Podcrushed - Introducing: Alive with Steve Burns

Episode Date: October 8, 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/AlivewithSteveBurnsfdSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lemonada. Hello, my darling crushies. It's your girl, Sophie. As you might know, it is a big week for us at Podcrush. We're gearing up for our book tour, which is kicking off next week. I am equal parts terrified and excited. There are still a few tickets left for our New York and L.A. events. You can grab yours now through the link in the show notes before they're gone. Not to tease us. it too much but I do think that these shows are going to be particularly special. We're not doing that many live events for this book tour. And so the ones that we are doing, we're really putting

our heart and soul into them and making sure that they're special. So if you can be there, we would absolutely love to see you. Make sure you snag your ticket. But while we pack for tour, we're dropping a special podcast on our feed today. It's Lemonada's new show, alive with Steve Burns, America's kind, bespectacled older brother from the show Blues Clues. You know him, you love him. He continues the conversation he began through the screen 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. His first episode is called What is Dying with hospice nurse Julie McFadden, and it's beautiful. New episodes out every Wednesday, so if you like it, check out Alive with Steve Burns. I don't have my own dog at the moment, but David and I have said for years that when we get a backyard,

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at chewy.chewy.com. Learn more at trynom.com slash podcrushed. Hey, it's me, Steve Burns, and I'm so glad you're here because you and I go way back. Right? Yeah. And look at us now. Like we're all grown up. We've got this new podcast where we talk about all this grown up stuff and there's special guests like Jamie Lee Curtis and Bill Nye. But for the most part, it's about you. I mean, it's always been about you. From Lemonada Media, alive with Steve Burns is coming September 17th wherever you get your podcasts or you can watch every episode on YouTube. 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 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, and 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, or 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 go. If I'm being honest, it actually, it kind of messed me up.

It did. I'm older now, and 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 the inevitable fact of our death is the one certainty we hold while 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 um it's important i think and it's profound and um it's all about demystifying death and

and dying and it's uh a little scary in places but it's also like super beautiful and super amazing and oh uh she's she's here hang oh hey hey hello hi hi 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 is such an honor. So I was thinking maybe we should just start kind of simply. Like, 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?

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 out the rest of their lives, you know, wherever that may be. Most people choose home, 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 could 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. 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 die all at once. you know there 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 is how it felt and i was right there with him you know when he passed i was right there with him you know when he passed i was right

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 identify the moment, you know what I mean? So I guess that's why I'm asking, like, is there, is there a hard line? somewhere you know where they're like okay there now it happened the 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. Let's talk about collagen. It's the body's most abundant protein supporting glowing skin, stronger nails,

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Visit rosettastone.com slash podcrush to get started and claim you're 50% off today. Don't miss out. Go to rosettastone.com slash podcrush and start learning today. Yeah, I mean, that's the first thing I noticed as a hospice nurse within my first year being a hospice nurse. You know, I was an experienced ICU nurse. I had eight or nine years under my belt at a large hospital where I felt like I, you know, I learned it all. And then that first year of hospice nursing, my mind was blown by what the body did on its own without us doing anything. Your body knows what's going on and will help the process along if we let it.

We meaning the medical, medical people, if we just sort of let. things happen. Well, tell me more about that. How does, how does, how does our body help us die? You know, I would assume that our body would be enormously concerned with keeping us alive. There is a threshold. There is a threshold where, you know, our body will fight to survive and live. And when, when the body kind of knows, hey, this is, this is happening, like, like the cancer is taking over whatever we want to call, whatever we want to word it, the body will eventually hit a threshold where it understands that this is the end and your calcium levels will go up so your body will allow you to sleep all the time and your hunger and thirst mechanism

that part of you that like makes you hungry and thirsty shuts off so you don't really feel hungry and thirsty your body actually feels better physically the drier it is so at the end of life dehydration actually feels better than being hydrated. Then you're in ketosis, you actually get endorphins released that helps dull pain. Interesting. And feel a little euphoria. Really? Wait a minute.

So there's mercy in that somewhere. You know what I mean? That's actually really amazing. When I see it the opposite, just so everyone. If anyone's listening and it's like, what? Because I've seen that in the ICU or we're not letting people die. And we pump people full of fluid because that's what's going to keep their blood pressure up. So we pump them full of fluid, whether it's blood products are just regular, like normal saline fluid.

Because their body is dying, the body is not keeping that fluid where it should be in helping the body stay hydrated. It expands and starts causing edema, going back into the lungs because the body's saying, hey, I thought I was dying here. Why are we filling with fluid? I can't handle this. And then they go into respiratory distress, and then you have to intubate them, put them on a breathing machine, then their body is swollen, and then we have to diorice the body again, which means take off that fluid to try to get it back to like homeostasis. When the body is naturally doing something, yes, we can. try to intervene, but we have to do all these things to make it work. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. When my dad got to that point where he was sleeping all the

time, you know, and he felt far away, you know, what are they concerned with? What do we know what do we know about what they're experiencing? Are they full of regrets? Are they expressing things? What are dying people concerned with? From what I have witnessed, people die the way they lived oh well i know bald and neurotic i'm going to die bald and neurotic yes yes yes listen i take that's heart because i think about that all the time i always go i'm so neurotic how am i going to do this because okay so truth truth for real this is a good lesson for us uh because i'm the same i'm the same I'm not bald, but I'm neurotic. So I really mean that people die the way they lived.

