Sorry, I'm Sad (Kelsie Snow)

By 2018, Dr. Richi Gill and his wife Raman were living the life they had worked so far for -- after the gruelling years of starting a family during Richi's surgical residency, the Gills were back in their hometown of Calgary surrounded by their friends and family and Richi was living out his dream as a successful bariatric surgeon. Their three children, Saava, Akaash and Arwyn, were 8, 6, and 5 years old. It was a beautiful, happy life.  

Then, on Valetine's Day that year, Richi suffered a catastrophic spinal cord injury while boogie boarding in shallow water during a family vacation in Hawaii, leaving him paralyzed from the chest down and with only minimal use of his hands. 

In this two part series, Raman and Richi offer their perspective on Richi's accident, his injury and how they have settled into this new life -- one they didn't expect, one they of course wish was different, but one that is still so very beautiful and happy.  

This week: Raman's story.
Next week: Richi's story.

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In 2018, Dr. Richi Gill and his wife Raman were living the life they had worked so far for -- after the gruelling years of starting a family during Richi's surgical residency, the Gills were back in their hometown of Calgary surrounded by their friends and family and Richi was living out his dream as a successful bariatric surgeon. Their three children, Saava, Akaash and Arwyn, were 8, 6, and 5 years old. It was a beautiful, happy life.  

Then, on Valetine's Day that year, Richi suffered a catastrophic spinal cord injury while boogie boarding in shallow water during a family vacation in Hawaii, leaving him paralyzed from the chest down and with only minimal use of his hands. 

Last week, Raman shared her perspective on Richi's accident. This week, Richi talks about his injury and how the Gills have settled into this new life -- one they didn't expect, one they of course wish was different, but one that is still so very beautiful and happy.  

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Over the course of the next two episodes you’ll hear two very different stories about two very different lives. 70-year-old Laurel and 36-year-old Jessie had no connection in life, but they both had progressive, incurable diseases that steadily robbed them of independence and quality of life. 

They both also lived in Calgary, and that meant they had access to Alberta Health Care’s Medical Assistance in Dying program, also known as MAiD. Both women, whose lives traveled such different arcs, chose to use MAID.

 Today you’ll hear Ryan Leslie tell his mom’s story. Ryan is an on-air NHL host for Sportsnet and on Hockey Night in Canada. His mom, Laurel, who had the chronic lung disease COPD, died in September 2021. Going through the experience of MAID left an indelible impact on Ryan, Laurel’s only child.

 Then, in two weeks, Heather Lucier talks about her daughter, Jessie Ravnsborg, who died in November 2019 at the much-too-young age of 36. Heather’s story is, of course, different than Ryan’s. Jessie’s death was out of order. Children are supposed to bury their parents, not the other way around. About 18 months before Jessie died, she was diagnosed with ALS. As is so often the case for ALS patients, Jessie’s deterioration was swift. So, too, was her decision to wring all the love and goodness out of the days she had left and, then, when her quality of life diminished beyond the point when moments of happiness could pierce through the darkness of her disease, she would use MAID.

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In March 2018, Jessie Ravnsborg was diagnosed with ALS. She was just  35 years old. She died just before her 37th birthday. In today's episode, our second about Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID), you’ll meet Jessie through her mom, Heather Lucier. This is a story about choosing joy, about wringing out all the good from life that you can for as long as you can and, when the joy can no longer compete with the darkness of a most insidious disease, choosing to say goodbye. It's about facing your mortality, about knowing what matters to you in life and about the bravery of understanding what it means when those things move beyond your reach. 

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Four years removed from her stroke, Kelsie and Chris talk about how it happened, the physical healing required in the weeks and months after her six-day hospital stay in 2018 and the emotional healing that they realize is still unresolved.

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The pandemic that never ends is still disrupting our daily lives and killing many, many people no matter how tired of it we are. Darren Markland is an ICU doctor at the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and has been in the trenches since the pandemic started. His twitter account, @drdagly, has swelled to more than 55,000 followers since he began recounting raw, broken-down stories of patients he has treated. He joins Sorry, I'm Sad to talk about the state of the pandemic, how he has managed his own mental and physical wellbeing during the last two years and where he finds hope. 

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One year after her first appearance on Sorry, I'm Sad, Sandra Abrevaya joins Kelsie to talk about her life over the last 12 months, their friendship and their husband's shared illnesses.

