A note from Kristen & Eva:
In early 2021, we started Breast Cancer Stories telling Kristen’s story to help inform her friends and family throughout the stages of breast cancer treatment.
A few months into starting Breast Cancer Stories, we started receiving messages on social media and emails from listeners sharing their stories and how hearing Kristen tell her story impacted them. Kristen even started receiving messages from friends and family she hasn’t seen or talked to for several years.
We had no idea how many people it would reach or how many lives it would affect.
As more and more messages of support rolled into our inboxes, we realized Breast Cancer Stories would not end after Kristen’s story was finished. We had to think of a plan for how to continue using our platform for the same mission: to help others handle the shock of breast cancer diagnosis and treatment.
We agreed to invite another woman with an incredible story full of the good, the bad, and the ugly of breast cancer diagnosis and treatments to share her experience, and to find her we asked the audience… “if this is you, will you contact us?”
Many listeners reached out to Kristen, connecting her with so many women in similar shoes and at different stages in their journeys. One listener-turned-friend stood out to Kristen. One who not only has a unique story to tell, but also has the heart to use her story to help other women feel less alone, more understood, and more informed. That woman is Natasha Curry.
Kristen knew instantly that Natasha’s voice needed to be heard, not just because she has a beautiful English accent, but because we knew she would bring her full authentic self to the mic with a drive to be a resource for other women who feel lost, alone, and terrified in their breast cancer diagnosis.
Natasha is a palliative care nurse practitioner at San Francisco General Hospital. While in Malawi on a Doctors Without Borders mission in 2021, her husband of 25 years announced in a text message that he was leaving. She returned home, fell into bed for a few weeks, and eventually with the help of her friends she pulled herself together and went back to work. A few months later when she discovered an almond-sized lump in her armpit, she did everything she tells her patients not to do and dismissed it, or wrote it off as a “fat lump."
Months went by before Natasha finally got a mammogram, but radiology saw nothing in either breast. It was the armpit lump that caught their attention. Next step was an ultrasound, where the lump was clearly visible. One painful biopsy later, Natasha found out she had cancer; in one life-changing moment, the nurse became the patient.
Before her diagnosis, Natasha knew her cancer patients felt fearful, but she never was able to grasp just how much terror patients feel until she became one herself. As Natasha is transformed by cancer treatment, we are a witness to the struggles all nurses undoubtedly face as patients.
If you were moved by Kristen’s story, trust us when we say you’re along for a ride when you tune into Natasha’s story. Listen to the trailer for a preview of Natasha’s breast cancer story, told in real time.
Listen to Natasha's Story: Nurse Becomes Patient [Season 2 Trailer]
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