Shows
Making Sense Of Cancer #CancerCanDoOne With Mike KinnairdSanna: Has Her Career Ended Because She Mentioned "Cancer"?When treatment ended, Sanna Tiensuu-Piirainen was told: "You're cancer-free. Good luck."
Then she was lost. And of course we know that's not a unique situation. By some distance.
But the real question that came out of this cancer conversation was: has discrimination ended her career because she's open about her cancer when talking to employers?
Sanna was diagnosed with breast cancer at 43 in Finland—a country with universal healthcare considered among the best globally. She received treatment: chemotherapy, radiation, mastectomy, hormone therapy. Then treatment ended. And healthcare provided zero framework for what came nex...
2025-10-2820 minMaking Sense Of Cancer #CancerCanDoOne With Mike KinnairdCancer treatment ends. 'Now THIS is the hard bit...' Two women talk through their breast cancer reality.The diary is empty. No more scans. No more treatment. That's it. You're good. So why do so many cancer patients feel depressed, abandoned and lost when surely it's time to celebrate?
In a first for #CancerCanDoOne, we eavesdrop on a brutally revealing conversation. This is the real and honest view of what breast cancer days are like and crucially what happens when the treatment ends. Because treatment is only one chapter in the story.
Rebecca Perkins and Charmian D'Aubosson are friends. And they both know breast cancer. They got online for #CancerCanDoOne, spoke to e...
2025-10-1422 minMaking Sense Of Cancer #CancerCanDoOne With Mike KinnairdHe was 30 and a gym owner. He'll never get cancer. Will he?"I sat in the car for half an hour and cried." His first thought; how will his new wife cope with this news? He was 30 years old with a life built on fitness and nutrition. He felt very alone.
There weren’t many role models for young men facing cancer.
Now, others reach out to him for advice — not about lifting weights, but about carrying the weight of a diagnosis.
In this episode:
How he went from patient to peer guide.
The questions young men ask that no doctor prepa...
2025-09-2321 minMaking Sense Of Cancer #CancerCanDoOne With Mike KinnairdFive Siblings. All Before 60. Cancer Has a Dark Sense of Humour.What happens when cancer doesn’t just hit one person, but an entire family?
In this episode I speak with Anthony McLoughlin, one of five siblings who were all diagnosed with cancer before the age of 60 — a staggering and highly unusual family experience.
Anthony shares how his family uses humour to cope, rarely talking about cancer unless it’s truly needed. He opens up about the loneliness and insecurity that can follow when treatment ends and healthcare professionals step back — the dreaded “Now what?” moment too many people face alone.
We explore how cancer can p...
2025-09-1620 minMaking Sense Of Cancer #CancerCanDoOne With Mike Kinnaird'A Better Man': How Incurable Prostate Cancer Remade Tony.Tony Collier had it all—or so he thought. In his 60s, he was the embodiment of drive: building a business, checking every box for success, and clocking 60–70-hour workweeks.
Then came the diagnosis: incurable prostate cancer. Life as he knew it stopped—and in its wake, something unexpected emerged.
In this powerful, unfiltered conversation, Tony tells us how cancer forced a deep reordering of his priorities. How workaholism gave way to presence. How fear gave way to clarity. How facing mortality didn’t just change his life—it improved him as a man, a father, an...
2025-08-1223 minMaking Sense Of Cancer #CancerCanDoOne With Mike KinnairdWhen They Don’t Look, They Don’t Find: Beverley’s StoryBeverley is a mum to Jake, a thirty-something who still lives at home—not because of choice, but because a missed brain tumour diagnosis changed both their lives forever.
For months, doctors searched for the wrong answers. Migraines. Epilepsy. Anything but the tumour that was slowly taking hold.
Today, Jake lives with seizures. Beverley lives on permanent alert. Every noise. Every bump in the night.
Her life is on hold—not from a lack of love, but from a system that didn’t look, so didn’t find.
In this episode, Beverley...
2025-08-0522 minMaking Sense Of Cancer #CancerCanDoOne With Mike KinnairdCancer in Cameroon: What happens when care is out of reach?What happens when you’re diagnosed with cancer but the nearest treatment is hundreds of miles away — and there’s no radiotherapy machine? When the cost of the most basic of treatment is way beyond what your community can afford.
In this episode, I speak with a quietly remarkable oncologist working in Cameroon. Dr. Sarah Adiang Mouelle explains what cancer care looks like when equipment is scarce, costs are high, and awareness is patchy. As a young oncologist she and a very small number of dedicated colleagues face a near catastrophic cancer situation with numbers only increasing.
B...
2025-07-2217 minMaking Sense Of Cancer #CancerCanDoOne With Mike KinnairdDale's life and family brutally changed by cancer in weeks - twice.Dale was at the top of his game. Literally.
