Lifespan: Stories of Illness, Accident, and Recovery
On Lifespan, you’ll hear stories about encounters with the health care system. Each show contains stories bound by a common theme – a person’s personal journey through a particular type of medical trauma. The stories are deeply personal. Some stories reflect a person’s response to treatment and other stories simply reflect on the aftermath of an illness. Even when multiple people are describing their experiences with the same disease, condition or treatment, each account is unique. If the subject of this podcast interests you, please subscribe to Lifespan wherever you access your podcasts. You can also listen to Lifespan at WOUB.org/listen.
- Update frequency
- every 74 days
- Average duration
- 38 minutes
- Episodes
- 25
- Years Active
- 2018 - 2025
“Long Covid”
Janet Golden, professor emerita of history, Rutgers University, describes her experience with Long Covid and points out that infectious diseases often lead to chronic diseases and conditions. That’s …
00:24:22 |
Wed 09 Apr 2025
“Kidney Failure”
Dylan lives in Tennessee. He’s a magazine editor. He has a wife. He has a young daughter. And he has Alport syndrome, a hereditary kidney disease. In this episode of Lifespan, Dylan describes his yea…
00:47:40 |
Thu 02 May 2024
“Alzheimer’s”
Larry and Carol have been married for 66 years. About 17 years ago, Carol began to show signs of memory problems. She has since been diagnosed as having Alzheimer’s.
In this episode of Lifespan, Lar…
00:43:48 |
Mon 03 Oct 2022
“Benign Tumors”
When someone suspects they have a tumor, the first thing they think about, and fear, is cancer. So, when their biopsy comes back as “benign,” they’re relieved. But the word “benign” can be deceptive.…
00:27:32 |
Tue 08 Mar 2022
“Testicular Cancer”
“‘Breast cancer awareness’ is a national catchphrase. There is less recognition, however, of testicular cancer, even though the average age for onset is 33, far younger than for breast cancer. At 33,…
00:35:00 |
Mon 29 Nov 2021
“Medical Interpretation”
Faiza Aziz is a medical student. Before enrolling in medical school in 2020, given her public health and medical knowledge, her fluency in several languages, and her familiarity with several cultures…
00:33:16 |
Thu 05 Aug 2021
"Stroke"
Bob Simpson and Estelle Carol have been together for almost 50 years. They have two grown children. Before retirement, Bob was a high school history teacher. Estelle is still working as a graphic des…
00:25:48 |
Thu 10 Jun 2021
“Choosing Down Syndrome”
Chris Kaposy and Jan Beattie have three children: Elizabeth, 14, Aaron, 11, and Ty, 7. With each pregnancy, Jan and Chris decided in advance to refuse prenatal testing. But when Jan was pregnant with…
00:41:02 |
Thu 11 Mar 2021
“Depression in the First Person”
Anna Mehler Paperny is a Canadian journalist who has worked for Reuters, The Globe and Mail, and Global News. She’s won awards for her investigative journalism. And she’s struggled with major clinica…
00:32:54 |
Mon 11 Jan 2021
“Grievous Loss: Death of a Spouse”
Steve Bild, Renee Pollock, and Mary Costello have all lost their longtime spouses. In this episode of Lifespan, they describe their spouses’ lives and legacies, their partners’ deaths, and their own …
00:48:47 |
Thu 29 Oct 2020
“A Tale of Two Recoveries: Alcoholism and Co-Dependence”
Debbie and Doug have been married for more than 40 years. In this episode of Lifespan, Doug talks candidly about his addiction to alcohol and his ongoing recovery. Debbie describes the meaning and ef…
00:54:02 |
Fri 11 Sep 2020
“Three Cancers/Two Cultures”
In the last 16 years, Bernhard Debatin has had three different types of cancer. Physicians in Germany treated his first cancer successfully; physicians in the United States successfully treated the o…
00:36:19 |
Tue 04 Aug 2020
“Cesarean Sections”
While members of the medical community concede that at 32% of births obstetricians are performing too many cesareans, cesarean sections can also be life-saving. That is why listening to, and learning…
00:45:43 |
Mon 10 Feb 2020
“Stomach Pain”
We all know how sick we feel when our stomach is upset. We’ve all experienced nausea, diarrhea, and stomach pain—among the most uncomfortable symptoms we can have when we’re sick. But chronic gastro-…
00:43:17 |
Mon 11 Nov 2019
"First-Time Birth"
Last month, Jackie Wolf talked to three women, Lauren, Stacy, and Cora, who were pregnant for the first time. On this month’s episode of Lifespan, Jackie talks to them again—this time about their bir…
00:49:59 |
Mon 14 Oct 2019
"First-Time Pregnancy"
On this episode of Lifespan, Jackie Wolf talks to three women who will soon give birth for the first time. Their experiences during pregnancy have differed because each woman received a different med…
00:44:17 |
Mon 09 Sep 2019
"Race and Racism in Medical School"
Medical students of color shoulder a double burden. They are medical students, expected to do all the hard work that goes with being a medical student. And each day they also must cope with, and find…
00:44:54 |
Mon 22 Apr 2019
“Organ Donation”
One deceased organ donor can save up to 8 lives. Yet, on average, 20 people on the United Network for Organ Sharing waiting list die each day because so few organs are available. On this episode of L…
00:47:33 |
Mon 11 Mar 2019
"Burned"
Burns are among the most difficult injuries for physicians to treat. Our skin isn’t just our appearance to the world, skin helps to regulate body temperature, prevent infection, and ensure that fluid…
00:34:27 |
Mon 11 Feb 2019
"The American Way of End-of-Life Care"
Lifespan host Jackie Wolf’s mother died of lung cancer in 2010. In this episode of Lifespan, she uses the story of her mother’s illness and death as an example of end-of-life care in the United State…
00:34:29 |
Mon 14 Jan 2019
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