Breast Cancer, Medical Choice, Informed Consent with Joy Jolie

Death doula and funeral celebrant Jill McClennan hosts a conversation with Joy Jolie about how repeated loss, grief, and serious illness shaped Joy’s views on dying, healing, and end-of-life planning. 

Joy describes multiple breast cancer diagnoses in her family, including her own, and shares how her mother declined chemo and radiation, while her sisters faced lasting harm and, in one case, workplace pressure to undergo treatment. Joy explains why she questioned standard cancer care, sought resources like Crispy Cancer and The Truth About Cancer, and emphasized informed consent and personal medical choice. 

The episode also discusses Canada’s MAID program, supporting choice while warning about coercion and lack of support, and touches on psychedelics for depression and death anxiety. Joy shares her shift toward conscious living, legacy, and helping others through her Joy of Resilience work.

00:00 Suffering and Growth

00:17 Meet Jill and Joy

01:31 Joy’s Losses and Awakening

04:12 Seven Breast Cancer Diagnoses

04:54 Coercion and Treatment Pressure

06:53 Searching for Causes

11:26 Informed Consent and Choice

20:49 Quality of Life Conversations

25:00 Sister’s Final Journey

27:09 A Call for Medical Autonomy

27:26 Health Choices Matter

28:31 Hope and Culture Shift

28:43 MAID and Personal Choice

29:55 Slippery Slope Concerns

36:00 Hospice Policies and Oversight

37:59 Eugenics and Human Value

39:27 Mental Illness Gray Areas

40:15 Psychedelics as Treatment

41:27 Family Impact and Nuance

44:40 Grief and Die Wise

48:37 Division and Complexity

50:44 Building Joy Resilience

52:11 Services and Resources

54:49 End of Life Planning

https://joyofresilience.com

Transcript

Joy: [00:00:00] We don't grow within suffering. If we never had challenges, we would still be practicing with adolescents. If everything came to us easily, we would have no skills for coping and becoming emotionally resilient. 

Jill: Welcome back to Seeing Death. Clearly. I'm your host, Jill McClennen, a death doula and funeral celebrant.

Here on the show, I have conversations that explore death, dying grief, and life itself. In this episode, I talk with Joy Jolie, whose life has been shaped by repeated loss illness, and the need to make deeply personal medical decisions. She shares the story of multiple breast cancer diagnosis in her family.

Including her own and how those experiences led her to question conventional treatment paths and prioritize informed consent. We talk about the complexity of choice, especially in systems that don't always feel supportive or transparent. Our conversation also explores Canada's maid [00:01:00] program holding both the importance of choice and the concern about coercion and lack of support.

We touch on psychedelics, resilience and how Joy now supports others through her work. Thank you for being here. Welcome to the podcast. Joy. Thank you so much for coming on today. 

Joy: My pleasure. I'm really keen to talk about this subject. It's one I've been passionate about for quite a long time. 

Jill: Wonderful, and why don't you just tell us a little about you, who you are, even outside of what we're gonna talk about today.

Were you from originally, anything like that? 

Joy: Sure. I'm a mother grandmother, raised in Northern Ontario, but moved to Toronto when I was 13 and loved living in the city for most of my life. Had an opportunity to move to Vancouver back in 2013 after my first cancer diagnosis and surgery. Once I came back, I established myself in bulletin, had been diagnosed with cancer a second time.

Through those experiences. [00:02:00] I was also dealing with a group of women in my family, seven in total, including me, who were diagnosed with breast cancer. So it's been one of those journeys where I was dealing with a lot of my threatening illness. I think the first time I found myself thinking about life and death issues was way back in my twenties.

My brother was killed in a car accident. He was only 20 when I was 26 with two little children. That shaped my sense of being in the world as being very fragile. I always thought life could end at any moment. Not a good way to live, but I tried to turn this into something positive by learning as much as I could about how to live life to the fullest when I became a grandmother.

Was confronted with a number of other deaths in my life. My stepmother passed away. Then [00:03:00] my younger sister and then my aunt, and this one after the other. It brought up a lot of the trauma, but it also made me confront my own vulnerability about this issue. I really feel that our society, our culture, thinks of, of race in linear position.

We don't think in. Life as cyclical as indigenous cultures used to. So I am trying to make that transition myself. I'm trying to look at life as cyclical through all of the spiritual work that I've done on myself, a lot of personal development work, and also some certifications that has helped me heal vulnerable parts of myself when it comes to death and dying and health issues and all of that.

I'm in a really good place right now and I feel. I am ready to position myself as somebody that can be a resource to other people who are dealing with these life end death issues and aren't quite [00:04:00] sure what to do. They feel as lost as I felt for a lot of my life. 

Jill: Wow. What a story. I'm sorry to hear about your brother and your sister, your aunt, all those that happened together.