A six foot 3, rugby playing, in-demand career-smashing, fiercely intelligent man with unlimited prospects. The hours were madness and the workload immense but it was all about the future.
And that was on top of having an incredible, wonderful partner and two small children under five.
A family of love in those fabulous years when families slowly build, grow and enjoy new discoveries together every single day.
It would be difficult to better this in many ways.
And then life took hol...
2025-04-0125 minMaking Sense Of Cancer #CancerCanDoOne With Mike KinnairdSleep, Cancer And This 'New' Science We’re Still Unpacking.We all know sleep is important. But if you have a chronic illness—or cancer—it's not just about feeling rested.
Sleep plays a direct role in treatment effectiveness, recovery, and overall health. Lack of sleep affects so many of us in the modern world and the working life culture of the West doesn't exactly help. Fancy an afternoon nap at work? Ridiculous waste of time. Except it isn't. The opposite, in fact as you're about to hear over the next 20 minutes.
The problem? Culturally too many see sleep as a waste of time in certa...
2025-03-1122 minMaking Sense Of Cancer #CancerCanDoOne With Mike KinnairdCancer Meets Comedy, Autism Meets Medicine: Stories That Challenge With A Blog And A Book.What happens when cancer gets a sense of humour? And when a late autism diagnosis changes how some healthcare professionals see cancer care?
In this episode, we meet two men rewriting the script—literally. One through a fabulously funny, no-holds-barred blog about his incurable cancer experience, the other through a powerful new book unpacking autism, prostate cancer, and the gaps in some healthcare professionals' understanding.
Meet Martin Howell and Mac. Two men, two very different experiences—talking to Robins or taking a TV to bits to make a radio. Why? Well, you'll hear over the next...
2025-03-0423 minMaking Sense Of Cancer #CancerCanDoOne With Mike KinnairdDon't Make That First Cancer Decision Today. Here's Why.'I wish I had understood the risks more clearly. My family made decisions they didn't fully understand...'
This isn't a blame game, absolutely not - this is just life. Everyone is doing the very best they can in a horribly difficult moment.
There is a limited time to get a message across, options need to be outlined, recommendations made. And jargon and specific terms can be used, that in clever hindsight, we just didn't understand.
It's a pressure cooker moment when suddenly you face the oncologist for the first time. You listen as...
2025-02-0420 minMaking Sense Of Cancer #CancerCanDoOne With Mike KinnairdCan Food Fight Cancer? Prevention, Food Culture, and Choices.What we eat can shape our cancer risk and treatment—and for those undergoing treatment, food can be a lifeline.
In this episode, we explore how diet impacts prevention, why some cancer patients lose weight, and how food traditions in some cultures are evolving.
So, from cultural habits to healthier alternatives, we uncover practical steps to take control of your health.
Gina Geibner is an Advanced Specialist Oncology Dietitian with a clinic in Haddington East Lothian and an NHS job in Glasgow, Scotland, and Nevine Baligh is a Non-Diet Health Coach with an MSc...
2025-01-2819 min
Making Sense Of Cancer #CancerCanDoOne With Mike KinnairdWhat Not To Say To A Cancer Patient. And What To Say Instead.'You're looking well. You know where I am if you need anything...'
All statements with the best of intentions from a good place. But they are statements. They're not questions. We accidentally close the conversation down by never having a conversation in the first place. Didn't mean to, didn't want to upset you any more, is perhaps the thinking.
Sharron Moffat will tell you there isn't necessarily a right or a wrong way to have that conversation. But it would be great if that patient - and we must never forget the caregiver - ha...
2025-01-2120 minMaking Sense Of Cancer #CancerCanDoOne With Mike KinnairdA quick off-grid look back over 2024. Nipples, topless running, sex and cellos.Stay with me; it’ll make sense in the end. Trust me. Now, I’ve got to be honest. I couldn't have second-guessed some of the topics we've talked about on the #CancerCanDoOne podcast, which only began earlier this year…
I imagined a cancer awareness agenda because you've got to start somewhere, and quite rightly, with audio projects like this, it’s the audience that decides on that agenda. And it transpires the audience that was looking for a voice and support. So we'll refresh our memory with just a few of the conversations over our part of 2024.
2024-12-1623 min
Making Sense Of Cancer #CancerCanDoOne With Mike KinnairdHow 'Kryptonite' is 'curing' cancer. Fake news, websites and other stories.
Fake news, websites, 'kryptonite'. There's a sizable list to get through here. And since when has stress been a key factor in our cancer susceptibility?
We're all stressed - a bit or a lot. Life can be a bit of a handful at times, and we know we need a bit of stress to keep us...well...aware; alert.
Bystanders like me who simply don't know, for certain, the how and why answers to the above - and a very long list of other questions - need to get non-sugarcoated facts from the b...
