Lifespan

Larry and Carol have been married for 66 years. About 17 years ago, Carol began to show signs of memory problems. She has since been diagnosed as having Alzheimer’s. In this episode of Lifespan, Larry, and his daughter, Madeline, who are both physicians, talk about Carol and the difficulties that Alzheimer’s presents to everyone touched by the illness.

When someone suspects they have a tumor, the first thing they think about, and fear, is cancer. So, when their biopsy comes back as “benign,” they’re relieved. But the word “benign” can be deceptive. In this episode of Lifespan, our guest, Deidre Naughton, describes her experience with painful, recurring, non-cancerous tumors.

“‘Breast cancer awareness’ is a national catchphrase. There is less recognition, however, of testicular cancer, even though the average age for onset is 33, far younger than for breast cancer. At 33, few men worry about cancer and so they tend to ignore any signs of the illness. In this episode of Lifespan, Dan Skinner, a professor of health policy, and the producer and host of the podcast, Prognosis Ohio, describes his experience with testicular cancer and reflects on the culture that avoids recognition and discussion of the illness. You can listen to Prognosis Ohio, Dan’s podcast about health and healthcare in Ohio, at https://www.prognosisohio.com.

Faiza Aziz is a medical student. Before enrolling in medical school in 2020, given her public health and medical knowledge, her fluency in several languages, and her familiarity with several cultures, she trained and worked as a medical interpreter. In this episode of Lifespan, Faiza describes the vital role played by medical interpreters in the healthcare system, how interpreters help to assure quality care for vulnerable patients, and the potential dangers to patients when physicians and hospitals fail to use professionally trained interpreters.

Bob Simpson and Estelle Carol have been together for almost 50 years. They have two grown children. Before retirement, Bob was a high school history teacher. Estelle is still working as a graphic designer. For decades, they also combined their talents to produce syndicated political cartoons under the byline Carol Simpson. Then, in 2016, Bob had a stroke. In this episode of Lifespan, Bob and Estelle share their story.

Chris Kaposy and Jan Beattie have three children: Elizabeth, 14, Aaron, 11, and Ty, 7. With each pregnancy, Jan and Chris decided in advance to refuse prenatal testing. But when Jan was pregnant with Aaron, her first ultrasound at 19 weeks showed some markers for Down syndrome and she and Chris had to revisit their original decision about prenatal testing. Chris is a biomedical ethicist and Jan is a nurse, so they brought unique forms of medical knowledge to the series of questions they had to ask and answer quickly. Since Aaron’s birth, Chris has written the book, Choosing Down Syndrome: Ethics and New Prenatal Testing Technologies. In this episode of Lifespan, Jan and Chris talk about their family, disability, and society. For a link to Chris’ book, visit: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/choosing-down-syndrome

Anna Mehler Paperny is a Canadian journalist who has worked for Reuters, The Globe and Mail, and Global News. She’s won awards for her investigative journalism. And she’s struggled with major clinical depression for most of her adult life, attempting suicide several times. On this episode of Lifespan, Anna talks about her experience of mental illness, the stigma of mental illness, and the history of the treatment of mental illness. Anna’s courageous, compelling, informative book, Hello I want to Die Please Fix Me: Depression in the First Person, was recently released in the United States by The Experiment. Read a review of Anna’s book here : https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/anna-mehler-paperny/hello-i-want-to-die-please-fix-me/

Steve Bild, Renee Pollock, and Mary Costello have all lost their longtime spouses. In this episode of Lifespan, they describe their spouses’ lives and legacies, their partners’ deaths, and their own adjustment to living in the aftermath of grievous loss. Steve, Renee, and Mary also offer advice to others coping with similarly profound loss. If you want to view Steve’s wife’s art, you can visit Mary Ellen Croteau’s website at https://www.maryellencroteau.net/. You can read Renee’s blog at https://reneerocks.blog/.

Debbie and Doug have been married for more than 40 years. In this episode of Lifespan, Doug talks candidly about his addiction to alcohol and his ongoing recovery. Debbie describes the meaning and effect of co-dependence, and the invaluable help she received from Al-Anon. Doug is now a substance abuse counselor, so his description of his recovery offers professional as well as deeply personal insight into the disease of alcoholism.

In the last 16 years, Bernhard Debatin has had three different types of cancer. Physicians in Germany treated his first cancer successfully; physicians in the United States successfully treated the other two. In this episode of Lifespan, Bernhard describes patients’ experience of cancer and its aftermath, and reflects on how culture, healthcare systems, and even language shape our experience and view of illness, treatment, and recovery.