Wow. If your family didn't have a great family dynamic, you're not going to suddenly have this amazing family dynamic just because someone's dying. Sometimes the drama of it all or something can kind of bring people together. But most of the time, it's like, if you guys weren't talking before, you're probably not going to start talking. If they're willing to discuss the fact of that with their loved ones around, even if that discussion is something like that sounds negative like I don't want this to be happening

I'm angry this is happening I'm sad I'm pissed off I'm whatever it is those people tend to live better and die more peacefully just because they were willing to acknowledge the fact that they understand it's happening that is half the reason why I decided to get on social media because I was like people need to understand that talking about their death talking about death and dying, even if it feels like in a negative connotation, it still helps. Oh, that's amazing. That actually, that reminds me of what you were saying from a biological standpoint, from a medical standpoint. We die the way we live.

That is one of the hugest things anyone ever said to me. It reminds me of so much other stuff that I've read. All the old Stoics, Seneca and those guys, Marcus Aurelius, they would practice death. right which i always thought was ridiculous right but they would they would wake up and say what will it be like when i die when it is hurt when i'm eaten by a bear what will that pain feel like and and they would practice that every day but it's actually an amazing practice um to accommodate that fact has to change the way you live right yes and uh because we die how we live as beautiful I've already really liked talking to you.

You're great. Okay. We're great. We're great. All right. So I found you through TikTok, right? And you had me bawling. A lot of what I was seeing there was hard to look at,

but also very beautiful and extremely important. And I love that you're doing that because you're talking about the hard stuff. And I think one of the things you said was, are they safe, are they clean, are they comfortable? If so, you're doing fine, you know. But my instinct was like, no, I have to invent a camera system, and I have to get the special chair, and I have to do a million zillion things to fight back, to fight, you know, to struggle against this process that's happening. And I do wish that I had been more present because the moments where I was present, with that were the most important moments I've ever had.

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because it looked like he did? I was going to say yes. Oh, wow. Okay. So I think so. Again, like, I think it depends on who you talk to, right? But from my experience, animals know what's up. Yeah. I mean, big time. Big time. Big time. Big time. time yeah i walked into the room uh and i was like oh this looks different things look different today and then the hospice nurse was like yeah yeah this is happening and i said oh what do you think like you know days hours you know like what do you think she's like i don't know watch the dog the dog will know apparently just two hours before he passed my dog woke up as if he had heard something and went over and nuzzled my dad's hand and my dad had

moved in days and my dad his hand woke up and pet my dog gus it's that story even now but it seemed like he knew yeah i like to think he did i like to think he said goodbye you know yeah i've seen so many amazing things with with dogs and cats with the with the owners where like they'll take off symptoms they'll protect the their loved one they'll sleep under the bed they'll sleep on the bed continuously, they'll howl when someone dies. Like, it's just intense. It's just intense. Dogs.

Dogs. I love dogs. Now, what do you think our health care system gets wrong about dying and death? A big sigh over here. Oh, it's so long to go. I mean, you know, in hospice specifically, the thing we get wrong is, one, we don't provide 24-hour caregiving for families. Oh, God.

Yeah, that is so, it's impossible to get that. That's the thing you can never get. It's impossible to get it. Impossible because Medicare is our boss, and Medicare says no. Working class families, which is most of America, they can't do it because they have to work. I mean, it's just insane. You have to be a billionaire. You have to be a billionaire to have someone 24-7 helping you die.

You have to. I have made a video that says, in order to die well in America, you have to be rich. I get sad watching people try to die well in our health care system. And it's nearly impossible. Damn. You got me fired up, girl. Oh, my God, Steve. I get so angry.

Yeah. Because it's so unfair. And there's nothing I can do. There's nothing I can do. I've seen this problem, but I'm less afraid of the moment of death than I am of the process of dying. For some of these reasons. Like I just imagine an ugly room with a linoleum floor and fluorescent lights in a hallway that smells like pee. And I'm like worried probably about what I'm leaving behind for other people to deal with, right?

Can I hopefully ease some people's fears and your fears after I gave that whole spiel of like, there's no hope. There is hope. Okay. There is hope. Please please ease my fear of dying. Yes. Well, I can do that too.

But think, so the whole spiel I gave you have to be rich to die well in America. That is reality right now. And we have a chance to somewhat change that in when we plan for our death. at least have one person point of contact that knows what you want and don't want. So at least family members can know what you want and don't want if you can't talk about it because you're not cognitively there. People need to know. It's hard to do.