Were all of the women diagnosed with breast cancer? 'cause you said there were seven in your family. And everybody went through a diagnosis around the same time. How'd that happen 

Joy: within a 20 year period, starting in 2003 September, my mom and my older sister were diagnosed within that month, and my mom chose not to do chemo radiation.

She was 66, turning 67, and she let the cancer run its course. We lost her in July of 2004. My sister was left. Disabled by her chemo and radiation and lives with her daughter, male. Yeah. Um, she never fully recovered. My younger sister and I were diagnosed. She and I were both diagnosed within two weeks of each other.

In [00:05:00] November, 2012, we both did surgery, but I found out later, after she passed away, but she was coerced into doing the K one radiation by her employer. They would not give her disability income unless she did the K one radiation. We dealt with it in 2012. It prompted me to make a dramatic change in my life.

I went out to Vancouver for four months. That didn't work out. Came back and reestablished myself here. But then in 2015, we were both diagnosed again a second time, this time within a few months of each other. And again, I didn't do the chemo radiation. She was coerced again by her report. I was blessed to have a, a friend who was studying to be a naturopath at the time, and she was able to convince me to read a stack of books.

She said, before you make the decision about what treatment you want to go for, read these books. And I did, and I learned enough to [00:06:00] feel confident in my own body's ability to heal. And I'm here as a testament to that confidence. The second time that she and I were diagnosed. We both need the surgery again.

She did the chemo radiation and then less than a year later she ended up in hospice and died in March, 2060. That was extremely traumatic for me. There's really no feeling quite like the helplessness of watching someone you love die of something that you yourself have been healed. The anger, which still comes up every now and then was almost more than I could bear.

My stepmother was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2006, came back in 2007, and she ended up dying of lung cancer. Cancer, I've learned is one of those diseases that makes [00:07:00] you feel like there's so much more to it than just the, just what gives rise to cancer reflected on that a lot. Why is it that her family went through all of this?

We could chalk it up to genetics. My inclination is to think that the cancer that was so prevalent in my family was caused by where we all grew up, which was in a mining town in Northern Ontario, Sudbury, where you worried from? So I think that's the major contributor that we don't know enough about what causes cancer.

One my pet pee about cancer charities is. We're looking for the cure of the, who's looking for the cause. Yes, we know a lot of things do cause it, but I don't see enough friction towards stopping the causes. There just seems to be more and more causes of cancer coming out in our environment. There's not enough information that goes out to the [00:08:00] public and certainly not enough.

Voices saying if that causes cancer, rise it still on the market. 

Jill: Yeah, 

Joy: basically. So anyway, that, that's the reason why my life has been so focused on this idea of death is fragile and we need to think about it. Even in my twenties, I had two children when I was 22, I'm 23 and my brother passed away. When I was 26, almost as soon as that happened, I frantically started putting my will together.

My power of attorney, my husband and I paid for cemetery plots. We did all of that because I was compelled to take back my control. And that's I think what happens when you're confronted, especially that young. Do you try to take back control? I think that's. One of the key responses when [00:09:00] threatened with death or confronted with it, 

Jill: the idea of not looking into what's causing the cancers is very frustrating.

I remember in my twenties reading that antiperspirants in women could potentially lead to cancers, even the wires and bras, right? So I stopped wearing antiperspirant. Many years ago, I haven't worn it since then. I stopped wearing wired brass, like all these different things where I'm like, okay, maybe it doesn't do anything.

I was like, seems like it's something that would be worth giving up if it potentially could. I stopped doing those things and. They don't really know. Even in the last 20 years, they haven't gotten any closer to finding out why so many women and younger women are getting diagnosed with breast cancers.

It's very frustrating. 'cause like you said, there's all this money [00:10:00] that goes into finding cures. I think we do need to find some things, but also we should look at maybe how we could prevent it. Even the idea that your sister was. Coerced into radiation and chemo. I hear that so often. Not even that there's a reason behind it, other than our medical system thinks you need to follow certain steps.

And I'm not somebody that goes against everything in the medical system, right? That's not me. I get my kids vaccinated, I get my mammograms. Even though I heard some word that mammograms could lead to breast cancer because now we're radiating the breast. But I figure my mother had cancer. They found it.

When it was very early, it was very small. The only way they found it was through a mammogram. So I'm like, all right, that's a risk I'm willing to take. I'm gonna get my mammograms. But even with my mother, she was in her seventies and they were like, what do you mean you're not gonna do chemo and radiation?

And I was like, no, we're not. The surgeon [00:11:00] seemed to think that she had the clear borders or whatever she called it. Yet, the other doctor was definitely very much like, well, you need to go down this path. You need to take these steps. And I was like, no, I don't think we do FO. Most people don't have the confidence to say these things because we trust doctors.

We think that they know more than us, which they do, right? In most cases, they genuinely do. That doesn't mean they're perfect either. So I am glad that you read. Do you remember what any of the books were that you read? I'm real curious about those now, 

Joy: rather than books. Uh, you would suggest that you check out Crispy Cancer.