2024-12-0223 min
Making Sense Of Cancer #CancerCanDoOne With Mike Kinnaird79% increase in under 50s cancer cases. How the Rathkopfs photographs capture the real story.Anna Rathkopf was diagnosed with HER2-positive breast cancer. She was 37.
She was suddenly unable to express herself, temporarily cut off from the day-to-day. As she puts it, she felt she was 'no longer a driver in my own story.' So she turned to what she best understood. Already an accomplished photographer she began documenting that story with her camera, taking hundreds of images over seven years.
Her husband Jordan - also a highly skilled photographer, had no idea what she was doing initially. Anna's original idea was to capture memories for their little boy...
2024-11-2523 min
Making Sense Of Cancer #CancerCanDoOne With Mike KinnairdHow Music Changes Lives On The Cancer JourneyThe extraordinary power of music and how it changes lives.
Music therapy has a massive, positive impact on helping cancer patients find some peace and bring back valuable memories at a very tough time. Alphonso Archer previously worked in sales in IT in the UK, but his own cancer diagnosis shifted priorities.
Now with a Masters Degree in Music Psychotherapy, he helps patients, including those who have never played an instrument before, to create music that means so much, particularly those facing end-of-life...
Once again, hands up, this was a subject I had no...
2024-11-1220 min
Making Sense Of Cancer #CancerCanDoOne With Mike KinnairdLingering Cancer Legacy of 9/11 SurvivorsMore than 24,000 cancer cases have been confirmed since the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York in 2001.
And the story is as relevant today as ever. Because new cases continue to come forward, and getting those cases officially recognised is an ongoing battle. A struggle made harder for those with English as a second language.
It's still a raw story to tell for the many who survived the attack and who are now facing cancer. When the first plane hit, Will Rivera was a teenager waiting for a school bus in Lower Ma...
2024-11-0418 minMaking Sense Of Cancer #CancerCanDoOne With Mike KinnairdMenopause, mental health...and cancer.As if cancer isn't enough, life throws menopause into the mix. Not always, but it can trigger early onset.
And while we're at it let's increase the pressure on our already fragile mental health.
So...one set of figures I read suggests 'For women under 40, the risk of premature menopause (from chemotherapy) is between 30–40%. For women 40 and older, the risk is greater than 80%.' Now clearly, those figures depend on age, type of cancer and a whole load of variables. But...no consolation if it's you.
Is this a subject still not talked about...
2024-10-2920 min
Making Sense Of Cancer #CancerCanDoOne With Mike KinnairdWill I Lose My Job With Cancer?Fear of losing their job, of being a burden to colleagues but needing to work for all kinds of reasons.
Those worries are with someone right now, somewhere. The stark reality is too many businesses have no cancer awareness policy. Zero. And so when a staff member is diagnosed, no one has a clue how to respond.
How to support them, how to talk to them even and certainly not introducing a cancer awareness policy that all staff can benefit from in the long term.
Basically, we're still not having that conversation at w...
2024-10-2118 min
Making Sense Of Cancer #CancerCanDoOne With Mike KinnairdHow A Yellow Promise Gave Dr Liz O'Riordan Back Her Identity.Dr Liz O'Riordan, consultant breast cancer surgeon. She was highly respected in what is still largely a male-dominated arena. Now retired, not out of choice. Back in 2015, she was appointed consultant in oncoplastic surgery in Suffolk. Two years later it's Liz who hears the words, you have breast cancer. And that's happened three times.
Now continuing her valuable work but this time through her books, substantial social media presence and TV work. She has a new book out in January next year. She is one very busy, in-demand woman. When Liz speaks, people listen...and they don't alw...
2024-10-1432 minMaking Sense Of Cancer #CancerCanDoOne With Mike KinnairdPink cows, pink pilates, pink estate agents.Turn Louth Pink. It just grew and grew...and grew.
This was just a bit of an idea. And then the parish church goes pink. Businesses bathe in pink, shop windows go pink, and another and another and...
Venues become day-long pink festivals of pink fun, friends hurriedly put together pink fundraisers in their homes.
It was a last-minute 'let's see what happens' moment from the Louth Run For Life charity in the small market town of Louth in Lincolnshire in the UK, that became an unstoppable fundraising force. Almost 12,000 pounds raised last...
2024-09-3020 minMaking Sense Of Cancer #CancerCanDoOne With Mike KinnairdStories of Cancer and Hope. Celebratory new book.Can a book of cancer stories ever be positive? Uplifting? Now maybe you're sceptical. And if you are then it's my very great pleasure to say that you are wrong, big time.
Because this is a spectacularly positive book in so many ways even though the subject is not an easy one.
Kevin Donaghy has cancer. And over some time he's part written and curated this book essentially told by those who have been there or continue to be so.
Thirty-nine extraordinary glimpses into real life from cancer patients, young and old. No dra...
