Season 5 Episode 4: Overlooked No More: A Mother-Daughter Journey Through Ovarian Cancer

On this episode of the GOSH Podcast, we are joined by Golda Arthur, award-winning host of the Overlooked podcast, and her mum Teresa Arthur, whose ovarian cancer journey inspired it all. After Teresa’s diagnosis, the audio diaries she recorded became the foundation for Overlooked, a powerful podcast spotlighting women’s health issues. Golda’s 20-year career as a journalist has taken her from working at CBC and BBC to creating acclaimed shows like Land of the Giants, Today, Explained, and Overlooked. Meanwhile, Teresa has become an advocate in the cancer research community, combining her love of science with her experience as a survivor. Tune in as we explore Teresa’s courageous story and Golda’s mission to amplify women’s voices through storytelling. 🌟🎙 

Resources:
Overlooked  - https://overlookedpod.com/  

For more information on the Gynecologic Cancer Initiative, please visit https://gynecancerinitiative.ca/ or email us at info@gynecancerinitiative.ca

Where to learn more about us:
Twitter – @GCI_Cluster
Instagram – @gynecancerinitiative
Facebook – facebook.com/gynecancerinitiative
TikTok – @gci_gosh

Transcript

00:00:01 Intro

Thanks for listening to the GOSH podcast. GOSH stands for the Gynecologic Oncology Sharing Hub, an open space for real and evidence-based discussions on gynecologic cancers. We'll share the stories of gyne-cancer patients and survivors and hear from researchers and clinicians who are working behind the scenes to improve the lives of people with gynecologic cancers. Our podcast is produced and recorded on traditional unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. It is produced by the Gynecologic Cancer Initiative, a province-wide initiative in British Columbia with a mission to accelerate transformative research and translational practice on the prevention, detection, treatment, and survivorship of gynecologic cancers.  

00:50:13 Sabine

Hello everyone. My name is Sabine, and I will be the host of this episode of the GOSH podcast. Today we have two incredible individuals joining us. We have Golda Arthur who is an award-winning audio producer showrunner and journalist based in NYC who creates innovative podcasts that deeply connects with listeners. Over the course of her 20 year journalism career, she has worked on breaking news, produced long form documentaries, and let teams of creatives on deadline. She worked in radio at BBC and CBC where she got her start in broadcast journalism in Halifax. She then went on to launch and run podcasts at VOX media and MIT technology review leading acclaimed shows like Land of the Giants and Today Explained. In 2023, she launched Overlooked, an award-winning podcast about Women's Health which we will dive into on today's episode. She also teaches audio reporting at Columbia University. 

We're also joined by Golda’s mum, Teresa Arthur, a retired chemistry teacher who was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer in 2018. She was treated with chemotherapy, underwent a hysterectomy, and went into remission later that year. But recurrence has been the nature of the beast, and she was in and out of treatment for the next 5 years. All along, Teresa has stayed pragmatic but also optimistic. She's a patient partner and has participated in cancer-focused seminars and conferences, gives feedback on research studies, and combines her knowledge, curiosity, and love for science with her experience as a patient and survivor. For those of you who know her, Teresa gives main character energy and was in fact the subject of the first season of the award-winning podcast about ovarian cancer called Overlooked which was created and produced by Golda. I hope you would enjoy this episode as much as I did. 

 02:48:15 Sabine

 Welcome Golda and Teresa and thank you for joining me today on the GOSH podcast. I'm really excited for myself and our listeners to hear and learn more about your stories. So, I'm just going to dive in. I want to first discuss, this is kind of a question for both of you, I want to hear about kind of the journey of the Overlooked podcast how it began. I know it began from a personal story, and I'd really like to know kind of how.. what that moment looked like for you and the diagnosis and kind of how it sparked the idea.