Jill: Okay. 

Joy: Speech Cancer. The other one is The Truth About Cancer. They have lots of books and resources on those websites and they were being sourced an ongoing source of. Resources. The other thing that I find problematic about chemo and radiation, [00:12:00] aside from the fact that a lot of the decision to prescribe this for people is actually based on profit motive.

There's a lot of money in cancer treatment. I can tell you that my oncologist was very dismissive of me after I told him I didn't wanna do chemo radiation. Based on all the material I read, I explained all of this to Henry. I also mentioned that my sister had been left disabled nine years before. I couldn't afford that because I was self-employed at the time, and it's a six week recovery period, so there would be six weeks without income, which would've been catastrophic.

I was not in a position to take that time off, that we're using two substances that are known to be carcinogenic. Radiation is carcinogenic and even chemotherapy is carcinogenic. Never made sense to me that [00:13:00] we're using two carcinogenic substances or treatments to fight cancer. And all I could think about is even if I'm healed, those substances are GRE into the environment.

Jill: Yeah. 

Joy: If I could not live with myself knowing that. So that was another driving reason for me, choosing not to, and in terms of my doctor, when I explained, you know, I, I do wanna have the surgery, I wanna have the tumor removed. It was quite large. It was on my left breast. It came up very quickly after a couple of weeks when I was wearing my phone in my bra, which a lot of women do, right where my phone was, is where the tumor developed.

It became as large as a small clementine. I said, I do want that removed, even though not doing the human radiation, I believe in my body's ability to heal. So after my [00:14:00] naturopath gave me these books, and I followed some of the protocols in there, did a ton of research because I wanted to stay healthy, didn't wanna end up like my sister.

That determination and focus. I shaved all my hair off 'cause it was dyed and I thought, I gotta get rid of this dye because maybe the die is carcinogenic. I changed a lot of things about my life at that time. Living out to Vancouver was, I saw it gonna be healthier for me because they're very much proactive about health and wellness.

On the West Coast, that culture seems to be more to yoga and spirituality, and that was also part of the reason why I moved out there. I just feel as though in my research I found many cures, like legitimate cures, some of which have been demonized and suppressed, but were extremely effective at healing cancer.[00:15:00] 

This is the other part of the story that people don't hear of. It becomes. Those promoting these alternatives like Chris B. Cancer and the website, truth About Cancer, share those alternative therapies, the people using those therapies and being cleared of cancer, their voices are not being heard. I think that's Satch.

I think it's criminal to be quite honest. 

Jill: There seems to be a division between. The two different areas. Somebody that wants to go more natural versus the medical establishment. I wish they could figure out how to work together because I try to pay attention to all of it. I definitely swung all over the place on the spectrum and I like to find a balance.

I still go to the doctor, do what I need to do. I also try to eat, well, exercise and do some of the more natural things to keep my body healthy, and [00:16:00] I feel like if they could work together, it would only benefit all of us versus this division. That leads to a lot of misinformation on both ends of the spectrum, which is the frustrating part, 

Joy: and that, to your point, it should be about choice, right?

When you've got your mainstream science, and I'm not saying people should never do chemoradiation, I think it is a personal decision. It's probably the most personal and most intense decision you can make, not just about cancer, but virtually any medical treatment. You need all of the information to be able to make a legitimate decision if some of that information is being withheld from you.

That's what I'm saying is wrong, and I think people deserve better. I think our culture has elevated doctors in the medical system to be Gods to oversee our treatments as if they know everything. But as you [00:17:00] mentioned earlier, they're not perfect. They don't have all the answers. We're always discovering nutrients and we're always discovering problems with existing treatments, and that's why drugs are pulled off some organ.

I also was saying that alternative therapy is. Perfect. Either. I've absolutely not been there. There's a lot of stakeholder salesmen out there. There's a lot of medications and treatments that if they're not useless, they're actually harmful. They can do serious harm if nothing else, they can prevent people from getting proper, appropriate treatments.

And I think chemo and radiation is such a radical therapy that when you go into it, things should be. Provided to you, not just the positive studies, but the negative studies as well. It should be by full informed consent. I had a friend, Andrew send me an email when I told him that I had [00:18:00] been diagnosed with breast cancer.

I said I was considering not doing chemo and radiation. He sent me back an email that shocked me. He says, you have to do it. You have to do it or you will die. He's such a lovely gentleman. In fact, he named his first child, his first daughter after me. We worked together and became very close. He and his wife are wonderful people.

But I took a deep breath's. What I read about ever said to Cell, if you knew what I now know, after doing all of this research, you would definitely not be saying that you don't ever tell anybody. What to do about their health. You don't force your decision or make people feel guilty. I had a lot of people make me feel guilty.