While members of the medical community concede that at 32% of births obstetricians are performing too many cesareans, cesarean sections can also be life-saving. That is why listening to, and learning from, women’s experiences can benefit both the mothers who might be helped by a timely cesarean, as well as the mothers who can probably avoid the surgery if they are allowed to go into labor spontaneously, or permitted to labor a little longer. In this episode of Lifespan, Robin, Amanda, and Jacinda tell their stories.

We all know how sick we feel when our stomach is upset. We’ve all experienced nausea, diarrhea, and stomach pain—among the most uncomfortable symptoms we can have when we’re sick. But chronic gastro-intestinal disease and serious episodic gastro-intestinal disease take stomach discomfort to an entirely different level. On this episode of Lifespan, Matt Johnson discusses his experience with bouts of diverticulitis, and Katlyn Allen describes living with Crohn’s disease. Dr. Brian Torski, a physician specializing in gastroenterology, offers some commentary.

Last month, Jackie Wolf talked to three women, Lauren, Stacy, and Cora, who were pregnant for the first time. On this month’s episode of Lifespan, Jackie talks to them again—this time about their births. It turns out that the medical treatment and advice they received during their pregnancies set the agenda for how their babies were born. And the three births ended up representing the range of American women’s birth experiences today—a failed induction ending in cesarean surgery; an induced labor with epidural anesthesia ending in a vaginal birth; and a natural birth.

On this episode of Lifespan, Jackie Wolf talks to three women who will soon give birth for the first time. Their experiences during pregnancy have differed because each woman received a different medical label. Doctors identified Lauren, at age 36, as “a geriatric pregnancy.” Stacy struggled with infertility before becoming pregnant. And Cora, despite a “normal” pregnancy, suffered medically induced worries after doctors insisted on conducting multiple tests over many weeks only to find no problems. Lauren’s, Stacy’s, and Cora’s stories help us understand why our healthcare system is the costliest in the world, with worse outcomes, particularly for mothers and newborns, than in other wealthy countries. In the next episode of Lifespan we’ll follow up with Lauren, Stacy, and Cora to hear about their babies’ births.

Medical students of color shoulder a double burden. They are medical students, expected to do all the hard work that goes with being a medical student. And each day they also must cope with, and find ways to respond to, racism in the classroom and the clinic. They don’t have the luxury of simply being medical students. On this episode of Lifespan, four medical students of color, Alyssa Gerth, Andrew Williams, Aichetou Waiga, and Sami Nandyal) describe their backgrounds, and talk about their experiences in the classroom and the clinic. Berkeley Franz, a medical sociologist in the Department of Social Medicine at Ohio University, provides commentary.

One deceased organ donor can save up to 8 lives. Yet, on average, 20 people on the United Network for Organ Sharing waiting list die each day because so few organs are available. On this episode of Lifespan, we hear from Kelly Nottingham, who donated a kidney to her mother; David Burke, who received a liver from a deceased donor; and Cynthia Tindongan, who donated a kidney to a stranger.

Burns are among the most difficult injuries for physicians to treat. Our skin isn’t just our appearance to the world, skin helps to regulate body temperature, prevent infection, and ensure that fluids move smoothly from one part of our body to the other. When our skin is severely damaged, especially if the damage is widespread third- and fourth-degree burns, treatment is exceedingly complex. In this episode of Lifespan, Heather Salazar, a PhD candidate in the Department of History at Ohio University and a burn victim, shares her story.

Lifespan host Jackie Wolf’s mother died of lung cancer in 2010. In this episode of Lifespan, she uses the story of her mother’s illness and death as an example of end-of-life care in the United States. The American approach to end-of-life care is often characterized by futile treatment at enormous cost. It also tends to favor quantity over quality of life. To read the article Jackie co-wrote with her brother, visit: https://www.milbank.org/quarterly/articles/the-lake-wobegon-effect-are-all-cancer-patients-above-average/

Chronic illness is, by definition, treatable but not curable. In this episode of Lifespan, Jennifer Grayson describes her struggle, beginning in high school, with unexplained symptoms. Emily Abel talks about her experience with post-cancer fatigue. Mary Ellen Croteau explains how a chronic respiratory condition impacted her work as an artist. Katy Kropf, a family physician, listens to their stories and discusses the difficulty of treating chronic illnesses and how patient/physician communication shapes treatment.

Sudden, catastrophic illnesses often perplex doctors and terrify patients. In Doug Mann’s case, doctors at multiple medical centers could not figure out why he was experiencing a rapidly spreading paralysis in his legs. Months passed before he received a proper diagnosis and appropriate treatment.