 03:24:03 Teresa

 So, I could give you a brief background of the diagnosis. Well, “The Diagnosis” capital, all big letters. July 7th 2018, I remember the date; I mean it's etched in everybody's minds. It was a shocker, it was devastating for all of us, for the family. I remember the scenario so well. I was in the hospital in the emergency which I can feel going to later. But this doctor just comes in and says “I have some bad news, you have cancer”. So that like I mean in anybody's wildest dreams like you know a healthy person, just retired, looking forward to lots of lots of stuff happening, It's not, you're not able, I think, like I haven't ever been to a psychiatrist psychologist but I'm sure they would tell you this is something, these words would probably be on on the top of the list of “my minds blown” kind of you know. But in my head and thinking that's a terrible thing that's really bad I think. And then I could see my husband who was standing in front of me and we had two or three more friends – this was before the pandemic in 2018 so there was people were allowed to come in and out of an emergency room unlike now and we had a couple of friends standing there — and I could just see their faces and whatever I was feeling was the opposite of what I know they're going through. So if their shocked, I'm not; if they're devastated, I felt I wasn't; if they didn't know what to do, they were ready to collapse, I'm saying I have to get up and do something. So, it was like something that woke up inside of me and said we need to do something. So, my next question to the doctor was “so, what are we doing about it”. So, the next thing that came up was “what cancer?”. So, the next step was we have to do all these tests, and you have two options: you can go back home, and you can get all the tests done through your family doctor, or you stay in hospital for like whatever time and we do a rapid series of tests morning noon and night so that we can diagnose which cancer it is. Obviously I opted for the second one which was I'm going to stay in the hospital, and I think the last time I had been to the hospital prior to that must have been like 20 years ago when I broke my arm, and I had to get that fixed. So, I wasn't a hospital goer as such I mean frequenting hospitals I wasn't, but this was like “I’m perfectly healthy, I'm not feeling anything big major but let's see what this is about”. And those four days of testing was like a precursor to what was to come in the future. It was like, you know, colonoscopies, sigmoidoscopies, it was long testing X-rays, CT scan, the works till they finally got to one of the signs of ovarian cancer is that you get fluid in your edit peritoneal cavity. And so, they were they withdrew that in the operating theatre, and they analyzed it. And that's where they found C-125. So finally, after four days there was a diagnosis. So, it took that long. 

 07:35:01 Sabine

 And I bet that 4 days felt like an eternity.

 07:39:06 Teresa

 It felt like, it was just, actually, it was too rapid for my brain because whenever being an inpatient, I think whenever there's an opening for any kind of diagnostic tests, they just fill in the inpatient. Right? So, then you can't have breakfast today, don't have lunch today, don't have dinner, you need to be on an empty stomach. I lost about maybe 5 lbs in those four days. And well at least we had a diagnosis after four days. So, it was like, it looks like it's ovarian cancer because somebody came did a pap smear did all the other tests that had to be done, and they took all the tissues for testing, and said conclusively it's ovarian cancer. So, I left the hospital and then they put me on to the cancer centre and I heard words like “gyne-op”, “CA-125”, “stage 3, 4”, for the first time in my life. So you know that was the beginning of, that was the kindergarten of the ovarian cancer learning process. So, yeah that was diagnosis. 

 08:55:13 Sabine

 And it's very interesting to hear how you, kind of, as your family and friends were kind of, you saw all the expressions and what they were going through, you kind of moved in a different direction where like “I need to get something done” which I guess might even surprise listeners, but I think a lot of patients feel that way. And I’m wondering Golda how that felt for you and kind of how that journey moved on to the Overlooked podcast.

 09:21:24 Golda

 Yeah, I mean just listening to mom tell it again, I'm remembering how traumatic it was. And I think it was the kind of trauma that you don't realize you're going through it while you're going through it and then you look back and you're like “Oh! That was traumatic.” So at the time of course we weren't calling it Overlooked. Mom was keeping diaries of her journey and at some point I would have suggested to her that she turned them into audio diaries, that wherever she's going whatever she's doing, whether it's chemo or doctor’s appointments, that she just record herself on her phone on her voice memo app. And I said I don't know maybe one day we'll make a podcast about it. And it was really just sort of a throwaway comment at the time, and this was in 2018. And I did try in 2018 and 2019; I interviewed doctor James Bentley who was mom's oncologist at the time in Halifax, and I interviewed a lady who worked for Ovarian Cancer Canada. And then I just stopped because it was too much. It was like I tried to do it as a journalist and try to have kind of an outside perspective of it and the bit of me that was a daughter took over and I stopped because I just couldn't, and then I sort of tried again, I must have tried again at some point. And then the pandemic happened. And then in 2023, in January of 2023, mom said to me “I have all these audio diaries, I have like five years worth of audio diaries, what do you want me to do with them?” And it's like “Oh my God, you're still collecting them!” And 2023 was five years since mom's initial diagnosis, so at that point I thought like it's now or never. If I don't make this podcast this year I'm probably never going to make it. So, really, I started in January 2023 and I released the first season, which was all focused on ovarian cancer, in September of that year. And I think the deadline really helped as well, I wanted to get it published during Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month. So, that's kind of how that came about but it was not a straight line, that “here’s moms’ diagnosis, let's make a podcast about Ovarian Cancer”. It took five years basically, it really evolved, there were lots of stops and starts. 

