Lee turned his diagnosis into Prostate Cancer Maine, using his platform as a longtime local news personality to push for wider PSA testing. Karen spent that same year anonymously researching men's cancer forums under a male name to find out what husbands like Lee were actually afraid to say out loud. What she found: more men feared losing their sex life than feared dying. Lee's advocacy has since helped change a statewide screening questionnaire and pass a law covering PSA test copays. This one is for anyone facing a test they're avoiding, and for every partner doing research their spouse won't.

Key Topics

[00:00:00] - Angie opens the episode and introduces Lee Goldberg and Karen
[00:01:10] - Lee’s annual physicals and the first elevated PSA result
[00:02:22] - Why abstaining before a PSA test matters
[00:03:10] - Delaying biopsy, low symptoms, and the fear of unnecessary procedures
[00:04:23] - Advocating for a better doctor fit and taking ownership of care
[00:05:35] - Karen joins appointments remotely during COVID
[00:06:12] - Biopsy results and the prostate cancer diagnosis
[00:07:57] - Lee and Karen react differently to the news
[00:09:30] - Processing the unknown and raising a family during diagnosis
[00:10:43] - Treatment options and choosing surgery
[00:13:33] - Sex, side effects, and Lee’s unfiltered question for the urologist
[00:15:35] - Life after surgery and ongoing PSA monitoring
[00:18:48] - Turning the experience into a prostate cancer awareness mission
[00:20:59] - The foundation: prostatecancermain.org
[00:22:52] - What men are most afraid of: sex, erections, and quality of life
[00:24:34] - Maine’s PSA screening changes and insurance coverage
[00:26:24] - Why patients must advocate for themselves
[00:27:05] - Real stories from people who got tested because they heard Lee’s story
[00:28:08] - Outreach from listeners in Canada and Alaska
[00:29:19] - Final reminder to trust your body and push for answers

Relevant Links

• https://prostatecancermaine.org

• https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/prostate-cancer.html

• https://www.dana-farber.org/cancer-care/types/prostate-cancer

• https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/prostate/

This conversation is a reminder that early screening can change everything, especially when prostate cancer may not show clear symptoms until it’s advanced. Lee and Karen’s story shows how a diagnosis can become a catalyst for education, prevention, and community support.

If something feels off, ask the question. If a test matters, request it. And if you’re supporting someone through a diagnosis, your presence, research, and willingness to keep showing up can make a life-changing difference.

Key Topics

[00:01:29] - Why Dave chose to share Jen’s story and what he hopes others take from it
[00:02:21] - Dave and Jen’s love story: high school sweethearts, marriage, and three kids
[00:03:37] - The first signs something was wrong and the call that changed everything
[00:04:52] - Stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis and the shock of “why me?”
[00:06:25] - Becoming the caregiver spouse and choosing the right care environment
[00:07:45] - Keeping the diagnosis private and managing support from friends and family
[00:10:56] - Daily routines, treatment rhythms, and helping the kids process in different ways
[00:13:25] - Work, counseling, and how Dave found emotional support for himself
[00:15:12] - Traveling, staying connected, and making the journey “ours”
[00:16:30] - The financial reality of cancer treatment and insurance surprises
[00:18:41] - Hospice, rapid decline, and Jen’s final days
[00:20:34] - What helped most: friends, honest support, and “it’s okay to be okay”
[00:23:27] - Learning to move forward after loss, one baby step at a time
[00:26:15] - Saying yes again, rebuilding life, and living with joy without guilt

Relevant Links

• Dana-Farber Cancer Institute: https://www.dana-farber.org/

• The Dempsey Center: https://www.dempseycenter.org/

• American Cancer Society caregiver support: https://www.cancer.org/cancer/caregivers.html

• CancerCare counseling and support: https://www.cancercare.org/

Dave’s story is a reminder that caregiving is its own kind of love language: showing up, staying steady, asking hard questions, and making room for both hope and heartbreak. If you’re supporting a partner through cancer, this conversation offers perspective, validation, and a few hard-won truths you may not hear anywhere else.

And if you’re the one receiving support, it’s a powerful reminder that the people beside you are carrying a lot too.

Life after a cancer diagnosis, from the friends' side of the table: An intimate conversation on what they built together, which they now pass on to the next friend who gets the call.

"We don't have the control. But we can control as much of the outcome as possible when we work together."

-Diana Fletcher

The sweatpants rule Angie ignored

The chemo binder said to wear sweatpants. Angie Helton read that and decided it was not happening. She planned a different themed outfit for every treatment instead. Her friends drove her there during COVID and waited outside because the rules kept them out of the building. That is how they learned what supporting a friend with cancer really involves. Nobody handed them a manual for life after a cancer diagnosis, so they wrote their own. Julie Libby has known Angie since high school. Diana Fletcher is the soft one who cries. Stephanie Perry, by contrast, keeps everybody moving. Angie calls the three of them her Power of We, and this episode hands them the mic.

Round one, round two, and the second opinion nobody got the first time

The first time around, they showed up to appointments as a group and overwhelmed the doctors. Every meeting became a fact-finding mission. Afterward, they compared notes on what each of them had caught. Two years later, the cancer came back after a lump that Angie was told was probably a cyst. This time, the friends pushed for a change of course. One of them sat at Angie's kitchen table and looked up Dana-Farber. A single phone call got her an appointment. After the consult in Boston, Stephanie made the decision simple. Go to Dana-Farber or answer her. The group also settled on who could be in the room before surgery. Diana was out on account of the crying.