Sandra cofounded I Am ALS and Synapticure with her husband, Brian, after he was diagnosed with ALS about five years ago. More than an interview, this is a conversation between two friends, two women, two mothers, two wives, trying to make sense of lives they never envisioned for themselves, trying to find a way to  find joy and luck and gratitude and hope in a world that sometimes feels dark and filled with sadness. This is about finding a way to still ask, in spite of the odds -- what if it all works out?

Listen to Sandra's first Sorry, I'm Sad episode.
Learn more about I Am ALS.
Learn more about Synapticure.

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Photos of ESPN SportsCenter anchor Nicole Briscoe’s family look like  a dream life, but infertility and the isolation and shame it causes are an all-too-common nightmare. Nicole and her husband, professional race-car driver Ryan Briscoe, worked for 10 years to make their picture-perfect family. The end result was two beautiful little girls. The path to that point involved seemingly endless cycles of hormones, needles, IVF treatments, never being diagnosed with a disease that can directly impact fertility despite being seen by countless fertility doctors and miscarriages so numerous you lose track of exactly how many there were.

Now, only two months removed from a hysterectomy, Nicole talks about it all – the complicated and conflicting emotions, the guilt, the anger, the shame, the isolation, the resulting grief from 10 years of thinking constantly about getting pregnant and staying pregnant and losing pregnancies – in an effort to help other women going through the same thing know that they are not alone. 

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Steve Gleason, the former NFL safety who has been living with ALS for 11 years and been totally paralyzed for eight of those, joins Kelsie and Chris for a conversation about how he and his family are flourishing in a life most people would find impossible thanks to radical acceptance, deep compassion for themselves and each other and abiding love. 

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In this season two finale, Chris and Kelsie answer questions submitted by followers on Twitter and Instagram about life, marriage, illness and work three years removed from Chris' ALS diagnosis. 

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In the Season Three opener, Chris and Kelsie talk about the loneliness of longterm illness, about the difficulty of watching your person grieve losses and grapple with profound sadness, about feeling isolated and alone in rooms full of people or even next to the person you love most, and about how to let people know you see their struggle and that you care. 

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After a tough fall season for Chris' health, Kelsie offers short update on how the Snows are doing and when Sorry, I'm Sad will be back with new episodes.

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Kelsie is back with an update on the Snow family and to read her most recent blog post, which can be found on her website, www.kelsiesnowwrites.com. 

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In October Chris' disease reached a tipping point and sent the Snow family into a months-long free fall. Now, more than four months since things started spiralling out of control, Chris and Kelsie sit down to talk about what happened in October, about losses of function that started to turn the tide of how their family works and about the trauma of repeated medical emergencies.

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Kelsie shares updates on Chris' health, what his two-week stay in the ICU in December cost him in terms of function and independence, how the Snow family is adapting to life in the last six months and why Chris is not joining her for this episode.

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On Chris and Kelsie's 16th wedding anniversary, almost three months after Chris' death, Kelsie talks about life without her husband and best friend. 

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We all have a sad story, and in this episode I will start to tell mine. Here's where I tell you what it's like to be told your 37-year-old husband has 6-18 months to live, and what it's like when an experimental drug gives him a chance to rewrite his diagnosis.

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Immediately after Chris was diagnosed with ALS at 37 years old and given 6-18 months to live, we learned he could join an exciting clinical trial for a drug that would be the only hope of saving his life or, at the very least, extending it. The one thing dampening our hope was the fact that Chris had a 1-in-3 chance of getting a placebo rather than the medication during the trial. This, along with hiding his illness from most of the world and, in time, figuring out how to tell people about it, coloured our next several months after Chris' diagnosis. 

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Grief can be isolating, but it rarely happens in isolation. In this two-episode arc, Kelsie talks to friends who have been there before, during and after Chris' ALS diagnosis.

In Part 1, she talks first to Flames Assistant General Manager Craig Conroy, who was hired to the Flames front office the same year as Chris, and next General Manager Brad Treliving, who has been Chris' boss since he was hired as Flames GM in 2014.

Kelsie talks with Craig and Brad about what it's been like to experience this alongside them -- from the early days when they were hoping it was anything but ALS, to the diagnosis and going public, as well as all the hope of the clinical trial seemingly coming to fruition and the heartbreak when everyone realized the trial drug wasn't stopping Chris' ALS entirely. They talk about how Chris' illness has changed their relationships with him, whether they think it has changed Chris and, finally, how it has changed them.

