Health Story Collaborative

Health Story Collaborative•www.podomatic.com

The mission of Health Story Collaborative is to keep the patient voice alive in healthcare and to harness the healing power of stories. By collecting, honoring and sharing stories of illness and healing, we strive to make the process of navigating illness less isolating and to empower individuals and families facing health challenges. Our belief, supported by research, is that storytelling is healing for both story sharers and listeners. Stories have the power to transform individuals as well as the healthcare system.

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Episodes

Episode 9: Sue's Story

Health Story Collaborative Podcast Episode 9: Sue’s Story (Originally aired on the WBUR Commonhealth Blog). In our last episode, Sue shared her story of living with Lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM). LAM is a rare, chronic, progressive lung disease in which the lungs fill up with cysts. In today’s episode, she shares her story of infertility. This story began before her diagnosis with LAM but came to be shaped by her disease. Fueled by estrogen, LAM would progress rapidly during pregnancy due to th...

Mar 02, 2018•15 min

Episode 8: Sue's Story

Health Story Collaborative Podcast Episode 8: Sue’s Story (Originally aired on the WBUR Commonhealth Blog). In 2008, Sue R. Levy was diagnosed with Pulmonary Lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM) at the age of 37. LAM is a rare, chronic, progressive lung disease in which the lungs fill up with cysts. The result is gradual destruction of the normal lung architecture, compromised breathing, and in many cases, eventual lung transplant. Fueled by estrogen, LAM primarily affects women in their childbearing ...

Feb 04, 2018•17 min

Episode 7: Vinnie's Story

Health Story Collaborative Podcast Episode 7: Vinnie’s Story (Originally aired on the WBUR Commonhealth Blog). Vinnie is a self-described “toothless, sixty year old junkie.” Thirty years ago he experienced a head injury which left him blind in one eye and debilitated by chronic migraines. To manage his pain, doctors prescribed him various opioids, including oxycodone and dilaudid, and gradually increased the dosage as time passed and he developed a tolerance. Soon, Vinnie became addicted. His li...

Dec 18, 2017•13 min

Episode 6: Zachary's Story

Health Story Collaborative Podcast Episode 6: Zachary's Story (Originally aired on the WBUR Commonhealth Blog). Zachary was born one of three identical triplet girls. But very early on in his life he realized that he was not meant to be a girl. He was a boy living inside a girl’s body. His biological sex did not match his gender identity. In this episode, Zachary tells the inspiring story of how he both discovered and embraced who he truly was. He is now a confident, happy, inspiring young man w...

Nov 06, 2017•14 min

Episode 5: Tiron's Story

Health Story Collaborative Podcast Episode 5: Tiron’s Story (Originally aired on the WBUR Commonhealth Blog). In this segment, we hear from Tiron, whose wife, Marie, was featured in our last episode. Marie was diagnosed with Stage IV colorectal cancer in 2007 at the age of 45, and lived bravely with the disease for nine years. In December of 2016, the cancer took her life. In this episode, Tiron offers his perspective on the challenges of marriage and parenting amidst chronic, and ultimately fat...

Oct 02, 2017•7 min

Episode 4: Marie's Story

Health Story Collaborative Podcast Episode 4: Marie’s Story (Originally aired on the WBUR Commonhealth Blog). Marie Pechet was diagnosed with Stage IV colorectal cancer in 2007 at the age of 45. Living with the disease for nine years, she had to come to terms with the fact that she would be on chemotherapy for the rest of her life, and that her disease would ultimately kill her. She did so with grace. Excluding skin cancers, colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer diagnosed in both men...

Sep 04, 2017•11 min

Episode 3 - Lyzz's Story

(Originally aired on the WBUR Commonhealth Blog) The pressure to be thin in our culture is enormous, especially for girls. For Lyzz, a 19 year old college student, this pressure has translated into struggles with issues of weight and self-love since childhood. Growing up, she watched her mother struggle with anorexia and endure multiple hospitalizations, feeding tubes, and seemingly endless suffering. Lyzz didn’t want to end up this way, but despite her best intentions she developed Bulimia by t...

Aug 10, 2017•16 min

Episode 2: Sara's Story

Health Story Collaborative Podcast Episode 2: Sara's Story (Originally aired on the WBUR Commonhealth Blog) Sara and Kerry met as students at Bates College in 2001. They were together for eight years, and planned to get married in August 2010. Just two months before the wedding, Kerry committed suicide. He was 27 years old. Suicide is a major public health problem, as the 11th leading cause of death overall and 4th leading cause of death for adults 18 to 65 in the United States per 2007 data. Ev...

Jul 10, 2017•17 min

Episode 1: Colleen's Story

Health Story Collaborative Podcast Episode 1: Colleen’s Story (Originally aired on the WBUR Commonhealth Blog). In this episode, Colleen Lum, a mother of two, shares her experience of living and parenting in the face of terminal cancer. More than a decade ago, Colleen was diagnosed with Stage 3 ovarian cancer – an insidious disease that is often asymptomatic until it is quite advanced, resulting in five-year survival rates of under 50 percent. Despite beating these odds, Colleen has recently dec...

Jun 01, 2017•14 min

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