28 | Bulletproof Love
Alive Again4 Nov 2025

28 | Bulletproof Love

Trigger warning: Discussion and images of gun violence.

At 33, championship-level ultimate player and teacher Eileen Murray started coughing up blood—then spent a year being dismissed by doctors before hearing the word no one wants: lymphoma. Six months of chemo followed, buoyed by a community she’d spent years building on the field and in the classroom. Two decades later, driving to a friend’s wedding with her husband and kids, a sniper’s round blew out the back glass—missing her temple by a hair. No one died. It barely made the news. But the PTSD was louder than cancer.

In this blunt, compassionate conversation, Eileen unpacks the visions that foreshadowed her diagnosis, the rage and surrender of treatment, and why the shooting reshaped her parenting. She refuses to center the gunman—saving her anger for systems that fail and doubling down on connection: teaching her sons media literacy, checking their sense of belonging, writing them letters for the day she’s gone. It’s a story about cultivating community before you need it, and choosing grace over grievance.

Listener discretion advised: frank discussion of cancer, medical trauma, gun violence, and PTSD.

Eileen’s links:

Eileen’s ultimate frisbee team - https://www.nygridlockultimate.com/

Eileen also made a blog post about the shooting which you can check out here: https://www.nygridlockultimate.com/blog/wear-orange

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episoder(45)

43 | Rip

43 | Rip

Zoe Cooper grew up around parachutes—her parents were skydivers—and by her eighth jump she felt like a pro. Then the parachute ripped. Spinning low, she and her instructor had to cut away and free-fal...

17 Feb 56min

42 | Extraordinary Awakening: A Conversation with Filmmaker Jonas Elrod

42 | Extraordinary Awakening: A Conversation with Filmmaker Jonas Elrod

Filmmaker Jonas Elrod never set out to become a spiritual seeker. While making a documentary in San Francisco, his life was suddenly upended: lights flickered, voices appeared, and a portal opened in ...

10 Feb 1h 29min

41 | Angel Falls

41 | Angel Falls

At 26, Taylor Maxson was searching for purpose while working with at-risk youth in Kentucky. After months of exhaustion and stress, he and two friends set out on the Cumberland River for what was mean...

3 Feb 37min

40 | The Bondage of Self

40 | The Bondage of Self

In this unforgettable episode of Alive Again, Charlie Collins shares the moment that changed everything: when he was electrocuted by 12,500 volts on top of a moving train in New York. Legally blind si...

27 Jan 39min

39 | Maybe It Saved My Life

39 | Maybe It Saved My Life

On a 110° Grand Canyon trek rerouted by wildfire, Drew Seibert collapsed alone—hallucinating a friend, cooling in a cave, and realizing he might die there. He didn’t. A river guide’s sat phone summone...

20 Jan 49min

38 | Play The Tape Through

38 | Play The Tape Through

At UC Santa Cruz, Brooke Knisley fell more than twenty feet from a redwood while drinking and spent ten days in a coma. What followed was the long, messy work of living with a traumatic brain injury: ...

13 Jan 42min

37 | Threshold Metaphysics

37 | Threshold Metaphysics

In 2015, Robert was poisoned by someone he knew. A rapidly spreading infection sent him into emergency surgery—then into a profound near-death experience. In a vivid desert vision, a calm “guide” spok...

6 Jan 37min

36 | From Whom All Blessings Flow

36 | From Whom All Blessings Flow

When a falling rock shattered Rhesa Bailey’s pelvis at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, survival became immediate and bodily— improvised splints, a perilous raft run to the remote ranger station, a tur...

30 Des 202553min

Populært innen Vitenskap

fastlegen
tingenes-tilstand
rekommandert
jss
rss-nysgjerrige-norge
rss-rekommandert
vett-og-vitenskap-med-gaute-einevoll
sinnsyn
forskningno
villmarksliv
nordnorsk-historie
fjellsportpodden
rss-paradigmepodden
smart-forklart
rss-overskuddsliv
aldring-og-helse-podden
diagnose
pod-britannia
tomprat-med-gunnar-tjomlid
tidlose-historier