Sorry, I'm Sad

Meet Drew Robinson, a 29-year-old who lives in his hometown of Las Vegas, Nevada, loves his dogs, has an infectious smile and was drafted out of high school in the fourth round by Major League Baseball’s Texas Rangers. Drew spent more than a decade playing professional baseball, including about a year total in the big leagues. His first hit in the majors was a home run. He is a goofball with his friends and is close with his family. He’s handsome and athletic and young and seems to have it all. But, as is the case almost always in life, things are not what they seem on the surface.

What you can’t see while listening to this conversation is the physical reminder of the worst day of Drew’s life, the day his life almost, should have, ended.

Drew is missing his right eye as a result of injuries from a suicide attempt on April 16, 2020.

This is a story about that day, yes, but it is also about the totality of Drew’s life, about what led to that day and about all that has come after. It’s about thinking you have nothing to live for and then, by some miracle, surviving and realizing how wrong you were. It’s about having the hard conversations, about asking for help and about making it your actual job to encourage others to do the same.

This conversation contains details about Drew’s suicide attempt and about suicidal ideation and suicidal thoughts. If you or someone you love is struggling with these things, please reach out for help. In Canada, call 1-833-456-4566 or text 45645. In the US, call 1-800-273-8255.

If you value this podcast and would like to support it, you can go to www.patreon.com/kelsiesnow to become a member.
More:
Jeff Passan's story about Drew & E60 Trailer

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Over the course of the next two episodes you’ll hear two very different stories about two very different lives. 70-year-old Laurel and 36-year-old Jessie had no connection in life, but they both had progressive, incurable diseases that steadily robbed them of independence and quality of life.
They both also lived in Calgary, and that meant they had access to Alberta Health Care’s Medical Assistance in Dying program, also known as MAiD. Both women, whose lives traveled such different arcs, chose to use MAID.

Today you’ll hear Ryan Leslie tell his mom’s story. Ryan is an on-air NHL host for Sportsnet and on Hockey Night in Canada. His mom, Laurel, who had the chronic lung disease COPD, died in September 2021. Going through the experience of MAID left an indelible impact on Ryan, Laurel’s only child.

Then, in two weeks, Heather Lucier talks about her daughter, Jessie Ravnsborg, who died in November 2019 at the much-too-young age of 36. Heather’s story is, of course, different than Ryan’s. Jessie’s death was out of order. Children are supposed to bury their parents, not the other way around. About 18 months before Jessie died, she was diagnosed with ALS. As is so often the case for ALS patients, Jessie’s deterioration was swift. So, too, was her decision to wring all the love and goodness out of the days she had left and, then, when her quality of life diminished beyond the point when moments of happiness could pierce through the darkness of her disease, she would use MAID.

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In this season two finale, Chris and Kelsie answer questions submitted by followers on Twitter and Instagram about life, marriage, illness and work three years removed from Chris' ALS diagnosis.

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Steve Gleason, the former NFL safety who has been living with ALS for 11 years and been totally paralyzed for eight of those, joins Kelsie and Chris for a conversation about how he and his family are flourishing in a life most people would find impossible thanks to radical acceptance, deep compassion for themselves and each other and abiding love.

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Photos of ESPN SportsCenter anchor Nicole Briscoe’s family look like a dream life, but infertility and the isolation and shame it causes are an all-too-common nightmare. Nicole and her husband, professional race-car driver Ryan Briscoe, worked for 10 years to make their picture-perfect family. The end result was two beautiful little girls. The path to that point involved seemingly endless cycles of hormones, needles, IVF treatments, never being diagnosed with a disease that can directly impact fertility despite being seen by countless fertility doctors and miscarriages so numerous you lose track of exactly how many there were.
Now, only two months removed from a hysterectomy, Nicole talks about it all – the complicated and conflicting emotions, the guilt, the anger, the shame, the isolation, the resulting grief from 10 years of thinking constantly about getting pregnant and staying pregnant and losing pregnancies – in an effort to help other women going through the same thing know that they are not alone.

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