This week's episode features stories from First Person Health, the audio story workshop I teach.

The first one comes from Patsy Day, who tells a devastating story about her stillborn child. When I heard the material Patsy sent me, it made me quite emotional, and I had to sit with it for a long time, before re-listening to her recordings with a producer's ear. Patsy lands a punch at the end of this piece by stating that in the UK, "The underfunding of stillbirth research is a political act." It's a difficult story, and Patsy tells it exquisitely.

Patsy is a podcaster herself, the host of The Wobby Middle, which features stories about how women navigate change in their mid-life careers.

The second story in this episode comes from Leah Wittenberg, who shares a harrowing health experience which changed her outlook on life. A sudden and searing pain in her abdomen, which was later found to be cause by H. pylori, led to complications: sepsis, an abdominal perforation and emergency surgery. Leah is an Overlooked listener who got in touch and signed up for First Person Health, and after the class, Leah said that even though she had told this story many times over, the act of bringing it together in audio for the workshop made her see it all with fresh eyes. The details of the story she ended up telling are pretty visceral and unforgettable.

Think of First Person Health as small-batch storytelling. The class comprises 5 or 6 people, and it's high on connection even though it's virtual. Participants have told me that the workshop has helped them process the experience they want to talk about, and make meaning from it in surprising ways. And I feel honored to be able to witness these acts of powerful storytelling, and help bring each one to life.

I'll organize just one last class this year, in the fall. If you have a story about how your health changed your life, here's more info about the class - sign up at the link, or email me hello@overlookedpod.com if you have questions.

What else is going on:

Thank you to everyone who wrote me after reading my last newsletter about my mum's passing. I am aiming to respond to folks individually because I was so touched by it all. You guys are the best.

I'm heading back to New York after a long time in Nova Scotia.

This summer I've found so much solace in my mum's garden and am suddenly paying attention to flowers and weeds and birds and trees in a way I never have before. I guess grief opens your senses in new ways.

I've been easing myself back into work as well, but slowly. I'm not a do-things-slowly person, but this is my challenge for August, to aim for a little calm before the busyness of September in New York really hits.

Two stories you must read about cancer:

Of course cancer is on my mind all the time now, and these two pieces helped direct my thoughts.

The first from journalist and science writer Clare Fieseler, who thought she was dealing with perimenopause symptoms, only to find out that it was cancer. Her piece has a title that points exactly to why I created Overlooked in the first place. Click on the image below for the link to the article.

-The second article is from Dr Allison Fitzgerald, an oncologist who recently lost her mom to cancer; she wrote this moving piece about the experience of being an oncologist and dealing with cancer on a personal level, and you can read it here.​

And then, my feed is buzzing with this New York Times piece:

My initial reaction to this headline was 🙄 (because I wrote about 'opportunistic salpingectomy' three years ago for MIT Tech Review). But actually, the idea that the New York Times is writing about ovarian cancer is super. It's the surest way to get everybody talking about ovarian cancer, and I also thought this Reddit thread was extremely useful (especially for those of us living in the US's broken healthcare system). The NYT article is behind a paywall, but this Instagram post from Dr Anita Mitra breaks it down really well.

Ok, one last garden pic.

Wishing you the healthiest of summers,

Golda