St. Jude Storied Lives Podcast St. Jude Podcasts

When Lindsey was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, her condition was so severe that doctors wanted her to take an emergency medical flight from her home in Missouri to St. Jude in Memphis.

But Lindsey refused.

She was only 10 years old, and she wanted to have that car ride with her family, not knowing how much time she would have left.

Thankfully, that’s not how her story ended.

And at St. Jude, Lindsey says she inherited a new family, a huge care team of people who wanted to do more than cure her cancer. They wanted to help her thrive. She says that approach allowed her to preserve the joy of childhood, even as she was fighting for her life.

More than 30 years later, Lindsey has her own family now, and she’s grateful to be part of a supportive community of friends who know firsthand what it feels like to live through childhood cancer.

Donate to St. Jude: www.stjude.org/donate

Transcript available HERE.

Credits Host: Joel Alsup
Recorded by: Andres Garcia and Nathan Black
Music production: Kazimir Boyle
Producer: Geoffrey Redick
Editor: Grace Korzekwa Evans
Executive Producer: Louis Graham

This podcast is a production of ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

When Mariangeles came to St. Jude, she was stepping into the unknown. She was from Venezuela. She only knew a few words of English, and she’d never heard of Elvis or his hometown. She also had no other choice: doctors in her hometown had given her a week to live.

At St. Jude, the treatment protocol saved her life, but it wasn’t an easy road. She was in a coma for several days, and losing her hair later was devastating. But Mariangeles’ mother sat by her side throughout, and eventually St. Jude came to feel like a protective bubble.

After treatment, Mariangeles stayed in Memphis with her mother. She went to school there and forged a career. For a long time, she tried to leave her cancer story in the past. She didn’t share it with colleagues and new friends, not wanting others to feel sorry for her.

But now she works for ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude. She’s motivated to work hard for the cause because she knows what it’s like to walk through the doors of St. Jude without anything but hope.

Donate to St. Jude: www.stjude.org/donate

Transcript available HERE.

Credits Host: Joel Alsup
Recorded by: Andres Garcia and Nathan Black
Music production: Kazimir Boyle
Producer: Geoffrey Redick
Editor: Grace Korzekwa Evans
Executive Producer: Louis Graham

This podcast is a production of ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

Addie grew up in a small town on the state line between Mississippi and Tennessee. It was the kind of place where everyone knew her. A whole lot more people know her now because of her budding musical career.

Addie is in her last year of college, but she’s already sung the national anthem before big college football games and performed with country music stars. She first sang in front of an audience when she was 3 years old, and music on the radio was part of her daily life as she was growing up.

She’s been writing her own music, too. Sometimes her songs are meant for friends, to help them through a tough time. Other songs are about her own life – what it felt like to be diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia as a high school freshman, to be treated at St. Jude, to overcome cancer and have a second chance at life.

Addie says what helped her push through treatment was chasing her dreams of performing and one day hearing her own music on the radio.

Donate to St. Jude: www.stjude.org/donate

Transcript available HERE.

Credits Host: Joel Alsup
Recorded by: Andres Garcia and Nathan Black
Music production: Kazimir Boyle
Producer: Geoffrey Redick
Editor: Grace Korzekwa Evans
Executive Producer: Louis Graham

This podcast is a production of ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

Amy knows firsthand that St. Jude never gives up on its patients because she’s been a patient twice.

When she was 10, Amy started to get a “blah” feeling that wouldn’t go away. She was diagnosed with ALL, acute lymphoblastic leukemia. For the next two-and-a-half years, she received treatment at St. Jude and its affiliate clinic in Peoria near her home.

A few years after she was declared cancer free, she had to do it all over again.

In high school, that “blah” feeling returned. She tried to will it away, but she knew the truth before tests confirmed it. That second experience with treatment was more difficult emotionally. But she found solace in fellow patients her age while she was far away from friends back home.

And while she was a patient the second time, Amy met her future husband during the annual 465-mile relay run between Memphis and Peoria. Now, more than 30 years after she was first diagnosed, she has two kids, and her days are filled with all of the activities that make a family.

She’s gotten what she always wished for during treatment: a wonderfully normal life.

Donate to St. Jude: www.stjude.org/donate

Transcript available HERE.

Credits Host: Joel Alsup
Recorded by: Andres Garcia and Nathan Black
Music production: Kazimir Boyle
Producer: Geoffrey Redick
Editor: Grace Korzekwa Evans
Executive Producer: Louis Graham

This podcast is a production of ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

Adrienne doesn’t remember much about her treatment at St. Jude because she was so young. She was diagnosed with ALL, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, in 1979. At that point, St. Jude hadn’t even been open 20 years.

The long-term effects of chemotherapy made her struggle in school, and Adrienne found refuge in creating art. As she says, no one graded her artwork, or said she was doing it wrong. She nurtured that love of art as she got older, and she graduated with a degree in graphic design.

Now she has two kids who are nearly grown up, an art studio and home, and she works with St. Jude patients to help them express what they’re experiencing through art. She knows firsthand the power of making something with your hands to show the world what you’re feeling.

Donate to St. Jude: www.stjude.org/donate

Transcript available HERE.

Credits Host: Joel Alsup
Recorded by: Andres Garcia and Nathan Black
Music production: Kazimir Boyle
Producer: Geoffrey Redick
Editor: Grace Korzekwa Evans
Executive Producer: Louis Graham

This podcast is a production of ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

When Enrique’s daughter Arianna was three, she was diagnosed with a rate type of brain cancer called ATRT, which stands for Atypical Teratoid Rhabdoid Tumor. Doctors gave her 13 months to live.

But then the family came to St. Jude. And cutting-edge treatments there helped Arianna live a lot longer. She passed away two weeks before her 8th birthday. Enrique says the family looked at those extra years as a gift, filling them with activities and memories.

Enrique also finds solace in the fact that the treatments Arianna received are now used on other children too. He decided to work for ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude, because he wants to do everything he can to ensure no other family feels what his family has felt.


Donate to St. Jude: www.stjude.org/donate

Transcript available HERE.

Credits Host: Joel Alsup
Recorded by: Andres Garcia and Nathan Black
Music production: Kazimir Boyle
Producer: Geoffrey Redick
Editor: Grace Korzekwa Evans
Executive Producer: Louis Graham

This podcast is a production of ALSAC, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.