NiCole's Notes

Nicole Zeller

NiCole's Notes: The study guide for adulting. Witty, rigorous analysis of everything that matters: politics, love, illness, friendship, technology, aging, and the contradictions we live with. Sarcastic scholarship for the thinking Gen-X mind.   Smart when it matters and Witty always.  A graduate from the University of Calgary, B.A. Political Science '95, B.A.Spanish '08, born with cystic fibrosis, a lung disease that has been trying to kill me since birth. Hanging on to life by the horns with only 26% lung function. I have 20+ years of experience building organizations and understanding how systems actually work.  Founder of the Summit Foundation for Cystic Fibrosis, raising 3.5+ million dollars for local research, Philanthropist of the year for Alberta in 2014, Honoured with the naming of a research lab at the Cumming School of Medicine, Snyder Institute for Chronic Diseases, at the University of Calgary in 2013. Featured in a documentary about my journey with CF and being a CrossFit athlete, while owning my own gym in 2018. I have been a part of a 350 million dollar fundraising campaign and had a 50' banner of my mug hanging off the Foothills Hospital for 4 years from 2003-2007.  Currently finishing two programs at the University of Calgary, one in Graphic Design (graduating June 15, 2026) and the other in Integrated Digital Media (graduating May 2027), my friends would consider me the Sassy Smurf out of the group.  I may have been given a cactus, but I don't have to sit on it.

  1. 6h ago

    Master of Invisibility: Learning to Lie

    Send us Fan Mail This is episode 3 of 9.  At age 9, something shifted. Nicole joined the swimming team. And for the next 10 years, she became a master of performance. The world saw a varsity captain, a provincial athlete, a girl with no limitations. What they didn't see was the demon, hard and fast, every single day. How did she not collapse? A fantastic appetite. Sleeping constantly. Napping between every activity. The only way to perform invincibility is to rest when nobody's watching. By the fourth year, the performance was cracking. She was coughing up mucus into cups. Dumping them down toilets. Her exercise tolerance is becoming nonexistent. The masterpiece of invisibility was starting to shatter. This episode explores the invisible reality of living with CF while appearing invincible.

    Master of Invisibility: Learning to Lie

  2. 2d ago

    The Village That Kept Me Alive

    Send us Fan Mail Your parents are 17 and 18. You're four years old. You have a terminal illness. The doctors just told them you probably won't make it to first grade. Now what? This is the story of what happens when a village decides that's unacceptable. My parents were young and unprepared for parenthood, let alone parenthood of a child with cystic fibrosis. So they needed parenting, too. That's where Granni and Poppa came in — living within blocks, sometimes just houses between us, surrogate parents who literally held the foundation together. Granni taught me how to bake, how to cook, how to clean, how to recycle, and how to save water for laundry. Granni had afternoon tea rituals with very specific rules: milk goes in first, always warm the teapot with boiling water before you make the pot. These weren't just tea times. They were rituals about showing up. They were about a grandmother loving her granddaughter enough to teach her something useless and beautiful. Poppa was like the Godfather — all knowing, all powerful, this presence that commanded respect without demanding it. Every Sunday after mass, Poppa would take the entire family to Dairy Queen for sundaes. It was sacred. It held us together. Poppa was the rock that anchored everything. My uncle was the one who teased me relentlessly, who made me laugh when nothing was funny, who treated me like just another person worth messing with instead of a sick kid to be pitied. That banter saved me. My cousins Denise and Debbie tormented me with pranks — they convinced me a pirate lived under the bed and would grab my leg if I wasn't careful. I still have a thing about pirates under my bed. Doug was mentally challenged but could throw a ball farther than anyone I've ever seen, and I was in awe of him. I took him under my wing, and we had real adventures together. And then there was Neil, my brother, 15 months younger, who had to live in my shadow, who had to follow me in school, who had a complicated relationship with being the healthy sibling in a family consumed with my illness. We fought. We protected each other. We would take a bullet for each other. But none of them compared to Sleepy. Sleepy is a brown, fuzzy dog the size of a medium-sized book who was given to me for my first sinus surgery at age five. He has droopy, cute eyes. He got an ID tag like I did when I was admitted to the hospital. He went into surgery with me. He was never not with me. He was my only true unconditional friend — the one being who never pushed crap down my throat or beat me up or demanded anything except love. I still have him. He's 50 years old. He's my rock. This village didn't save me through pity or martyrdom. They saved me by loving me fiercely, by teaching me to make tea the right way, by taking me for Dairy Queen sundaes, by teasing me relentlessly, by being present, and by refusing to treat a sick child like she was broken. They made me fierce.

    The Village That Kept Me Alive

  3. 4d ago

    The Miracle Problem: Living After You Planned to Die

    Send us Fan Mail Hi, I'm Nicki Zeller. Welcome to Nicole's Notes, where I try to find clear thinking about the messiest things. I'm about to tell you a story that spans 50 years. It's a story about being told, at age four, that you probably won't make it to first grade. It's a story about a village that decided you were worth keeping alive anyway. It's a story about learning to hide a disease so well that the world forgot you were sick. It's a story about losing everything — your weight, your identity, your future — and thinking you were done. And then it's a story about getting a miracle drug that was supposed to fix everything. Except it broke me in ways I never expected. This season is the archive. This is the before. This is the 50 years I spent preparing to die, building a life I never thought I'd get to live, and learning what it means to survive when survival is supposed to kill you. I was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis in 1976 when I was four years old. The doctors told my parents not to expect me to make it to first grade. I made it to 54. I made it to a career. I made it to a foundation that raised $340 million. I made it to having a lab named after me. I made it to marriage.  I made it to climbing mountains on 40 percent lung function. I made it to being a public face of hope while privately wondering if I was going to make it to tomorrow. And through all of that, I never knew a future was coming. Not until the drug worked. This is the story of how I learned to hide. How I learned to perform. How I learned to be fierce. How I learned to survive. Starting with a four-year-old angry girl who had no idea that she was about to become the foundation for everything that came after.

