#481 Thriving With Terminal Breast Cancer with Elissa Kalver#481 Thriving With Terminal Breast Cancer with Elissa Kalver
The Breast Cancer Recovery Coach
Stage 4 thriver Elissa Kalver talks with host Laura Lummer about creating a cancer gift registry, the Be Like Brittany Fund and bringing joy into life with metastatic breast cancer. Their conversation highlights the realities of lifelong treatment, the need for practical support and the importance of choosing to truly live, not just stay alive.
58:48•25 Sept 2026
Thriving, Not Just Surviving: Elissa Kalver on Terminal Breast Cancer, Joy and Giving
Episode Overview
- Support during cancer is often a bigger gap than treatment itself, and structured tools like a gift registry can make giving and receiving help far easier.
- We Got This offers a way for cancer thrivers to clearly state what they need, reducing the emotional burden of repeatedly explaining or justifying support.
- The Be Like Brittany Fund provides £500 (US$500) daily in October to women with metastatic breast cancer, with no proof of need, to encourage joy and living fully.
- Long-term treatment creates significant financial and emotional strain, with many patients draining their savings, making community-based support crucial.
- Joy, storytelling and shared humour—through books, reels, retreats and comedy shows—are presented as vital parts of thriving with terminal cancer, not optional extras.
“You deserve to live, not only to stay alive.”
What can we learn from those who have battled addiction? Here, the focus is on another life‑altering diagnosis: terminal breast cancer, and what it means to actually thrive while living with it. This conversation centres on host Laura Lummer and guest Elissa/Elisa/Alyssa Kalver, who was diagnosed de novo with HER2-positive stage 4 metastatic breast cancer just before her daughter’s first birthday.
From her fifth round of chemo, she launched We Got This, described as “the world’s first nonprofit cancer gift registry”, after realising that “the biggest gap I felt in my diagnosis was how we support each other in the hard times.” You’ll hear how the registry lets cancer thrivers list exactly what they need, so friends and family aren’t left guessing.
Laura and Elissa talk frankly about the hidden cost of long‑term treatment, burnout from constant fundraising, and that awkward dance of people asking, “What can I do?” when you barely have the energy to answer. A big highlight is the Be Like Brittany Fund, created in honour of metastatic thriver Brittany Beadle.
In October, they’re giving £500 (US$500) every single day to a woman living with metastatic breast cancer, with “no application, no criteria, no proof of need… just to go do something that makes her feel alive.” As Elissa puts it, “You deserve to live, not only to stay alive.” The chat also touches on community, storytelling, and why asking for help isn’t a weakness but a survival skill.
It’s honest about the grind of lifelong treatment yet refuses to give up on joy, comedy nights, Lego flowers and Disney trips. If you’re living with breast cancer, supporting someone who is, or just need proof that joy and terminal illness can exist in the same sentence, this one might be the dose of hope you didn’t know you needed. How could you bring a little more ‘living’ into your own hard season?
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