps showing up when people choose to keep going.

Jennifer’s story begins with a moment she could not ignore. On a drive home in 2013, she discovered a lump on her neck and, drawing on her experience as a dental hygienist, felt almost immediately that something was wrong. What follows is one of the most compelling parts of the episode: a long stretch of dismissal, inconclusive tests and repeated reassurances from clinicians who told her it was not cancer, even as her instincts told her otherwise.
One of the most interesting threads in the conversation is how clearly Jennifer trusted her own judgment. She kept pushing, kept asking better questions and kept looking for answers until she finally got a diagnosis of HPV-mediated tonsil cancer. The episode becomes especially powerful when she describes refusing to settle for a treatment path that did not feel right to her, eventually finding a surgeon who offered a then-cutting-edge robotic approach that aligned with both her research and her intuition.
What gives the episode its lasting warmth is that Jennifer’s story does not stop at survival. She speaks honestly about the physical cost of treatment, the emotional aftermath, the isolation of survivorship and the long road back to herself. Yet what rises to the top is not bitterness, but clarity: a deep belief in self-advocacy, gratitude and using painful experience to help others feel less alone.

Laura shares a deeply reflective account of living with stage 4 metastatic parotid carcinoma, a rare cancer that began in her parotid gland and later spread to her lungs. One of the most striking moments in the episode is her description of going in for what she thought would be a routine surgery and waking up to learn that the tumor was cancerous, had affected her facial nerve, and had changed the course of her life in an instant. From there, she walks listeners through a demanding stretch of surgeries, radiation, chemotherapy and reconstruction, speaking with honesty about pain, uncertainty and the emotional shock of it all.
What makes this conversation especially compelling is the way Laura frames her experience. Rather than speaking only about diagnosis and treatment, she explores what the illness revealed about identity, self-worth and the need to stop living in constant survival mode. She reflects on family history, spirituality, intergenerational patterns and the long process of learning how to care for herself with the same devotion she once gave to everyone else. Her perspective on advocacy is also especially strong, whether she is discussing second opinions, changing providers, asking better questions or finding a care team willing to meet her with both rigor and respect.
The episode also offers a warm, grounded look at support, healing and what it means to keep living fully while still in process. Laura speaks beautifully about chosen family, therapy, support groups, scan anxiety and the practical wisdom of not carrying everything alone. She returns again and again to a few core ideas: listen to your body, ask for help and make space for life’s simple pleasures, rest and joy even in the middle of uncertainty. The result is a conversation that feels intimate, emotionally intelligent and quietly hopeful.