I mean, it's hard to talk to your family about death and dying. You know, it's hard to parent your parents. It's hard to do those things. You know, I'm also guilty of only kind of half planning my assessment. state right now and like because i don't want to do it i don't want to i don't want to do that i don't want to think about that i don't want to you know but i think it is i think it is really important oh yeah wait one more thing challenge accepted you said you could ease my fear of death that'd be great yeah if you can okay so your fear of death one guess what steve what you are so normal for being afraid of death

Okay. So just because you fear death doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be awful or like there's nothing wrong with fearing death. I think there is something to like fighting the resistance. Like I can't fear it when really it's like I can fear it. So please acknowledge that, take a deep breath and like accept that like doesn't necessarily mean that like anything bad is going to happen just because you still fear it. So that's one. Two, I really do think edge. Education helps decrease fear. So I don't know how much you've watched my videos or when you read my book, but education around death and dying can really, really ease fear because our bodies, like I said, are built to die and there's really amazing things that can happen that will help us. And then three, I don't know if you want to go there here with this or not, but like, I don't know if you have fear of like, well, we don't have to go there. I was just going to talk about like, because there's a reason why there's like reasons why I don't fear death to. It happens to be because I believe there's like life after death. It's not a religious thing. And I truly understand that it's a belief of mine.

So like I never like to push my belief on people. But that's also another reason why I personally don't fear death. Because I feel like when we die, we go to a place more like home than here ever could be. Really? Yeah. I've always felt homesick for a place that I can't remember. Oh, yeah. I can relate to that, actually.

Yeah. I feel like I've really been shown through other people's deaths that, like, that's, that's what it is. That feeling of homesickness, I feel like when I, when I die, I'm going to wake up in a place that I've always known. And it's like, oh, my God, how did I ever forget this? And when I see babies, so another thing I always talk about is when I see babies being born, which is few and far between, but I have seen babies being born. and everyone there is like oh you know it's like oh my god there's a baby like now it's here and it's crying and i can weep because it's so overwhelming this powerful feeling of like and now there's life here and i can look at a baby and i always think like why did you come from baby right

and it feels like the baby knows something that i used to know and it's that same homesick feeling but it's good and it's bad because it's like nostalgic but it's like i miss it i get that same feeling when i see people take their last breath wow i get that same feeling wow so you're saying as someone who spends so much time with the dying and the moment of death you feel a continuity from that moment and also the moment of birth yes that's something you as a skeptic and a realist perceive. Yes. And I think because it's not my grief, I'm not losing the mom. I'm not losing the dad at that moment anyway. I will eventually someday. But the grief isn't there. So I feel like I can be present in the moment for what it is. That's so interesting. You're not seeing death

through the distorted lens of pain and grief. You have a sort of, if I could say, privileged position of experiencing all of this death objectively and that is something I never considered this has been a very deep and awesome and meaningful conversation Julie McFadden and I so appreciate you having this with us and I think I need a minute to think about everything that you have said and to go contemplate my own life I hit you with a lot I hit you with a lot I can't wait to read your book and you are an absolute delight and a treasure so thank you so much for being here with us this has been wonderful thank you julie mcfadden bye bye right i mean that part where she said um but was it our bodies are built to die because

Our bodies do all these things to, like, sort of comfort and accommodate our death when we're down here. That? I don't know. I don't know why, but that just does a little to make it less scary for me, I guess, you know. Oh, and it sounds kind of like maybe my dog and my dad got to say goodbye. For real, for real. That makes me feel very good. Yeah, but...

but for me it was when she said we die how we lived yeah let's go outside okay wow uh yeah that is definitely um a lot to think about huh you know you know the question that's that i'm thinking about now is um if we die how we live and we know we're gonna die but we don't know when how how do we live seems pretty big you know actually i think i'm gonna just uh stop talking about this and take a minute in silence and just kind of think about that one you're welcome to to join me if you want so I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. We're going to be. I don't know. I don't know. We're going to be. I don't know. I don't know.

Wow. I'm super glad we did this one. That one felt big. Anyway, sincerely, thank you so much for doing this with me. It really does mean a lot. Until next time, that is so pretty. Alive with Steve Burns is a Lemonada Media Original. If you haven't subscribed to Lemonata Premium yet,

now's the perfect time. You can listen to the show completely ad-free. Plus, you'll unlock exclusive bonus content from me as I reflect on this episode. Just press subscribe on Apple podcasts, head to Lemonada Premium.com to subscribe on any other app, or listen ad-free on Amazon music with your prime membership. That's LemonataPremium.com. Alive is hosted by me, Steve Burns, and produced by Jeremy Slutskin. Our editor is Christopher Champion Morgan. Our associate producer is Akshah's Thuribailu. Audio engineering by James Barber. Lemonada's SVP of weekly programming is Steve Nelson. Executive producers are Jessica Cordova Kramer, Stephanie Whittles Wax, and me.

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