Lumps and Humps: The Audio Files

Chemo set one, complete.Now it’s time for the next block.This episode is about surviving cancer one day at a time, breaking impossible things into manageable pieces, and borrowing a mindset from the human-performance world to stay psychologically afloat through dual-cancer treatment.

How do you tell people the worst news of your life?This episode is about cancer, crisis communications, spreadsheets, trauma, strategic messaging plans, and the strange things we cling to when our lives explode. Also: audience segmentation, Instagram rollout strategy, and why being a former communications professional turned out to be unexpectedly useful during a dual cancer diagnosis.

Charlottesville. Quantum theory. First love. Trenches. French fries. Rainstorms and reiki.A story about strange timing, parallel lives, and the people who arrive exactly when you need them—even if you don’t understand why yet.

Chemo by the numbers: bloodwork trends, step counts, hydration, iron infusions, weight gain, and what happens when survival starts looking like data points on a graph.

On runny noses, new friends, and gallows humor.

This week on Why Alli Has Cancer: organized crime, environmental toxins, chicken cancer, the Chesapeake Bay, and a topless conversation with my plastic surgeon while she inflated my fake boob with saline.

Round five of chemo. A piece about mindset, mental health, finding a “why,” cold plunges, cancer rituals, the language we use to survive, and how sometimes you never know what you’re training for.

Healthcare Bullshit returns for another episode.This week:My insurance provider announced they’re leaving the Virginia Marketplace while I’m still in active cancer treatment, my colorectal surgeon abruptly stopped practicing, and I had to learn—again—how much of surviving cancer is also surviving the American healthcare system.Also featuring:my incredible care team,a very good social worker,an emotional collapse,and Chat GPTreminding me I do not, in fact, need to solve 2027 today.

I used to know how to find the answer.Then somewhere along the way, I stopped knowing what I wanted.This is a story about driving, houses, and what happens when you don’t know what you want—but keep going anyway.

On day one of chemo, I was handed a hazmat kit to take home.Literally.This episode walks through what it means to be trained to clean up chemotherapy spills—on clothes, on floors, on your own skin—while slowly realizing where that same poison is actually going.

Back half. Chemo Part One.Things are getting harder—physically, mentally, all of it. This episode is about uncertainty, the grind, and trying to plan a life when you have no idea how you’ll feel from one day to the next.Also: a potential escape window—and a care team that understands quality of life matters, too.

Two unexpected questions from my oncologist—about acne medication and long-distance running—send me down a research rabbit hole. This episode explores potential risk factors for colorectal cancer in younger, healthy populations—and why “too young” and “too fit” might not mean what we think.

Eight firefighters. One paramedic. And me, saying “I’m fine.” This is the story of the night my body said otherwise—and the beginning of learning how to let people help.

Chemo, labs, food, movement, and a mountain escape. No big breakthroughs—just steady progress and the work of doing everything possible to rebuild before the next knockdown.

Two cancers, a history of anxiety and depression, and a brain that won’t sit still. This is what the dark days actually sound like—and what it takes to make it through them, one thought, one hour, one day at a time.

On anniversaries, oysters, and getting dressed.

When everything falls apart, where do you go? This is a story about leaving, the ocean that taught me how to survive, and the moment I stopped running long enough to hear something deeper.

A week of small but meaningful progress: adding real food back in, reclaiming movement, and facing a hard decision about my body. This episode is about healing, identity, and what it means to move forward—1% at a time.

Why do I have cancer? New theory: my dog gave me cancer so I’d stay home and pet him more. It’s airtight logic… until you factor in all appointments. This episode continues the series with a highly questionable—but emotionally compelling and slightly unhinged—case against a very sweet, very suspicious, very good boy.

Nausea: controlled. Fatigue: next level. Real food: back. This is chemo week two—more data, more adjustments, and learning how to fight smarter.

On chemo pumps, prescription meds, and a rapidly declining tolerance for bullshit.

A “peanut butter and jelly” at 3:45am, a body that’s starving, and a complete rewrite of what nutrition means. This episode is about breaking every rule you’ve ever followed around food—and accepting that right now, the goal isn’t to feel good. It’s to survive.

Fascia, scar tissue, and the most boring exercises that matter the most. This episode is about surgical rehab, why starting early changes everything, and what it really looks like to get 1% better when your body feels completely wrecked.

“But you’re so young—why do you have cancer?”It’s the question everyone asks—and one that doesn’t have a satisfying answer. This episode kicks off a new series exploring the theories, the data, the conspiracy theories, and the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, it’s just bad luck.

Everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face. This episode walks through my first week of chemo—seven-hour infusions, rookie mistakes, nausea that took me out, and the moment I realized: this is the battlefield now.

On ports, toddler diets, and feeling 7/10.

A song in the operating room. A text sent from recovery. And the story of an unlikely friend who made it possible to believe—if only for a moment—that everything was going to be okay.

What actually happens on chemo day—and what can go wrong. From infusion logistics to side effects (hello, cold sensitivity and neuropathy), this episode breaks down the reality of Herceptin + FOLFOX, risk mitigation, and what it means to be very prepared for something you can’t fully control. Part education, part dark humor, and part surrender to the unknown.

I didn’t get the job.After years of leading, building, fundraising, and surviving high-stakes chaos.This episode is about corporate-feeling interviews, missed opportunities, and the darkly funny realization that I’m currently managing the biggest “project” of my life: two cancers. At the same time.

My symptoms got worse this week—the worst they’ve been. More blood loss, more pain, more fatigue. A tumor making itself known. At the same time: a chemo port, an expander fill, anemia, a diet I hate, and the ongoing reality of two cancers actively working against each other in my body.This episode is about what it looks like when “health gets in the way of health,” when every solution creates a new problem, and when you’re forced to hold two truths at once: this is temporary… and this fucking sucks.

On budgets, lease renewals, and going bra-free.

Two cancers. One treatment plan.This episode walks through how a Stage 1 HER2+ breast cancer and a Stage 3 rectal cancer get treated at the same time—mastectomy, lymph nodes, chemo “cocktails,” and the logistics of coordinating two oncology teams into one plan. It’s part medical breakdown, part real-time processing—and a look at what it means to navigate survival when every decision is layered, complex, and very, very personal.

Surgical drain removal day. Relief, grief—and the first small step forward.

The importance of routine screening, knowing your body, and advocating for yourself.

A poem about living.

How I'm covered, what's not covered, and how freakin' grateful I am.

On taxes, dog walks, and boob-talk with guy-friends.

One surgery down. Several more to go. Here's what the road ahead looks like.

On insurance, lives moving forward, and bodily changes.

Mastectomy, post-op week one. I thought this would be the easy part.

Hi, I’m Alli.One year after my divorce, I was diagnosed with two cancers in six weeks—Stage 1 HER2+ breast cancer and Stage 3 colorectal cancer. I’m 44. Until now, my health history was deliciously boring.And now I have cancer. Two cancers.Which is… insane.So I started writing. I laid it all down in a blog: grief, logistics, relationships, the body, mindset, science, survival—at lumpsandhumps.com—And then I realized not everyone has the time to read. Or wants to.So I turned the stories into audio files.And here you are. Welcome!