My kids had serious dents. Even the doctor, after I told them I wouldn't do chemo and radiation would not look me in the eye after that would always look away. So [00:19:00] yeah, I think when you're infantalized, which is what the medical system tends to do, right? They say this is the, this is gonna heal you. Then it doesn't, statistically, it's very disturbing to me that people are not allowed to make choices for themselves as adults.

They're actively prevented from inquiring, trusting questions. If you ask questions, which I did, you get the eye rolls, especially women. I read a book called All In Her Head. I don't know the author's name offhand. But that book was shocking, to say the least. It was about how women in particular, are treated very differently from men and their illnesses, pain and injuries are not taken seriously and they're treated very dismissively.

And I can tell you with my mother, she went [00:20:00] 15 years without being diagnosed with, with a tumor on her pituitary gly, which turned out to be benign, but it was still a gross. They caused massive hormonal upheaval in her body. She was treated very poorly by multiple doctors for the disease caused by that tumor.

So I was coming into my cancer diagnosis with that awareness of what doctors can be like when it comes to women's illnesses and injuries. Treatments and I was not having any of it. I'm so determined to come away from this cancer diagnosis, healthy, happy. I mean, I'm here to prove that my faith to myself was well founded.

Jill: The fear that your friends and family, 'cause that's really all that is, is like this fear of death because again, they've been told. The only thing to do [00:21:00] when you have cancer is chemo, radiation. Maybe some surgery if they could take some of it. The only thing that all of us have been told actually works when I work with people and I do end of life care planning with them, it's a whole document we do to give them information so they could make decisions.

Ahead of time, not when you're under stress, not when you've got a doctor in your face going, you have cancer. We need to do this thing. We need to do it right away. What do you wanna do? And everybody's like, I don't know. I'd never thought about it. So let's think about it earlier. I try to just give people the information for them to make the best decision that they can for themselves.

There's this feeling often that they hesitate wanting to talk to their children, spouses, partners, and friends. Because people get so afraid. If you're not going to fight, fight, fight, then you're just giving up and you're gonna die. In some cases, death is not the thing they're afraid of. They're afraid of [00:22:00] going through chemotherapy and not being able to live their life.

What kind of life is it if you're not living because you did this treatment? Right. And so I think it is a conversation that we need to have. With our loved ones, we're all gonna die at some point, right? I don't want it to be anytime soon, but I think being able to make our choices, so maybe if I do only have a year or two left to live, I'd rather live it fully and enjoy my time.

Rather than being sick in bed because I'm doing chemo and radiation and the side effects are terrible, people can't easily have that conversation because folks get so upset like, well, you're giving up and you're just gonna die. And it's like, well, no, not really, but for some people, yeah, like I've wondered even about my grandmother, she was 90 when she got diagnosed with cancer, we did radiation because that's what we thought you had to do.

She lived four more years. I wonder, would she have still lived those four [00:23:00] years but had a much better quality of life if we just would've gotten surgery for it? Not gone through the radiation. So radiation was so hard on her. Eventually, what killed her? An infection from the radiation. She didn't die from the cancer.

I think about it. I try not to obsess about it and dwell on it, but I think about it often. That quality of life though those last few years was not good. Would she have rather had two years that were good? Versus four years where the last two, she was fairly able to do anything. I didn't have that knowledge in, which is partially why now this is my big soapbox where I'm like, you can make whatever decision you want to make as long as you're making it.

Informed with, like you said, what are my options? What are my choices? Could I try something that's a little bit more alternative therapy? We don't really have those conversations. I'm sorry that your friends and family got so stressed too because they were afraid you were gonna die. They were afraid they were losing you, and that's understandable, but unfortunate, 

Joy: [00:24:00] Mary, and it's the reality that all cancer patients are faced with.

If they have loved ones, they're gonna get that pressure because mainstream. Medical system has wedged all of us into this narrow path of treatment and has closed off any doors to potential alternatives, and this is why I'm so close. I miss my sister, my younger sister. We were very close. I miss her so much.

I miss her every day. I think about her every day, and I feel like when I talk about her, I keep her. Alive. I keep her in my heart. I keep talking about her because my story of her might help somebody make a better decision that keeps them alive and healthy because it was a travesty seeing what she went through in her [00:25:00] final year.

I drove out to Vancouver to move there. I took the trip to the West coast and she was so inspired by that. She made the troop herself. After her second diagnosis, she did the chemo and radiation surgery, and then she started that troop. She sent herself that the chemo and radiation would likely kill her, but she still took that step and longed her way across.

She was a photographer, so she took a lot of amazing pictures. She was more into. Alternative therapies and natural healing than I was. Her mom was an herbalist and she grew her own food. They lived on a farm and everything. She was so close to nature, so it was a travesty for her to be put in the position.

