At What Point Do You Question Your Own Mortality?: The Stigma of Too Young to Die with Lucy Younger

Lucy Younger is a 23-year-old young women’s health advocate and writer. After finishing her second year of university, she was diagnosed with a rare low grade brain tumour which required a craniotomy to treat. Post surgery and recovery, Lucy went on to graduate with an English degree, phenomenally followed by a Master's Degree, however similarly to her undergraduate experience, she was diagnosed with Thyroid cancer at the end of her master’s, which led her to start her blog and page “Living low grade”. This traumatic experience inspired Lucy to create an uplifting blog to raise awareness about low grade tumours, and cancer for young people who have just started their lives and courageously, learning to live with low grade tumours and a cancer diagnosis. As an admired social media advocate and influencer, Lucy’s TikToks have been featured in the New York post. These posts exist so that other young people in a similar position to Lucy, can watch and follow her journey. Now, Lucy raises awareness and advocates for both the Brain Tumour Charity and The British Thyroid Foundation along with writing a blog that has featured in regional newspapers to raise awareness for misdiagnosis of low-grade tumours of young people.

Description:

Receiving a cancer diagnosis is possibly one of the hardest and most confronting realities a person can face. Cancer remains devastatingly unbiased of who it targets, disrupting the lives of those diagnosed and the people around them. Tragically, the conversations around cancer and mortality are heavily weighted in fear and palpable overwhelm, altering the trajectory of a person’s life in a single heartbeat. One of the most confronting topics we face as a society and individually, is death. Yet, there is a marker when it comes to mortality; illness, age, and well… illness and age. There is a confronting stigma surrounding young people and death and a reluctance in talking about it. While some may look upon death as a natural stage of life, others may find the prospect of dying too terrifying to contemplate. So perhaps, let’s soften into the hard conversations and do mortality, meaning, and death differently.

In this episode, Ally and Lucy discuss:

• How we can best listen, learn and support young people with cancer
• Why talking about the value of life, mortality and death are not mutually exclusive
• How life can change in an instant, at any age
• Why death is as relevant a conversation as life is
• How seeking a diagnosis for health issues can be challenging for young people.
• Navigating mortality and an uncertain future

Follow:

You can find Lucy via IG: @Lucy.younger, and livinglowgradee

If you love this episode, please share and leave a review — let’s smoke out stigma and make truth-telling the next biggest trend.

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