 11:52:03 Sabine

 That’s so smart that there was, that you kept, Teresa, like audio diaries. I think that's not just helpful obviously for the podcast but for you. 

 12:00:19 Teresa

 It was a momentous moment for me the first time she said we’ll make a podcast and I think my initial reaction was, if I'm not mistaken Golda, was like “What! Me? OK I'll give it a try.” kind of you know like this is totally new for me but OK I'll try was my first reaction. The second one was more for myself and which was a little sort of you know mind searching kind of thing and saying to myself how will this help anybody you know like will it help or how will it help? And the third one was sort of answering the third thought was answering my own question and saying maybe this will give some meaning to what I'm going through you know like, something will come out of it kind of. I mean I always find new for things to recycle them even around the house so I thought yeah why not maybe we can recycle this whole episode of ovarian cancer. And the last but not the least was a sense of pride and confidence in Golda’s ability as a podcaster to bring that meaning to my whole journey and diagnosis and the treatment. So I knew she would it was like I had not an iota of doubt that she would handle this with you know with the like emotion and sort of at the same time use it to spread a message. She's like a. I know she's like, she has that activist thing inside of her so you know why not be an activist for ovarian cancer as well. And that got me on another direction with like joining Ovarian Cancer Canada’s PPI program where I felt I could really do something and quite a bit of many things out here in Nova Scotia where I'm now part of. So, that sparked it for me as well. But these were the thoughts going on in my head when she said let's do it. 

 14:25:04 Sabine

 Yeah, I mean the project is so special and obviously as you said Golda is a very impressive person and I feel like this kind of segues into my next question which is about your career. You have had such a remarkable career in journalism before you started the Overlooked podcast. How do you feel like your background in news and storytelling influenced your shift to podcasting? It's a really interesting shift and you kind of explore a lot of personal stories and sensitive topics. So how do you feel like your journalism career helped you? 

 15:00:29 Golda

 Yeah, I mean, it's a very challenging question to answer Sabine but I'll give it a shot. And the reason is challenging is because I think the truth of it is that in making Overlooked I'm doing the opposite of what my training has had me do all of these years. So, on the first part of it, I moved from radio to podcasting back in 2016 and I have been in podcasting, you know, ever since. I've been as an executive producer been making podcast for other people and organisations and clients. And so that shift was not two wild. But making a podcast that was so personal that was really different. My training is in news, and I came up in a generation of journalists that believed in objectivity, which preceded the kind of the larger conversation were having in the media today about what objectivity means and the view from nowhere and that kind of stuff. So my training has always had me stay at a distance from the story. And this was the opposite; I couldn't get closer to this story because at some point the podcast also involved me talking about myself because I have the RAD 51 C gene mutation just like mom does. And so then I was like wait, I'm not going to talk about myself. And that made me really uncomfortable. But I leaned into it because it's what the story demanded I guess right. And the genetics part of ovarian cancer is a very big part of the story. I don't think you can tell a story about ovarian cancer without talking about genetics. So then I was like “OK well the story that I'm reporting on as a journalist needs me to talk about myself here”. And so I think that was that was kind of the shift, that I had this whole career that suddenly I had to go and do the opposite of what I just was trying to do. Suddenly I had to ask myself does that training even matter anymore, and I'm certainly asking myself that now and in media and in podcasting. We are having really big conversations about the future. So I had to figure out, well how can I make this in a way that keeps mom safe keeps me safe, and I think by the word safe I was trying to say like, we have to tell the truth about things but we also have to make this mean something to other people, And I think that was the way out for me. What does this story mean to other people? Other people like mom? Other people like me? And since Overlooked’sfirst season and now the season 2 season 3 come out as well, I've really been amazed at how many people have been motivated to write to me after they've heard it and just say to me “Oh my God, I'm right there with you”, “my mom has a ovarian cancer”, or “I have learn cancer”. And they wrote to me and they still continue to write to me and I'm just blown away by the stories. I'm blown away by the fact that they thought it was useful and helpful. And so I do feel like, oh okay, that's it, I can check that box, this you know this podcast did what I set out to have it do which is help other people. And I know that that was really important to mom as well that we didn't just make this about her and her story that there was meaning in it for others. I think what became really clear at the end of it was that there's this whole set. There’s this whole story around ovarian cancer. There's this whole cancer that was not being seen at all. And women who had ovarian cancer were not being seen either. There were problems with diagnosing, it their problems with treating, it we haven't had innovation in ovarian cancer in decades. And then you guys come along and you do such great work that I was like OK this is the moment to tell this story as well and I think that helped me to feel like I was standing on solid ground with it because at some point I was just drowning in tape and I was drowning in the story and I was like, you know, having to shift perspective from daughter to storyteller or narrator, so I was lost. So I had a couple of things in place that kept me moving forward and in a straight line and certainly thinking about how it would land with listeners was one way to do it.