She had a daughter in her teens, a mortgage, and she couldn't choose not to do a Q in [00:26:00] radiation, even though it was the complete opposite of who she is. And so she never made it. She didn't make it. She went all the way out west and then when she got to Alberta, she couldn't continue the trip. She had to fly back home, deal with the issues.

From there, she ended up going to a hospice in January of 2016, so less than a year, like nine months after her second. Treatment. She passed away. Anger doesn't even begin to describe how I felt, the betrayal and especially the medical system, her employer. She didn't tell me before she died that that's what was going on.

She knew that I would try and fight her employer. That should be illegal again, first thing round. Can employers [00:27:00] do that? The fact that. She was can lie. The choice at all is, I don't even have words. The ultimate cruelty. I'm passionate about medical choice in general. That applies to a lot of other aspects of my life.

I feel that a medical system that really cares about human beings will provide all the information that people need. If it doesn't, to me, that's very paternalistic and centralizing. It's time. People did take responsibility for their own health. I've been a vegetarian most of my life. Not that I'm perfect.

I do eat junk food now and then, but I don't smoke, I don't drink, things like that. There's not enough of those messages out there either. There's far too much money go eat to promoting junk food and promoting unhealthy lifestyle habits. But all I can do is just be a model for my family and for my [00:28:00] kids.

Somebody who's made choices that were right for me, and people might say, oh, I'm just lucky. I don't think so. I think the choices I made is what made the difference and why. 10 years after my second diagnosis, I'm still here and healthy. I want people to know that they have options and I have influenced people to do their own research and to find alternatives, and they're doing just fine.

Jill: That's great. 

Joy: Gives me hope. 

Jill: Yes. I try to have hope that in general, in our culture, we're moving in the right direction. But it's a little hard to have that hope sometimes. But that's all right. We all do our part. And I actually am curious, 'cause we've talked a lot about choice now, and you may or may not have an opinion on this.

But I figure it's worth asking because I know in Canada, medical aid and dying is legal and it's even a little bit different than it is in the United [00:29:00] States. You don't have to necessarily have a terminal diagnosis. Uh, but if somebody had a stroke or LS or something that again, they don't have a life to live, they can still potentially have access to medical aid and dying.

To me, the biggest part about that is just having a choice. I don't think it's necessarily the right choice for everybody, but I do think that people should be able to have the option to choose when to end their own suffering because it's my life. I'm curious your thoughts on that since you've talked so much about choice.

Is that something you've thought about or talked about? 

Joy: Yes. Have lots of opinions about that. First of all, I have been following dying with Dignity since my mom passed away in 2004. It is something that I feel very strongly should be an option that's available. What I am concerned about is that made [00:30:00] is has become a slippery slope, and it's being used as an alternative to treatment that could be very effective for people, and that treatment's being denied to them.

They're saying. You should go on May. So when it's at the point where people are being encouraged to go down the path of May when treatments are available, that's where I draw the line. Right? Because that, again, is not choice when people are being told that they can't have, for example, a woman was looking to have a ramp installed.

Mm-hmm. And someone suggested maybe you should consider maids. All she wanted was a rail to gain up into her house, and she was offered me as an an alternative. When veterans are asking for mental health support, treatment for depression, anxiety, trauma, [00:31:00] PTSD, all of those things, and they're being told maybe you should consider maid, that absolutely is beyond the pale.

I, I don't believe people should be offered maid when they're not asking for it. There's enough knowledge now that maid is available and that's a good thing, but when people are not asking for me and they're asking for other types of help, then why are they being offered me like that is absolutely wrong.

My opinion. 

Jill: I do wonder, especially if somebody needed a ramp, why would. Like I could see if you were just giving them a list of like, these are your options, right? You could do this, you could do this, you could do this. Made is also an option you can explore. But yes, I think like anything else, we don't want to push people into deciding anything, especially when I've [00:32:00] heard some of the.

I don't know controversy, if that's even the right word, but I've heard people say that there is the fear that it will be used by people because it is cheaper. They're not gonna have to worry about the cost of these potentially very expensive medical treatments. Family members might push them into doing it because they don't wanna caregiver for somebody going through extensive treatment.

This is why I love to talk about it, because it needs to get talked about and explored in a variety of different ways. But yeah, if somebody needs a ramp and they're like, actually you could just use mi. That is insane. 

Joy: Mind you, she was quadriplegic, but still clear of mind. I can supply you with a link to the article that tells her story.

There's other stories, you know, stories of teenagers suffering from depression who are being told [00:33:00] maid was available. That is unbelievably cruel in my opinion. Do we really wanna live in a culture where Maid comes up in every conversation as a way to escape pain? I think pain teaches us a lot about how to be human.

In my life, I wouldn't change anything. I've been through extreme bouts of depression, anxiety, PTSD, trauma, all kinds, and there were times when if somebody has suggested me, sign me up. Honestly, it was so painful. But now that I'm past those times in my life, all I can imagine is what would it have done to my family had I.

