I Only Ate Squash for a Year In Hopes To Stay Alive: Cystic Fibrosis
Sickboy
CBC
4.8 • 524 Ratings
🗓️ 22 January 2025
⏱️ 65 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When your parents tell you you'll be the exception to CF's cruel rules, you either sink or swim - Madison MacGregor chose to freestyle. When doctors couldn't halt her declining health, Madison went rogue - ditching the CF diet for squash and alternative treatments until she weighed just 88 pounds. From competitive dancing with an IV to battling her medical team at every turn, this self-proclaimed "geriatric Gen Z-er" shares her unconventional journey through CF. But the real twist? Sometimes surviving isn't the hardest part - it's figuring out who you are when death is no longer knocking at your door.
Find our other episodes about cystic fibrosis here (the first-ever episode of Sickboy!), here, and here (our chat with Justin Baldoni).
Catch the full video version of this episode on YouTube.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's becoming pretty clear that U.S. President Donald Trump is ripping up the political |
| 0:05.3 | playbook. |
| 0:05.8 | And when it comes to what it all means for Canada, well, as they say, it's complicated. |
| 0:09.8 | But our podcast, two blocks from the White House, is a way to make sense of it all. |
| 0:13.8 | Join me, Willie Lowry, and senior Washington correspondents, Paul Hunter and Katie Simpson |
| 0:18.6 | every week as we break down the headlines from Capitol Hill |
| 0:22.1 | with a Canadian spin. Find and follow two blocks from the White House on your favorite podcast |
| 0:27.3 | app, including YouTube. This is a CBC podcast. |
| 0:46.9 | What's up, folks? Today we have an episode that is a doozy. We're joined by Madison McGregor, an actor, writer, and mental health advocate who's rewriting the rules of living |
| 0:53.0 | with CF. Get ready for some real talk about |
| 0:56.6 | survival mode and some rather unconventional healing methods like a buttload of squash. And I don't |
| 1:04.2 | mean the racquetball type of squash. But before we dive in, quick reminder that we could not do |
| 1:10.0 | any of this without you. We love you all so much. |
| 1:13.7 | Please make sure you are following Sick Boy on your favorite podcast app. You can catch the full |
| 1:18.2 | video version of the podcast over on YouTube. And hey, if this episode hits home, share it with |
| 1:24.5 | someone you love, share it with someone who needs to hear it. |
| 1:28.4 | All right, without further ado, let's get into it. |
| 1:31.0 | This is our conversation with Madison. |
| 1:42.2 | How many TikTok dances do you know? |
| 1:44.2 | I don't know any. |
| 2:01.6 | You know what? I'm so old. Like, for my age, like, my sister's joke that I'm like a 40-year-old woman in a 25-year-old's body. Like, they're like, you don't... Are there names for the TikTok dances? I don't even know. Like, I was like, what is it? Like, the thrash and bash. Yeah. I think they have cooler names than that. |
| 2:02.2 | Oh, yeah? |
... |
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