 20:07:28 Sabine

 Yeah, I think the shift to podcasting is kind of important and I do see why so many people are contacting you about it. I think even for me as a podcast listener, I think it is something that, it is even starting to give people the news through podcast form, and I think people like to listen to people relate to it people like to hear conversation rather than and just reading a story right. And I think that's really important especially when it's this personal. But with talking about kind of the personal story I'd like to shift to Teresa a little bit. I just want to hear about kind of what the first sign was. We heard a little bit about your journey the first day in that hospital those the first sign that led you to actually seek medical help and how was it to navigate the healthcare system because everyone has kind of a different journey with that.

 20:59:20 Teresa

It had nothing to do with ovarian cancer, my first encounter with being you know, getting to the hospital had nothing to do with ovarian cancer. My family doctor prior to getting to that ovarian cancer diagnosis stage sent me in for ultrasound because I was getting some abdominal pain early like March April of 2018. So, he sent me for these two tests and blood tests to check the liver output. There was like bloating, there was pain. And they came back with a diagnosis which said I have lots of gallbladder stones. They did mention one thing that they were finding it difficult to look too kind of locate stuff inside because there was this smoky fluid all over. So now that is like such an obvious sign but at that time he missed it as well sort of in a way. And so I was scheduled for gallbladder surgery which was put back to September of 2018 cause it took that much time to be on the list, the doctor was going on summer vacation and it was there waiting for my name would come up sometime in September. But by July, I was getting more regular pain and gallbladders playing up again. So, after two consecutive nights of pain my husband insisted that we go to emergency, and I thought OK I'm going to emergency they'll take me in they do an emergency gallbladder surgery. So, that's how I'll ended up in the emergency room and list said what they basically said is “I don't think it's anything to do with your gallbladder, yes you do have stones, but you have cancer”. That was how that came out. So, that was my first brush with the word “cancer”. It came through a gallbladder issue. So, one organ led to another being looked at.

23:38:25 Sabine

And it's interesting to hear that because I feel like every ones story who I speak to about cancer, it's never what you expect that led them to getting things checked, right? And kind of looking back on that time, what was the hardest part about sharing your diagnosis as you said with your friends who are at the hospital, but especially with your children.

 24:00:14 Teresa

By Golda and my youngest daughter Esther, were in London. Golda was on holiday, and she lives there, Esther lives there. My son was coming here anyway like couple of days after my diagnosis I when I got back home so he was the first one we told but I was very very very nervous when it came to telling the children. I didn’t want to do this. I was very hesitant firstly as to how they would react and I'm like not there to… they're not with me to you know for me to hold them up kind of in this moment. There was even a sense of guilt that I shouldn't tell them and rock their own world and their lives because at that time many years ago I have 7 grandkids and some of them were just one year old, two of them were just one year old babies. And so everybody is like you know doing their own thing they have their own lives and to throw this this thing at them I wasn't very I was very hesitant to tell them about. It was like “I don't want to do this”. It was difficult that was the most difficult part.