Not clear of mind when you're mentally ill, you're not clear of mind. You're not thinking about the implications of you doing the maid and the devastation that means to be high. That's one of the main reasons why I [00:34:00] think maid needs to be highly regulated and lots of oversight. There's a Delta Hospice in British Columbia.

I don't know if you've heard of them. No, they have a campaign now. The hospice was shut down by the BC government because they would not allow maid to be offered to the, the people in the hospice were there because they wanted to live out their lives and die naturally. They didn't wanna deal with me at all.

Mm-hmm. So they were shut down. This woman who is. Founder director, she's extremely passionate about informing Canadians about how Maine is being misused. 

Jill: Mm-hmm. 

Joy: The most, I heard 90,000 people have used mates since the program began. I, I had no idea it was that many, [00:35:00] but I wonder how many of those were coerced you hear stories about, which I do not want to take away.

Anyone's right. To die in whatever way they choose. I began all about full informed consent and when people choose me, are they choosing it for the right reasons or are they choosing it because every other option has been closed off to them, which is what this woman in BC is telling people. She's like, A lot of the people know who are doing made, were doing it because.

They have been denied alternative treatments, either mental health support or pain Treatment is another one. People are not getting the right amount of pain care, tragic, the whole thing. Human beings suffer so much more than they have to. 

Jill: Yeah, 

Joy: that's my take. 

Jill: Yeah, [00:36:00] very interesting. 'cause I know in New Jersey it is legal and some hospices will not be involved at all.

Like I've worked with a client that the day of, they had to switch hospice companies because their hospice was like, no, absolutely not. And I need to call the hospice nurse to come out and declare the death. I can't do that myself as a death doula. And I guess. I could see for some people maybe there's like religious reasons for not wanting to 

Joy: Yeah.

Jill: Support somebody through that. I was a little surprised by that one where the day of, all of a sudden the family is like, we had to switch companies and now we had to find this new one, and literally within an hour, like, okay, I guess we're gonna call this person. Now, 

Joy: I'm not saying that maid shouldn't be performed in 

Jill: analysis, 

Joy: right?

I don't see that being problematic. Again, informed consent and only [00:37:00] if that is the patient's choice and other options that they might have wanted have not been denied to them. This particular hospice has a policy of not allowing MAID to be a part of their program, and if they're right, I think it's a Christian organization.

Delta Hospice is the name of the organization. I found out that they referred me able to reopen. Mm-hmm. I think they opened in Alberta instead. But yeah, the fact that the government can do that, I'm speechless that the government has that power. 

Jill: Yeah. I don't know. It is interesting and I wonder over the next couple of years how things are gonna shift and change.

Joy: Yeah. 

Jill: People being able to access it or how it's prescribed the whole thing. But it's definitely fascinating to watch the rest of the world and how they're doing it. 

Joy: You have to ask [00:38:00] yourself if there isn't, with some of the people involved in made the taint of eugenics going on because if somebody's homeless or a drug addict, they just need the right treatment.

But. Because they're not considered valuable as human beings, they're treated as disposable. The MAID program may be offered to them, may be pressured on them because they don't seem to have any value, whereas Christian Church, of course, he's clear about this. Every human being has inherent value no matter what they're going through.

We have to be really careful that we don't dehumanize these people. We have to be very careful from a spiritual perspective to see these individuals as divine human beings and that they deserve the best care [00:39:00] if that's what they want. If it would take me away, their right to choose, if that the choice made freely, in my opinion, when you're mentally ill.

That's a great area. I would be super hesitant to allow somebody to make that decision where they were having first tried something to help them get into a better emotional state. 

Jill: Yeah. There was a article in the New York Times this week that mentioned a woman in her mid to late forties. She'd been trying treatment since she was a teenager and she just, nothing has helped.

You know, 30 something years, she's been trying different treatments and some things helped a little for a while. The discussion is around can she qualify for medical aid and dying when she's tried? Basically everything that could be tried. Tricky. I don't [00:40:00] know any right answer. Yeah, I can imagine what that would feel like.

Joy: Yeah. That's one of those situations. That's the gray area, right? 

Jill: Yeah. 

Joy: Where someone is suffering for a long time. I've heard stories about that as well. I'm not sure if you've heard of psychedelics being used for these types of treatments, but I've used psychedelics and they in incredible young jury. I think that should be on the table as well as an auction, 

Jill: and there is a little work being done in it, but not enough using psychedelics.

For treating depression, but also death anxiety. You know, if somebody does get a cancer diagnosis and it's a terminal diagnosis, there's been very positive results in them using psychedelics and being able to come out the other end of that. With not the same level of fear and anxiety. 

Joy: Yes. 

Jill: Which is amazing.

We're probably further from that. We are [00:41:00] from made being expanded, at least in the United States. Mm-hmm. We've got a long way to go with psychedelics, 

Joy: and I think psychedelics have their place in both situations. You know, where people are in hospice, where there's no question that they're going to pass.