2024-09-2417 minMaking Sense Of Cancer #CancerCanDoOne With Mike KinnairdHow they're easing your family cancer bills burden.Question! Did you know that a cancer diagnosis could mean your household bills increase by anything between £900 and £1,000 every month? That's in the UK and is likely far higher in many countries.
I said 'could' because clearly not everyone is affected in the same way. But those numbers are real, not 'exaggerated-awe-headline-stuff' and have come as a genuine shock to many in the cancer sector.
Because here's the reality uncovered.
There are people right now - maybe in your street - turning off their water supply because they are frightened of the bill. Eat...
2024-09-1621 min
Making Sense Of Cancer #CancerCanDoOne With Mike Kinnaird30,000+ people can't be wrong. Why they love Laura's message.When Laura posted her first Stage 4 secondary cancer update on Facebook she couldn't have known what would happen next. It was originally intended to be a way to update her family and friends on her treatment. But very quickly she noticed something unplanned and unexpected.
People from outside her circle were finding her on social media. She took her story across to Instagram and without any planning or marketing she quickly amassed a 30,000-plus following at the time of writing. Cancer patients, survivors, carers - and people totally unconnected with no experience of cancer whatsoever quickly loved h...
2024-09-0220 min
Making Sense Of Cancer #CancerCanDoOne With Mike KinnairdMore Than a Survivor: Teenage Cancer Triumphs in JournalismYou'd think all ambition would be finished right there. Dreams gone. Surely that's logical?
If you get cancer in your teens and recover, you're still not going to achieve what you thought you could.
Maybe that's what many think. And maybe that's true for some. But that's not the case for Ellie Philpotts.
She gets exclusives, such as breaking a national covid vaccination story in December 2020.
She’s written for Times Higher Education; The Telegraph; Reader's Digest; Metro; and HuffPost. Credits include Senior Reporter at GPOnline, Haymarket Media Group, and regular free...
2024-08-1918 min
Making Sense Of Cancer #CancerCanDoOne With Mike Kinnaird'Stay strong, hun...' Why Imogen feels let down by social media and schools.Feeling bullied. And her anxiety attacks were often not recognised at school. She felt punished for feeling the way she did. Not all teachers reacted this way; she did get some support.
But looking back now, she feels it’s the education training system that doesn't give teachers the skills they need to recognise these situations.
Fast forward and it’s now social media that can be a best friend one day, and then…
This is part two of Imogen’s story. She was eight years old when she was told her mum had leuk...
2024-08-1216 min
Making Sense Of Cancer #CancerCanDoOne With Mike KinnairdImogen was 8yrs old when she was told, 'Your mum has leukaemia.'How do you tell a child their parent has cancer? What words do you use...when?
There's plenty of help on the internet. But what about the real world? What is it like to be a child and hear those words? Is there any advice for all of us who may have to sit a child down and tell them at some point?
Imogen was just eight years old when that happened to her. Now 17 she has plenty to say about how the experience shaped her view of the future, how the lack of empathy i...
2024-08-0516 min
Making Sense Of Cancer #CancerCanDoOne With Mike Kinnaird'...But I have the voice of personal experience'. How you can shape cancer care.'Patients in my position finish the main hospital treatments then you are left with very little support and many patients feel uncomfortable and not certain how to pick their lives up...'
It's a feeling many cancer patients experience. They know the NHS is extraordinary. The skill, compassion, and relentless work have transformed their lives and restored hope. But...it's when that life-saving treatment has ended that they can feel lost. Now what do I do, who do I talk to, what is my life now...who can help me?
A charity in Lincolnshire, Every-One, h...
2024-07-2417 min
Making Sense Of Cancer #CancerCanDoOne With Mike KinnairdHow a bra and Tulips fight crippling cancer costs
Imagine ignoring that bump or that pain because...you can't afford the cost of a test or the treatment.
That's the stark reality for millions. Some British expats are giving up on their retirement in the sun dream and heading home because health care costs are spiralling beyond reach.
That's certainly true in Northern Cyprus currently gripped by 70 percent plus inflation. Bridget Tuxworth runs a restaurant in Lapta in the territory. She's organising an event to celebrate her 60th birthday for the charity Tulips, currently the only cancer charity in Northern Cyprus. It began in 1993 when local cancer care was al...
2024-07-1717 min
Making Sense Of Cancer #CancerCanDoOne With Mike KinnairdWhy the prostate cancer test really matters.If you're showing signs of prostate cancer, it's probably too late. That's a stark fact.
The current test for men isn't 100% accurate as it is but it's by far the best option.
I had mine a couple of months ago which is ridiculous. Stupid. Because men over 50 in the UK are entitled to the test and I'm a long way the other side of that.
I just kept forgetting to go to my GP. NO excuses. So I was lucky. The snag is even some doctors are unsure about all this subject.
2024-06-2917 min