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In Part 2 of "I Get by With a Little Help My Friends," Kelsie talks to two of her friends who have been with her before, during and since Chris' ALS diagnosis. They talk about the things that have stood out to them in this time, about how they think Kelsie has changed and stayed the same, and how they have navigated their roles as supportive and loving friends. 

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When Chris started a phase-three clinical trial for a promising ALS drug, the Snows were hopeful. As the months wore on and Chris' disease didn't seem to be progressing at all, they were thrilled. Each month with no change to Chris' health made the notion that this experimental medicine could stop his ALS in its tracks seem like a real possibility.  And then, in April 2020, nine months after Chris joined the trial, that possibility crumbled with one photograph. Looking at that picture, Kelsie realized Chris' smile had changed slightly and that their story and the trajectory of Chris' illness had changed completely. In this episode, Chris and Kelsie talk about how devastating the loss of his smile and all of the losses that came after it have been and how, even amidst the most painful developments since his ALS diagnosis, they still cling to hope.

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When Chris was diagnosed with ALS, Kelsie and Chris' biggest concern was for the littlest people in their family. At the time, Cohen and Willa were just 7 and 4, respectively, and people often told Kelsie that the kids would be all right. But how do we make sure of that? How do we help our kids navigate their own grief and loss -- whether it  be a loved one's illness or death or the  depression, anxiety, stress and loneliness that's surfaced for so many during the Covid-19 pandemic? And how do we help them with those heavy emotions when we are struggling with them ourselves? In this episode, psychologist Cara Lizzi joins Kelsie to talk about what we can do to make sure that, in the end, the kids are, indeed, all right.

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When trauma comes at a young age, it doesn’t change us, it shapes us. Ryan Straschnitzki was just 18 years old and on his way to play in a playoff junior hockey game with his team, the Humboldt Broncos, when a semi-truck ran a stop sign and collided with their charter bus on a rural Saskatchewan highway. Sixteen people died in the crash. Thirteen were injured. Ryan was paralyzed from the chest down. In this episode, Ryan, now 22 years old and three years removed from that day, talks with Kelsie about determination, optimism and how the Covid-19 pandemic forced him to reckon with his grief.  

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In 2017, Sandra Abrevaya and Brian Wallach had it all. She was the president of Thrive Chicago, a non-profit in her hometown aimed at bettering the lives of the city's young people, he had his dream job as an Assistant US Attorney, and together they had two beautiful little girls. Then, on the day they brought their second daughter home from the hospital, Brian went to the doctor for a nagging cough. During the appointment he shared other strange symptoms he'd been having, most notably difficulty grasping a pen. The doctor eventually said he thought Brian had ALS and as little as six months to live.  Over the next many months, Brian and Sandra, who met while working on Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, realized there was a void in the ALS advocacy sector, and they could fill it. They founded I Am ALS, an organization that in just two years has propelled $83 million in federal money toward ALS research and treatments and, through its website, www.iamals.org, has given ALS patients and their families a place to go to find community, support and answers. This is a story of hope against the odds, of creating the change you want to see and of pressing on even as Brian's ALS has almost completely robbed him of his ability to speak and walk.

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Five years ago, Melanie Masterson was a healthy, fit mom of three little girls. She ran behind her double stroller, did yoga, ate a plant-based diet and, at 39 years old, she was getting ready to rekindle her work as a freelance writer. She found herself feeling increasingly exhausted, but with a 7-, 5- and 2-year-old at home, who wouldn’t be? Then she started coming down with terrible colds and would cough so much she'd break ribs. Eventually, her ribs started breaking for no reason at all. By the time she sat in a doctor’s office to hear a diagnosis that would change the trajectory of her life, she had seven broken ribs. The cause? Metastatic breast cancer that had spread so thoroughly into her bones that her oncologist didn’t think Melanie would live for a year.

In the years since Melanie has undergone chemotherapy and radiation, a double mastectomy, a hip replacement,  broken more ribs and suffered compression fractures in her spine. She lives with constant and chronic pain. But she is still living.

This is a conversation about how to keep going when you take up permanent residence in what author Susan Sontag called, "the kingdom of the sick." It's about finding joy and peace despite living with both debilitating pain and debilitating sadness. It's about what illness takes from us, what makes life worth living and what we want to leave behind for the people we love when we die.

