Blind Plea - Listen Now: Alive with Steve Burns

Episode Date: September 17, 2025

There are a thousand podcasts you can listen to. This one listens back. And this week, we’re here to tell you about it.  Alive with Steve Burns continues the conversation you began all those years ago. Back then it was letters and numbers and graham crackers. Now it’s death, sex, taxes, and all the big, messy questions of being alive. Why does money stress us out? Is the American dream dead? What’s the future of truth?    Each week, a new guest drops by Steve’s window for a genuine and respectful dialogue between two people just trying to figure it out, together. Funny, tender, and just a little weird, this show invites you to sit down and think with Steve once again and wonder… what it really means to be alive.   You’re about to hear a clip from the first episode, where Steve sits down with hospice nurse Julie McFadden to talk about death. To hear more of Alive with Steve Burns, head to: https://lemonada.lnk.to/AlivewithSteveBurnsfd See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lemonada. Hey, hi. Yeah, it's me, Steve Burns. It's great to see you. And you and I go way back, really, like way back. And now look at us, right? We're all grown up and we're facing all of these crazy challenges of being an adult. Like, why does money stress me out so bad?

And is there such a thing as privacy in the digital age? stuff like that and today I I want to share a little bit of one of my first episodes where I get into something big like really big do you ever think about death yeah I mean it's for sure an important conversation and if it is one that you'd like to have just search for a live with Steve Burns and hit that follow button or you can watch the whole thing on YouTube anyway you look Alive with Steve Burns There you are, come on it, come on it, come on it. Welcome to Alive. I'm very glad you're here. You look great, by the way. Anyway, so thanks for coming.

today I kind of want to talk about something kind of big like real big can I ask you do you ever think about death yeah okay do you ever think about dying like what like what is that like what is the experience of someone who is physically dying yeah yeah yeah that is something that I think about like all the time actually

I'm making tea do you want tea there's tea it's actually a thing that I feel like I was kind of forced to think about a lot back in the day kind of against my will

because there was like this internet rumor going around that I was dead that I had died and was not alive. Yeah, it was always some weird way, right? Like I died in a car crash or a heroin overdose or like suicide. That was one of them. And it was nuts.

And no matter what we did, we couldn't get rid of the rumor, right? Like it didn't matter, no matter how many talk shows I went on and said, oh, I'd feel fine. how many new episodes of Blue's Clues we made, it didn't matter. It was like this indelible internet rumor that I died. And actually we'd get into arguments with people on the street,

like arguing whether or not I was in fact alive. It was crazy. And this was also when the internet was just beginning to internet. So it was like millions of people online all telling me that I had died. imagine that it went on for like five years then it went on for like 10 years then it went on for 15 years and i'll tell you it started to feel like a cultural preference does that make sense you if i'm being honest it actually it kind of messed me up it did uh i'm older now and uh I've experienced some death and dying.

I lost my dog. I lost my dad. And those were painful and profound experiences. And they changed me. Right? And they reminded me that death is a fact of living. Right? Of course, it is, it is, the inevitable fact of our death

is the one certainty we hold law. we're alive. And that got me thinking, why not confront that? Right? I mean, why not talk about it? You know, I mean, because if you think about it, we're all going to die. We're all dying while we're living. So why not ask the question? What is that? What is dying? Yes. Yes. This is what I'm saying. I'm fascinated by this. And I'm actually super excited to talk to our guests today about this. She knows so much about death, so much about the process of dying. I can't wait to talk to her. Come on. Let's go. Let's go. Okay. All righty. Okay. So our guest today is Julie McFadden and I'm super excited to talk to her. She has been a hospice and palliative care nurse for like 15 years. She has a new book coming out on June 11th and it's called Nothing to fear demystifying death to live more fully. I could not be more excited to read that and to talk to her. I found her through TikTok and her TikTok page. I'm not kidding. It's important, I think,

and it's profound. And it's all about demystifying death and dying. And it's a little scary in places but it's also like super beautiful and super amazing and oh uh she's she's here hang on hey hello hi julie mcfadden thank you so much for coming by we're so excited to talk to you i really truly truly am a fan of what you do thank you it's such an honor so i was thinking maybe we should just start kind of simply like um tell us What is hospice? What is palliative care? What do you do? Okay. So those are big questions that I'm going to try to generally answer. So we're not here all day because there is a lot of things that can go into that. So what is hospice? I mean this with all sincerity. Hospice is about living. People think it's about dying. People die on hospice. You go there at the end of your life. But it is for people who want to live.

live out the rest of their lives, you know, wherever that may be. Most people choose homes, especially in the United States. There are like hospice homes and places you can go, but most people choose to be in home hospice, which means they're in their home. And then a team of people comes to care for them to help manage symptoms of their disease that they're dying from. Yeah. So palliative care is more about managing your symptoms. So a team of people that looks at you as a whole person and manages your symptoms while you go through treatment of a disease or you have some kind of chronic illness. For me, I have a big soapbox that I wish everyone can be on palliative care the second they got diagnosed with any kind of like life

limiting terminal or chronic illness. I feel like everyone should just get a palliative care team right away. Can't they? Is there a reason why they can? I mean, it's just a choice. Is that a choice that people can make? They can-ish. Many doctors aren't fully aware of, like, what palliative care actually is and what it's for, so they won't refer early enough. And there is criteria to get onto palliative care. And sometimes those people, when you first get diagnosed, they don't meet criteria.

I see. So you have to be more debilitated, which I think is ridiculous. You shouldn't have to be more debilitated. You should just get it because everyone needs it, I think. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I remember I was, you know, I was a caregiver for my father when my father passed. He died of lung cancer. And it was a very gradual process. You know, he didn't, he didn't die all at once. You know, there was just a, it was a subtractive process, if that makes sense. Like, things were being taken, you know, things were taken forever and gone. His strength was taken forever. and gone. I remember his beard was taken forever and gone. And it occurred to me that I had never seen my father's face until he was dying of cancer, you know. And it was such a gradual dimming is how it felt. And I was right there with him, you know, when he passed. I was right there.

It was hard to talk about it's years ago. But I knew he was there. And I knew he was gone, but I never saw it happen. Yeah. You know, and I was inches from his face, you know, and I never saw it happen. I couldn't, I couldn't identify the moment. You know what I mean? So I guess that's why I'm asking, like, is there a hard line somewhere, you know, where they're like, okay, there, now it happened.

The whatever has left and now this person is gone forever. I think it depends on who you talk to. Okay, okay. And I will say, I mean, I could talk about this topic forever and ever. And there really is a biological, physiological, metabolic thing that is going on when someone's dying. And our bodies are built to die. I'm looking for a pen. I'm writing that down.

Our bodies are built to die. Oh, baby. There's a whole chapter in my book about it. I'm reading your book for 100% short. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.