And then the other options. As a preventative, they could be prevented from dying. I'm always thinking about the family. It's not just about the individual. A lot of people tend to forget in this conversation is the family that's left behind this having to deal with this. Not only has a loved one died, but they died by their own choice, which leaves a whole lot of suffering.

Behind for the survival. 

Jill: I think that's too where people that advocate for made, you know, the big distinction for a lot [00:42:00] of people is, but they're not necessarily dying by their own choice. They're dying anyway. They're just choosing when to end their own suffering. But you're right. That doesn't mean that families are gonna see it that way.

There's still that idea in our culture that you need to fight and fight, and there's this idea of them giving up. When really most people I've talked to that have abused made or have talked about using made, they don't wanna be dying, but they are 

Joy: right. 

Jill: They're getting to the point where their pain is so great, their suffering is so great that they're just like, I don't wanna do this for months, maybe even a year.

I just wanna end this now when there's nothing else that can be done. 

Joy: Yeah. 

Jill: I don't know, 

Joy: to your point about do I wanna suffer from nine months or do I just wanna. Suffer for the next couple of weeks and getting over with. I think there's wisdom in that, knowing that it's your time and if you can [00:43:00] help your family deal with that, finality, that mortality, because it's gonna bring up a lot of stuff within the family as well.

It could be a profound spiritual experience. It could bring about a much closer connection to the family. Help make it much easier because you're in control of when you die and you're not delirious pain and people are watching you, which in itself is traumatic. I worked briefly at a hospice. That experience was sacred and you want it to be that way, but there are times when it's not It's, or it's something that can.

Create PTSD for people watching. Life is complex. Death is complex, and we tend to wanna simplify it as human beings. [00:44:00] If we're not avoiding it, we tend to want to simplify it in terms of. Black and white answers. It should always be this way or that way. I've come to the point in my life where I see all of the nuances and I respect and honor those nuances for each individual faced with the decision.

I just think it should be something that they do with full awareness as much as possible. Some people just can't handle it. Some people are nowhere near. Being able to cope and they just want, you know, simple. But are you familiar with the work of Steven Jenkinson? 

Jill: Oh yeah. Mm-hmm. He was on my podcast a year or two ago.

Joy: I love his work. He has this poetic, beautiful way of speaking your About Dad. Mm-hmm. But he come of age and die wise, both of his [00:45:00] books and those books profoundly influenced my. Viewpoint of how to deal with deaths as humanely as possible. In my family, in my loved ones, I lost my dad in January of 2024, and that was hard.

I've dealt with death, so many deaths. I'm 66, so when you get to this stage in life, you will have lost quite a few people. But the sting of Dan. Never goes away, and the grief never goes away by saying, I mean, the initial shock of having someone die, even if they have been ill for a long term, is so in your face, you'll never see them again alive.

Dealing with that is itself traumatic, but all of the habits in life you've had with them and all the reminders and all of that keeps coming up for you and just making it a challenge [00:46:00] to move forward. If you can develop the skill to do that, if you can find a way to translate that into something that's almost beautiful like Steven Jenkinson does, it deepens your spiritual practice and it makes you more whole as a human being.

And that's what I learned for my life and for my eventual death. I don't wanna take any moment for granted. And what it has made me do, and I'm not sure if it's. Phone together a good thing, but it's made me treat everyone in my life as precious to the point where I wanna spend as much time with them as possible and I wanna make it as happy as possible.

And sometimes that's not always good. Sometimes people need distant as Wow. So 

Jill: it has changed my relationship to the people in my life because I understand. Whether I like it or [00:47:00] not, one of us could be gone tomorrow. Try my best to live as long as possible. Accidents still happen. You can't control all of it.

Definitely has changed my time with the people I love and I cherish it. I'm so grateful for that because our culture has pushed so many of us into valuing things that aren't important. And moving at a pace that is not conducive to being present with the people when we're with them. So to me it's a gift, but there is definitely times when I wouldn't say I worry, but because I am so aware.

How old was your brother when he died? 21. I have two kids. I sometimes talk to people on my podcast that have had teenagers, their children die. There is part of me sometimes that. I'll be like, all right, my son just turned 15. If he dies at 21, that's only six more years. [00:48:00] Yeah, I don't like that, but I don't let myself get caught in it.

I don't let myself be afraid of it. I just turn it around. So that just means I'm gonna be fully present with him now because I don't know for sure. 

Joy: And that's, we could not hold life as precious without death. That's what I. Got outta Steven Jenkins' books and that's when I try to remember when I lose a loved one and I still have a lot of loved ones, spending as much quality time with them as possible and not letting small things bother me.