To follow Melanie’s story, go to  www.themelimello.substack.com. 

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Emmy-award winning journalist and New York Times best-selling author Kate Fagan joins Kelsie for a two-part series to talk about her latest book, All the Colors Came Out, which chronicles Fagan's relationship with her father, Chris, who died of ALS in 2019. Weaving through lessons her dad imparted on the basketball court during her youth, Fagan writes with love and honesty about how the two of them grew apart and about the steps she took -- quitting her high-profile job at ESPN to move home and help her mom and sister care for Chris in the last year of his life -- to close that gap.  Kate and Kelsie talk about their dads, about life lessons and making amends, about what it looks like to care for someone through this disease and about advocacy.  Be sure to listen next week when Kate and Kelsie continue their conversation in a special bonus episode. Part two offers an unvarnished discussion about difficult end-of-life decisions ALS families have to make, about the relentlessness of the disease for both patients and their families and about why Kate decided to become an advocate.

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Emmy-award winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author Kate Fagan is back for a special bonus episode. Kelsie and Kate continue their conversation about Kate's most recent book, All the Colors Came Out, a memoir about her relationship with her dad, Chris, who died of ALS in 2019. They talk honestly about the heartbreakingly difficult discussions ALS families have to have and about the guilt and second-guessing that can remain in the wake of those conversations. 

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In 2013, Christina Frangou and Spencer MacLean were packing up their life in Calgary, Alberta. Spencer was just finishing up his surgical residency, and the young couple had everything in place to move to California, where Spencer was set to start a fellowship in orthopaedic trauma. The future that stretched out in front of them was exciting and and, it seemed, vast. And then it wasn’t. In a gutting span of 42 days, Spencer was diagnosed with Stage IV kidney cancer and, at just 36 years old, he died. At just 36 years old as well, Christina was left behind with a shattered heart and a shattered future. The day they were supposed to start their drive to California, the day their new life together was set to begin, she buried her husband and embarked on a different new life – one as a widow. Three years after Spencer's death, Christina, a freelance journalist, wrote a moving story about life before, during and after Spencer's diagnosis and death. 

This is a conversation about the enduring heartache of losing your person. It’s about how to keep going when the future you thought you were getting is completely obliterated. And it's about the lasting love that exists between two people, even after one of them dies.

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Imagine realizing one day that foods you love and have always eaten easily are suddenly impossible to swallow. Imagine that a gulp of cold water ends up in your lungs and leaves you gasping for air. And imagine waking up every day for weeks unable to swallow foods you ate the day before. 

Sorry, I’m Sad is back for Season Two, and in this first episode Chris and Kelsie talk about their life last year at this time, when, over the course of just a few months, Chris went from eating normally to needing a feeding tube because of severe atrophy of his swallowing muscles. They discuss the fear and anxiety surrounding Chris' choking during that time and what it’s like to lose the ability to eat. You'll also hear them talk about the different ways this loss has affected their family and the challenges of navigating a terminal illness when the healthy partner has more of a prepare-for-the-worst mentality than the sick one.

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Meet Evelyn Faye Roy, a beautiful little girl from Calgary, Alberta, who loved music and dancing and art and books and Star Wars and her friends and family, whose light was blazingly bright and whose life on earth was heartbreakingly short.  Evelyn was 11 years old when she died of neuroblastoma in February 2020. This is a conversation about every parent’s worst nightmare, but it’s also so much more than that. It’s about finding a way to hold on in the depths of despair. It’s about choosing joy and light in the darkest spaces of life, about gratitude pulling us through the most traumatic events imaginable and about the power of sharing our stories. It’s about Evelyn, her mom, Heather, her dad, Mike, and her sister, Harper. This is the Roy’s story. To learn more about Evelyn and the Roy's mission to better fund research for childhood cancer, go to www.teamevelyn.ca and follow Heather on Instagram @happilyheath.

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Not long after the COVID-19 pandemic began, award-winning journalist and former Esquire magazine staff writer Chris Jones started telling Friday afternoon stories on his Twitter account, @enswelljones. Because of his time profiling celebrities for Esquire and because Jones is the kind of guy who often finds himself in hilariously embarrassing situations, many of the stories went viral (one was read 8 million times and another 10 million). The stories were exactly what people were looking for, offering levity and laughter during a dark and heavy time, and that was purposeful. Jones is no stranger to darkness, and with his Friday afternoon stories he set out to offer some light. 

