I am a two-time breast cancer survivor and a longtime caregiver for family members living with cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.
I know what it feels like for illness to reach far beyond the body and into every part of a life. To move between being a patient, survivor, and caregiver while trying to keep up with appointments, work, relationships, decisions, and all the ordinary responsibilities that don’t stop just because your life has changed.
That experience is at the center of how—and why—I do this work.
Hi, I’m Kerstin.
One of the most important parts of this work for me is finding language for experiences that are deeply felt but too often go unnamed and unseen.
Too many of us carry the isolation, sadness, grief, frustration, anger, and rage alone. We hold it in because we are afraid of burdening the people around us—or because we don’t know how to explain what is happening in a way that others will understand.
After my diagnosis, I wasn’t only trying to manage symptoms, side effects, and follow-up care. I was desperately seeking to understand changes in my body, my energy, my identity—and the frightening sense that I no longer recognized myself. So much of what I was experiencing didn’t fit neatly within the usual language of treatment and survivorship.
Caregiving has shown me the other side of this same experience. So much of illness and caregiving unfolds beyond the exam room—in relationships, homes, work, finances, changing roles, difficult decisions, and the quiet labor of simply getting through each day.
My work is to help make these experiences visible and give people language for what they are carrying. I want individuals to feel less alone in what they are living—and organizations to better recognize and respond to the realities their patients and families face.
Whether I am supporting one person, facilitating a group, developing a program, or contributing to research, I return to the same questions:
What is happening here that we have not yet made room for? And what becomes possible when we finally name it?
Beyond the work:
Based just outside Austin in the Texas Hill Country, I live and work in a landscape that reminds me everyday to slow down. Living with chronic illness has taught me that rest, pleasure, and unstructured time are not luxuries; they are part of how I care for myself. I try to practice the same spaciousness I hope to create for others through quiet mornings, long walks with my dog Moose, time spent on or near the water, and days that leave room simply to be.