There's so much division in the world now and it's over some of the most petty issues and. That saddens me. I'm blessed that my family isn't really caught up in any of that. I see how families are ripped apart by issues that even the year from now [00:49:00] will not matter. I think it's something that we need to, like culturally, we need away call.

Jill: Yeah, we definitely do, and I don't know when that will happen. I just always tell myself. Some of what's going on in the world right now. We did need some of this. Like we needed change. We needed things to break apart some of these old structures, like you mentioned, even like the patriarchy, right. Done.

That we need that to go away, but this isn't really how I wanted it either. 'cause like you said, there's people that are fighting and I have friends and family that. I don't look at them the same, and I'm sure they don't look at me the same, and I don't think our relationships will ever be the same.

Thankfully, it's not been my mother or my husband or anybody that I'm really close with. I just wish there was an easier way for us to let, doesn't seem like there is, so, I don't know. Throw it right. 

Joy: Human beings, human culture by extension's [00:50:00] complex and it's the denial of that complexity that gets us into trouble.

There was a quote that goes, don't make anything that's complex, simple, and don't make anything that simple, complex. It's about discerning between the two. Being able to discern what is complex and accepting that complexity as part of being a human being. We don't grow within suffering. If we never had challenges, we would still be.

Correcting like adolescents. If everything came to us easily, we would have no skills for coping and becoming emotionally resilient. That's why I called my company Joy Resilience because of my experiences from the age of three. When I drank Oven Clear, I was in the hospital for about a year until I was seven years old.

I had to go back every six [00:51:00] months. To get an operation to finish rebuilding my stomach right from the beginning. All of these challenges have profoundly affected my personality for sure, but my ability to bounce back, and I have to say that I can't take full credit for that. I think human beings are social animals.

We get through these challenges, through connections with family and loved ones. I'm blessed that my brother, who's my best friend, has been there for me through all of it. And other family members as well, my sisters, my friends, sadly, not so much my mom and dad because they were not very healthy mentally, physically, but we grow even by having parents who are difficult even by having to deal with.

[00:52:00] Issues with our parents. We develop skills that we wouldn't otherwise have, so that's why I wouldn't change anything. 

Jill: That's beautiful. You mentioned your business a little bit. Tell us, if somebody wants to work with you, what do you do? Where do they find you? 

Joy: I started my business, joy for Science at the beginning of this year officially.

I envisioned it coming out of a psychedelic session back in 2022. I registered the company in the heat back then. But didn't actually, because of COVID and all kinds of other reasons, didn't actually have the wherewithal to begin until back in October of 24, and then I launched it on January 25. What I offer in my business is consulting as a hypnotist, CDT and NLP practitioner.

So I do counseling. I'm certified in all of those. I also have. Meditation teacher [00:53:00] certification and work with clients in workshops that help people develop resilience. On a more practical level, family emergency preparedness is the cornerstone of workshops I offer on my website. Online courses, for the most part, are free.

In class courses are very minimally priced, covering cost of the way and materials by introducing the work. I do as a workshop facilitator, I will meet people and offer them options to take hypnosis or hypnosis consulting with me. I help people quit smoking, lose weight, deal with anxiety, develop good habits, or break bad habits.

So that's my vision for the company. Joy of Resilience. I've been a computer trainer for 36 years in a business. Because AI is taking over a lot of that. I am [00:54:00] switching gears to something I've done on a very informal volunteer basis for a number of years as part of the organization transition to Toronto and Village Vancouver, I was offering emergency preparedness courses.

I have a whole bunch of other interests that read my website about page if you wanna know anymore. So that's a little good about me. 

Jill: I'll put a link in the show notes to your website. I did see we have some free resources. You had a checklist for family emergency preparedness. There's a lot of great stuff on your website.

I'll put a link in there so people can easily find it. If they wanna reach out to you, would they just do that through your website? 

Joy: That's probably the best way. I do have a Facebook and an Instagram page by Nelson on ate articles on. 

Jill: Thank you so much, joy. I really enjoyed this conversation. If you've been listening to my podcast for a while and you hear me and my guests talk over and over about how important it is to create a plan for the end of life and to have the conversations with your loved ones about what's [00:55:00] important to you, and you're thinking, okay, maybe it's time.

Maybe I should actually sit down and figure this out instead of just hoping it all works out later. I get it. These conversations can feel overwhelming or scary or just like something you'll deal with another day, but you don't have to do it alone. If you want help creating an end of life care plan for yourself or for someone you love, maybe if you're aging parents, a spouse, whoever it is in your life.

You can book a complimentary 30 minute call with me, and we'll just talk. We'll get clear on what's going on for you and what the next right steps might be. There's no pressure. Just support the links in the show notes. Whenever you're ready. And if this episode made you think of someone, a sibling, a friend, or another caregiver, feel free to share it with them.

Sometimes these conversations are easier to start when someone else opens the door. First, thank you for being here. The fact that you're even willing to listen to this kind of conversation means a lot.