In this wide-ranging conversation about life, luck, mental health and what happens when the narratives we have in place for our lives crumble around us, Jones shares how his mid-life career change and divorce, along with anxiety, depression and bouts of suicidal ideation, have shaped who he is today -- a guy from Port Hope, Ontario, who wants to make the world just a little bit better. 

Some links to things talked about in this episode: Esquire story Chris Jones wrote about Kelsie's Chris in 2007, Pete Simon Twitter story, George Clooney Twitter story, peeing on a guy Twitter story, Ricky Williams Twitter story.

A warning: this episode contains conversations about suicide and suicidal thoughts. 

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Meet Drew Robinson, a 29-year-old who lives in his hometown of Las Vegas, Nevada, loves his dogs, has an infectious smile and was drafted out of high school in the fourth round by Major League Baseball’s Texas Rangers. Drew spent more than a decade playing professional baseball, including about a year total in the big leagues. His first hit in the majors was a home run. He is a goofball with his friends and is close with his family. He’s handsome and athletic and young and seems to have it all. But, as is the case almost always in life, things are not what they seem on the surface. 

What you can’t see while listening to this conversation is the physical reminder of the worst day of Drew’s life, the day his life almost, should have, ended. 

Drew is missing his right eye as a result of injuries from a suicide attempt on April 16, 2020. 

This is a story about that day, yes, but it is also about the totality of Drew’s life, about what led to that day and about all that has come after. It’s about thinking you have nothing to live for and then, by some miracle, surviving and realizing how wrong you were. It’s about having the hard conversations, about asking for help and about making it your actual job to encourage others to do the same. 

This conversation contains details about Drew’s suicide attempt and about suicidal ideation and suicidal thoughts. If you or someone you love is struggling with these things, please reach out for help. In Canada, call 1-833-456-4566 or text 45645. In the US, call 1-800-273-8255.  

If you value this podcast and would like to support it, you can go to www.patreon.com/kelsiesnow to become a member.

More:
Jeff Passan's story about Drew & E60 Trailer

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Cookbook author, journalist and radio personality Julie Van Rosendaal, founder of the wildly popular food blog Dinner With Julie, joins Kelsie for a conversation about how food impacts our relationships with others and with ourselves. Julie shares her experience growing up, as she puts it, a size that was not socially acceptable and speaks about her evolution with hunger, cravings and her own body image. She also talks about how people treated her differently after she lost 165 pounds two decades ago and about how she has made peace with her love of food and her love of self. 

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When Sheldon Kennedy was just 14 years old his hockey coach began sexually abusing him. Terrified, ashamed and certain nobody would be believe him, Sheldon kept the abuse a secret. It continued for five years. Years later, as an adult by then years removed from the actual abuse but still reeling and utterly broken from it, Sheldon finally opened up about what happened to him and, by sharing his story, started the long and winding road to healing.

Sheldon joins Kelsie for a conversation about his story, about how he has devoted his life's work to the cause of raising awareness and educating people about sexual abuse, harassment, bullying and discrimination of all types, about being a voice that people turn to and about affecting tangible and lasting change in this space. He talks about what it has been like to watch former Chicago Blackhawks prospect Kyle Beach go public with his own story of sexual abuse in the hockey world, about where hope his lies and about recovery.

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On their 14th wedding anniversary, Chris and Kelsie talk about how Chris' ALS has impacted their marriage, how they communicate, how they parent, as well as the different ways they process and deal with their sadness and grief.

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On a sunny day in August 2005, Nicky Elson, along with her parents and a friend, decided to float down  the Bow River, a quintessential summertime activity for Calgarians and one that changed the Elson family forever. Nicky and Kelsie talk about the trauma of that day and about the grief and heartache that followed. 

Trigger warning: this episode contains conversation about drowning. 

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In 2017 Jeff and Jill Quigley had two little boys and were excited to add a third child to their family, but at Jill's 18-week ultrasound  everything came undone. Baby Aria had cardiomyopathy -- a heart incompatible with life. For the first time in their marriage, Jeff and Jill had to navigate grief together, and they had to help their 4- and 6-year old sons understand what was happening as well.

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