25:32:15 Sabine

I bet. And how’s sharing this story kind of changed your relationship with each other.

25:38:16 Teresa

It was 2-pronged kind of. Firstly, sharing the story, like for me it was like Golda the producer of this podcast. So, OK she knows better what to do, she's you know like tells me how to do it, this is what you should do, it’s like directing the podcast, right? So, I had to cut myself off from the role of mother daughter kind of there. And that those days or that time also I think there was a bit of a role reversal like through the journey of cancer more than the podcasting as well. It was like role reversal from parent to child so like you know, she being the matriarch, she's the oldest of my three children so being the oldest she just took over the reins. Even though I remember, when we broke the news to her, she was the one who broke down first and my younger daughter was like you know kind of supporting her. But I think she stepped up to the plate as the eldest child in the family and like just took over being the strong one organizing everyone who visited when who came for what and you know how do we do this like everything was like looked after sort of like when she was here even when she wasn't, you know, tickets were booked in advance for all the whole family kind of thing and so and so you know Aaron's coming, and that's my son, he's coming on this day he beer for this long and you know even through the pandemic it was like everything was like all organized. Golda is a great organizer. She just took over. But it yeah she was like on a different it was a different role that I saw Golda a play and sort of it was nice to have her take on that role you know like that strong person. And I think a part doing a podcast with her reinforced that that that that you know kind of I could see this strength coming out of her that I'd never seen before. So, yeah that that I think was the two things that really came through and you know that was how it was for me.

28:22:15 Golda

Aw, thanks mom! So, it turns out that at both as a daughter and as a producer being bossy comes very easily to me.

28:22:15 Sabine

I think that’s the eldest child syndrome.

28:37:02 Golda

Yeah, it's totally eldest daughter of me. Yeah, so I think I mean obviously it's brought me and mum much closer. So, in a physical sense, for example, I would have to I live in New York, and I would travel back to Halifax, Nova Scotia quite a lot to do recording, to build up this podcast basically. So, I saw much more of them, of mom and dad, which is great. I had a chance to be there for chemo. For example, for the episode on treatment, I recorded that little beepy machine, I could like hear that in my dreams, the machine, the chemo machine, and I was there in the room. And my brother and sister have also had a chance to be in the room with the chemo, but I think that I got to do it a little bit differently because I interviewed the chemo nurse and I interviewed moms oncologists Dr. Šačiragić, I interviewed moms oncology nurse and so I've got to know the people involved in this cancer differently in addition to being there with mom I got to understand the science in a really in depth way mom. And I have this inside joke that she's a science teacher and I'm a liberal arts major and whenever something happened, so many parts of this cancer I did not understand I did not understand it for five years and I look back on it now and I think how did I just not understand this stuff and discovered is that most people are like, that this stuff is really complicated and for whatever reason, doctors don't always have the time to really explain it to you. So, there were many times when I would say to mom “what does this mean?”. And she would talk like a scientist, she would talk with a scientist is talking to another scientist and I would say “Yeah but I'm a liberal arts major mom, and I don't understand what you just said.” So, she would be like “OK let me talk to you like you are a liberal arts major”. So, I think that you know I saw a different side of mom as well where she had such a firm grasp of the science and of what was going on in her body and I certainly understood things much more after that, after talking to her. I do feel quite protective of her in a way that I don't necessarily with other you know in my journalism career it's not always my job to protect the source like if I'm talking to someone who's for example a politician or somebody involved in policy, I will just ask them a question and have some say out loud but the answer. I do feel differently about things about someone at the heart of the story when I'm talking to them and my mom was that person at the heart of the story, so that's where I think she would say things or there were a couple of diaries where I thought were too intimate to put in the podcast so I didn't, I just made that editorial an executive decision that this diary is too personal mom and I'm not going to use it I'm going to use something else. So kind of to see my mom is a story was a new thing for me. So, you know I think becoming closer to her was just one was just one aspect of it but yeah I think it really deepened our relationships and we probably saw different sides of each other through making this podcast.

32:09:26 Sabine

Yeah and with that experience, what was the most kind of surprising challenge in talking about health and cancer in a podcast and creating a podcast around it?