What to do when a friend has cancer

The advice that lands hardest is the plainest. Say you're here, then stop asking what to do and just do something. Meals showed up unrequested, and Angie shared them with her elderly parents so she could keep making their Sunday dinners. The Perry boys pulled up in pickup trucks, did the whole lawn, and put up her Christmas blowups. Stephanie talks about the days she didn't feel like walking the dog. She went anyway, because look what Angie was going through. If you're the friend or coworker wondering whether a text would be a bother, this one is for you.

This episode closes with the Katherine Ferrier poem that gave the group its name.

Après Cancer is a podcast about life after cancer diagnosis, for people who have heard the word and for everyone around them.

This first episode introduces host Angie Helton and guest Quincy Hentzel. Both have been in the room where the doctor says it. Both came out the other side. Neither talks about it the way the brochures suggest.

Key Topics

[00:00:00] - Angie introduces the podcast and its unfiltered approach to surviving cancer
[00:00:52] - The goal of the show: education, real stories, and support for patients, survivors, and caregivers
[00:02:24] - How cancer changes your outlook, priorities, and sense of what matters most
[00:04:08] - Angie’s first diagnosis: finding a lump, triple-negative breast cancer, and treatment at Dana-Farber
[00:06:48] - A second diagnosis in the same spot and the shift to more advanced treatment
[00:11:58] - Quincy’s rare throat cancer story and how a dental scan caught it early
[00:14:35] - The emotional reality of diagnosis, privacy, and not wanting to answer questions before you have answers
[00:18:36] - Support resources, including the Dempsey Center and free integrative services
[00:19:45] - The bright spots: community, gratitude, travel, and a renewed appreciation for life
[00:23:14] - Future guests, including doctors, therapists, survivors, and spouses of cancer patients

Angie's Story

Angie found a lump on the night before New Year's Eve 2021. She was headed to Provincetown when she felt it. Tests started in January. Three weeks in, the diagnosis came: triple-negative breast cancer. That is the aggressive kind, the one most likely to spread.

Treatment moved fast. Eight rounds of chemotherapy. A lumpectomy. Sixteen rounds of radiation. In the middle of all of it, she drove eight supercars through northern Italy. She had the trip booked, and her oncologist told her to go. She spun out a Ferrari on the track. She came home and finished radiation.

She was deemed cancer-free. In July 2024, she had a clean mammogram. Two months later, she found a lump in the same exact spot. Triple negative breast cancer, again. A friend got her into Dana-Farber in Boston. Her support team heard the Dana-Farber doctors and told her, point-blank: "If you don't fucking go here for treatment, we will kill you."

Second round: chemotherapy plus immunotherapy. Surgery. No radiation. She had already received the maximum safe dose. She finished immunotherapy at the end of November. She is cancer-free.

The Wisdom Teeth That Caught the Cancer

Quincy Hentzel is Angie's close friend. She also went to Dana-Farber. Her cancer was a different kind entirely. Quincy has wisdom teeth that she never had removed. Her mother is a dental hygienist. She knows how that sounds. She went to an oral surgeon for a jaw scan. The scan found the tumor: stage one throat cancer, caught at the earliest possible stage by accident.

Her doctor told her it was lucky the wisdom teeth had never come out. Without that scan, the tumor would have progressed undetected. Quincy had two endoscopic surgeries. No radiation, no chemotherapy. She is on the monitoring schedule now, going in every few months for scans, endoscopies, and blood work.

She is also, as of this recording, newly 50. She used to dread getting older. That changed.

What Life After Cancer Diagnosis Really Looks Like

Angie and Quincy are not the same kind of patient. Angie dressed up for every treatment and roller-skated into her last chemo appointment. Quincy kept it private until she had answers to give people. This show makes room for both.

In this episode, they talk about the waiting period no one prepares you for. They talk about withholding the diagnosis from elderly parents until a treatment plan is in place. They talk about finding out their friends were more frightened than they were. These are the conversations the official literature skips.

Upcoming episodes cover sex and intimacy after treatment, the spouse's experience, cancer science and new research, mental health, nutrition, and stories from people who went through it their own way. If one person takes one thing from this show that helps them get through it, Angie says, that is enough.

Relevant Links

• Dana-Farber Cancer Institute: https://www.dana-farber.org/

• Dempsey Center: https://www.dempseycenter.org/

• National Cancer Institute – Triple-Negative Breast Cancer: https://www.cancer.gov/types/breast/patient/breast-treatment-pdq

• American Cancer Society – Throat Cancer: https://www.cancer.org/cancer/types/throat-cancer.html

• Breast Cancer Research Foundation: https://www.bcrf.org/

Cancer is terrifying, but no one has to navigate it alone. This conversation makes space for the fear, the humor, the frustration, and the unexpected moments of strength that can show up when life gets turned upside down.

If you’re a patient, survivor, caregiver, or someone supporting a loved one through cancer, this episode offers a real-world perspective, practical encouragement, and a reminder that every story matters.

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