S4 – EP4 – When Cancer Carries Trauma: Christine Fader on Love, Caregiving and Complex Grief

In this deeply moving episode, host Rosie Moss speaks with Christine Fader, an educator and advocate who became the primary caregiver to her husband, Michael, through his cancer journey.

Christine and Michael met in 1997, an instant yet thoughtful connection that led to marriage within months. Long before cancer entered their lives, they were already navigating complexity, including Christine’s own chronic health condition.

When Michael was diagnosed with cancer, the illness arrived layered with trauma. Treatment did not just cause physical pain. It resurfaced deep childhood wounds. Radiation masks triggered memories of abuse. Medical environments felt unsafe. Pain became inseparable from memory.

Drawing on her background in medical education, Christine stepped into the dual role of caregiver and advocate, working to ensure Michael’s trauma was recognised and accommodated in a system that often overlooks it. Their story is not linear or neat. It moves through extraordinary love, startling pain, fierce advocacy, and profound tenderness. In his final days, Michael remained lucid and in excruciating pain, choosing to stay as long as he could. As he once told Christine, giving in to the cancer felt like giving in to the bad guys.

Christine speaks openly about complex grief, including what it means to lose a long-term partner without children, and how she now channels that pain into education, advocacy, and storytelling. This is a conversation about love under pressure, trauma-informed care, and the quiet bravery of staying.

In this episode, we explore:

• How Michael’s childhood trauma shaped his pain tolerance and mistrust of medical systems, and how Christine advocated for trauma-informed accommodations during treatment

• The emotional and ethical realities of caregiving through terminal illness, including assisted dying conversations and holding hope alongside hopelessness

• How Christine used her medical education background to design a student workshop on trauma-informed cancer care

• The complexity of grief after losing a partner when there are no children, and how Christine built resilience through advocacy and storytelling

• Why consent, slowing down, and assuming trauma may be present can radically improve medical care

• The power of small rituals and personal notes during crisis, and Christine’s hope to one day shape these into a book honouring Michael’s story

Content warning: terminal illness, trauma, death

#griefjourney #traumainformedcare #chronicillnesssupport #cancerstories #endoflifecare #caregiverlife #medicalconsent #partnerloss #mentalhealthawareness #resilientrelationships