32:22:09 Golda

I found the science hard to understand and that was a challenge. Maybe it wasn't as surprising 'cause I'm like yes of course it's hard to understand and also I’m a liberal arts major but so that was one thing and then I talked about sort of how I dealt with mom as a source in a way. I think the thing that I found I was really blown away by is coming back to this idea of the people who wrote in after they heard the show. And I didn't realize how overlooked women felt. And my challenge then was well what will I do with this. People were writing to me to say not only do I understand this cancer better, but I feel seen. And it was the “I feel seen” bit that really took me aback an but maybe I knew it theoretically but to see it in black and white in the e-mail from somebody living in Australia who I don't know who doesn't know me just telling me you made me feel seen your mom made me feel seen..

33:51:01 Sabine

You like you done it, like this is what you had to do.

33:54:16 Golda

Yeah. And in a way I feel like that puts a little bit of responsibility on me as the maker of the podcast right? How can I hold that person's story as tenderly as I held moms. So, I would write back to everybody who wrote to me. And I think the idea for keeping Overlooked going beyond the story of ovarian cancer and mom’s story came from that and so that was my response to that challenge of like well what do I do with this whole new level that is kind of come up. And so I moved over looked beyond the story of ovarian cancer and now I've put out two seasons this year and I've covered everything from IUD insertion, to like a remapping of the ovaries themselves, to ADHD in peri-menopausal women and still women are writing to me to say “Wow, I feel seen”. And so for as long as they're doing that I'm going to keep Overlooked going because it still doesn't cease to surprise me how much work there is to be done in women's health in this respect.

35:06:05 Sabine

Absolutely and your work in Overlooked has been recognized with prestigious awards and so why do you feel that the health focused podcasts resonates so strongly with our audiences today? I feel like you've already kind of discussed that a bit, but what do you think?

35:23:04 Golda

Yeah, it goes back to that idea that we have a lot of work to do in women's health, and we have a lot we have a lot of research work to do, we have a lot of questions that are unanswered that we need to start to even ask out loud which we haven't been doing before. There's so much work to be done in women's health funding whether that is on the sort of the university and research side helping folks like you guys you know get your work done, or even this like a bunch of startups that talk to a bunch of startup founders this year who are trying to do work that hasn't been done before and they're working with you know venture and private funding not enough funding there. And then there's just like that much more attention that we need to give to women you know in terms of how we dismiss them. And I say I don't blame doctors, I don't blame the medical profession, I don't blame anyone. I think we all as a society are guilty of dismissing ourselves as women dismissing other women not believing women. And when we are not believed as women we tend to doubt ourselves. And that's one thing that mom has always actually said to me, of like you know, “Don't shrink yourself so somebody can deal with you better. If you've got a big issue or if you have something big to say just say it. Let the world so deal with it.” And I found that incredibly helpful because I've spent most of my life making myself palatable for other people and I think I’m done.

37:11:19 Sabine

That’s very important advice. I think everyone needs to hear that. And I just have two more questions to close off and then we're done. This is kind of to both of you: What do you hope listeners especially women take away from Overlooked?

37:30:01 Teresa

Women's health, especially like you know being aware of that, just raising awareness in yourself but not only as a woman. You may be at the stage where you are about to go through peri-menopause, pre-menopause, or any of like maybe ovarian cancer, uterine cancer, not just that I think we should look a little before that. I'm talking of young people, young girls basically like I've thought you know high school chemistry, in a girl’s school, and there's a whole subject matter out there with young girls that that needs to be also dealt with. I’ve not looked into that area of a persons of a woman's life before you become like a woman as such but many of the issues I think start there. So, I don't know maybe this is the next idea for a podcast for Golda, like looking at young people, young girls, young women because even as you look at yourself, much of this stuff that you go through in the later years of your life somehow have a basis you know, whether it comes to mental health, physical health habits, character building, or whatever, it is really starts over there. I mean it may be the same for men but the men are well looked after in a while is lots of money for medical things and research and things like that at that would be nice if somebody went a little not take it from that part where you are 40 in your 40s but maybe go a little bit where their younger and look at women's issues there. That's what I would like people to look at as well to take away to talk about look at their young girls and see. But so many things at that age get passed off as “oh this is that time of life” like right you're about to go through your periods so that's much earlier than then actually like the dealing with that to train to kind of equip you to deal with something that comes later absolutely that's my hope so… next podcast Golda.