    The Miracle Problem: Living After You Planned to Die

  4. Jul 2

    I Graduated. Again. A 4.0, Ten Thousand Dollars, and a Marijuana Dog Poster That Nobody Asked For.

    Send us Fan Mail Two degrees + Two professional certifications. Thirty-five years. A 4.0 GPA. Nicki Zeller on what changes when you pay for your own education — and a partial inventory of the worst art ever produced at the University of Calgary. Nicki Zeller graduated from the University of Calgary's Graphic Design and Integrated Digital Media program with a 4.0 GPA — her third post-secondary credential, and by far her best. In this episode she walks through the full financial and emotional cost of adult learning, the disasters that preceded the 4.0, and why failure hits completely differently at fifty than it did at nineteen. Including: the portrait of her nephew that she cannot take back. The marijuana dog poster that ended up Barney purple. And a still life that her professor described, charitably, as having "interesting use of negative space." This is a victory lap. It's also an honest accounting. Both things are true. --- 🎙️ Nicole's Notes is published every Friday on cokeontherocks.ca ✍️ Read the companion blog post: cokeontherocks.ca  📩 Connect: nicole@cokeontherocks.ca

    I Graduated. Again. A 4.0, Ten Thousand Dollars, and a Marijuana Dog Poster That Nobody Asked For.

  5. Jun 23

    I was a Latchkey Kid: My Real Gen-X Childhood

    Send us Fan Mail Forget the generic Gen-X nostalgia take — this is the real one, first person, with receipts. Ashtrays were a chore. I was babysitting a newborn at twelve for $20 a week. My brother Neil drove a truck at eleven. I was balancing a till at a bingo hall at thirteen in a room so thick with smoke it could cure a ham. And somehow, none of this was considered unusual. In this episode of Nicole's Notes, I'm walking through my actual feral childhood — the games, the jobs, the unsupervised summers, the playground equipment that could legally reach Mach 10 — and making the case that all of it built something specific in us: self-sufficiency, self-regulation, conflict management, and the ability to get things done without calling a meeting about it first. We grew up latchkey and feral. We turned out fine. Mostly.

    I was a Latchkey Kid: My Real Gen-X Childhood

  6. Jun 23

    Intro to the Journal Series

    Send us Fan Mail Nicole Zeller opens her private journal for the first time on the podcast. This is a four-episode Nicole's Notes series about strength, heartbreak, self-respect, and what it really costs to feel everything without running. Starts now. What happens when the thing that kept you alive starts keeping you lonely? Nicole opens the journal. Raw and uncensored.

    Intro to the Journal Series

  7. Jun 20

    Journal Series Ep4/4: I've Got the Perimeter

    Send us Fan Mail Nicole reads the journal entry where she stopped white-knuckling it and named what she actually needed — not rescue, but relief. Not someone stronger, but someone strong enough. The episode where self-respect stops being armour and starts being a standard.

    Journal Series Ep4/4: I've Got the Perimeter

  8. Jun 17

    Journal Series Ep3/4: Broken Hallelujah

    Send us Fan Mail Heartbreak doesn't always diminish you. Sometimes it expands you. Nicole reads the journal entry where she took inventory of who she was in the middle of the pain, and found a rare diamond, a meditation on expansion, self-respect, and the broken hallelujah of loving fully.

    Journal Series Ep3/4: Broken Hallelujah
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About

NiCole's Notes: The study guide for adulting. Witty, rigorous analysis of everything that matters: politics, love, illness, friendship, technology, aging, and the contradictions we live with. Sarcastic scholarship for the thinking Gen-X mind.   Smart when it matters and Witty always.  A graduate from the University of Calgary, B.A. Political Science '95, B.A.Spanish '08, born with cystic fibrosis, a lung disease that has been trying to kill me since birth. Hanging on to life by the horns with only 26% lung function. I have 20+ years of experience building organizations and understanding how systems actually work.  Founder of the Summit Foundation for Cystic Fibrosis, raising 3.5+ million dollars for local research, Philanthropist of the year for Alberta in 2014, Honoured with the naming of a research lab at the Cumming School of Medicine, Snyder Institute for Chronic Diseases, at the University of Calgary in 2013. Featured in a documentary about my journey with CF and being a CrossFit athlete, while owning my own gym in 2018. I have been a part of a 350 million dollar fundraising campaign and had a 50' banner of my mug hanging off the Foothills Hospital for 4 years from 2003-2007.  Currently finishing two programs at the University of Calgary, one in Graphic Design (graduating June 15, 2026) and the other in Integrated Digital Media (graduating May 2027), my friends would consider me the Sassy Smurf out of the group.  I may have been given a cactus, but I don't have to sit on it.

Information

  • Creator
    Nicole Zeller
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    24
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 NiCole's Notes
  • Show Website
    NiCole's Notes