40:14:25 Golda

Yeah! What do I hope listeners would take away from Overlooked? That they're not overlooked. 

40:21:20 Sabine

That’s a perfect answer. And I guess it kind of leads into the last question but where do you see your advocacy work going in the future both for Overlooked and beyond?

40:34:04 Golda

So, you know it's funny. I don't, as a journalist born and raised, I'm always sniffy about advocates because advocates come to any given issue with an agenda and so that's an interesting thing to see myself. I asked myself “Am I an advocate? And what is my agenda”, and that's new for me. I don't know, other people they look at me and say oh hell yeah you're an advocate but I still don't identify myself as an advocate because I like to ask questions from all sides and I don't you know my only agenda is that women's health is seen. If that makes me an advocate, I guess I am. But you know I still want to get a lot of different people in the conversation. I want to know like, where is private venture money in women's health? Where are the men in women's health? I don't think we're going to move this needle on this everybody is in the room. So I think what's next is in 2025 I hope to release 2 new seasons of Overlooked in the spring and the fall. In the spring season, we’ll have episodes about clinical trials for women's cancers. I'm going to do a big series – you heard it here first –on the history of women's health research. It doesn't go back that far and it's going to be sort of a storytelling series. I would love to have live events where we pull people together and we have a visible and audible community that's advocating I guess like me, activating people to just like fly that flag for women's health. I'm saying all these things and I'm thinking to myself “this is how advocates talk, Golda!”. So, I'm sort of new to this outfit. So pulling together community women, seeing other women in real time, doing a bunch of live podcast tapings, keeping the conversation going, finding a way to fund it all, and just like making it bringing it to the front of the stage so that it just holds all the limelight because whatever the conversation is. I'm not really trying to manage the conversation I'm just trying to make sure that that conversation is out there and that nobody feels like they're being left behind or invisible. 

43:37:05 Sabine

That’s amazing. I can’t wait for those new seasons and for that new podcast that sounds very interesting. But thank you both for taking the time to talk with me today, this was amazing. Is there anything else you guys want to share?

43:51:24 Golda

I do want to say something actually. There are, you know, just in case people who are new to podcasting or looking at this from the outside in, I did not do this on my own nor was it just me and mom doing our thing. And so, there's a couple of people that I want to say thank you to. Firstly, I had a little podcast team for that first season. Lissa Soep  was my editor and always pulled me out of whatever long grasses I got lost in. Erick Gomez was my sound designer and he's one of the most talented engineers I've ever met he made me sound great. And Jessica Martinez de Hoz was my associate producer, and I'm also related to her and she's like a brilliant producer as well, so these three people really helped that podcast come to life. But there are two editors that I want to say thank you too as well because I think people underestimate how and it is to have an editor. The first is my father Robin Arthur, I should also thank him for being my dad. And the second is my husband, Stephen Cunningham, and both of them have just held me and mom you know very firmly and tenderly throughout as is this podcast was made because there were many times that I was completely difficult to deal with because once when it takes hold of me I'm like “I'm not I'm not cooking dinner today, I'm making a podcast”. So, my husband stepped in there in so many ways as an editor and as a partner and my dad as well, so I want to say thanks to both of them.

45:28:06 Teresa

I'd like to add a little bit there and say Golda’s two siblings were great sounding boards and I think it was one of those round the dinner table discussions which are really noisy and hectic and usually table banging and stuff that the title Overlooked came up. 

45:54:22 Golda

My brother Aaron came up with that title actually. 

45:57:22 Teresa

So there have been many of those meetings with the family as well where the two kids and this spouses have been, and even the grandchildren actually, have been very very supportive, very aware of what was going on which is a big thing in a family. There's something happening something like this where your family is being in the public eye kind of, not in a big way, but out there kind of and I think for that you need your whole families support.

46:36:06 Sabine

It’s so great that you guys both have all that support. Thank you so much this was so great.

46:42:04 Golda

Thank you, Sabine.

46:43:27 Outro

Thanks for joining us on the gosh podcast to learn more about the Gynecological Cancer Initiative and our podcast, make sure to check out our website at gynecancerinitiative.ca