Forrest Spence Fund
108 episodes listed below
Warm conversations for families facing childhood illness.
In the Face of Illness is a warm interview series about childhood illness, pediatric care, and the families learning to live inside medical uncertainty. Brittany Spence speaks with parents, health workers, staff members, and interns about what support looks like in hospital rooms, homes, and community events.
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In the Face of Illness is a pediatric health and family support interview series shaped by lived experience. The show spends most of its time with people who have been close to childhood illness, either as parents, caregivers, healthcare workers, nonprofit staff, or volunteers. Its strongest episodes do not treat illness as a topic to summarize. They let people describe the confusing middle of it. A parent talks about learning trach care and staying calm when home no longer has the immediate safety net of a hospital room. Another guest remembers the terror of seeing medical providers gathered around a premature baby and knowing something was wrong before the explanation arrived. The show makes room for those moments without turning them into spectacle. It also keeps returning to practical questions: how caregivers learn, how they ask for clearer teaching, how families split time between home and the NICU, and how community support fills gaps that medicine alone cannot reach. Brittany Spence guides the conversations with a measured, empathetic style. She often pauses to restate what a guest has said in plain language, then asks for the piece another parent might need to hear. That gives the series a grounded usefulness. Episodes with staff members and interns widen the view beyond a single family, showing comfort carts, breakfasts, hospital programs, fundraising events, and regional work through the Forrest Spence Fund. The series is especially connected to Memphis and Chattanooga, with recurring references to Le Bonheur, St. Jude, Erlanger, and nearby families crossing state lines for care. It can be tender. It can also be heavy. Child loss, long hospitalization, respiratory crises, premature birth, grief, and caregiver fatigue are discussed directly. The hope here is not polished or easy. It comes through parents who keep learning, clinicians who keep explaining, and community workers who keep showing up with meals, supplies, events, and attention. For listeners facing pediatric illness, the show offers recognition. For people outside that experience, it offers a patient way to understand what families are carrying.
Made for: For parents, caregivers, healthcare workers, volunteers, and family members who want grounded conversations about pediatric illness and support. It also suits listeners trying to better understand what families need during hospital stays, home care, grief, and recovery.
What sets it apart: The show blends intimate family stories with practical nonprofit and hospital context, so emotional testimony sits beside concrete support details. Its regional focus on Memphis, Chattanooga, and nearby pediatric care communities gives the conversations a specific, lived-in texture.
In the Face of Illness is a podcast committed to supporting our listeners through education. Our podcast will both inform and support our listeners by discussing the many facets of childhood health and healthcare. We will interview both health care professionals, and families who have been through the fire to glean their wisdom and their advice for others who want to learn more. Ultimately, we are here to offer hope in the face of illness.
A NICU bedside feels less lonely when Brittany Spence brings parents and clinicians into the same conversation.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A steady conversation on chronic illness, grief, counseling, and the family life that carries on around them.
Kesley Roger's move from law enforcement into counseling gives the episode its shape: chronic illness can reorder a life, and resilience often arrives through adjustment rather than easy certainty.
A blended family's path through Truett's illness becomes a clear-eyed portrait of care learned at home.
Erin and Risa Cole trace a family story that begins with a high school and college friendship and settles into the realities of a blended household, then into the frightening first months of Truett Joshua Cole's life.
A respiratory therapist's guidance on asking questions and learning through illness gives caregivers a steady place to begin.
Michelle Jones brings a practical center to this episode: families dealing with childhood illness need space to ask questions, take in answers, and ask again when something still feels unclear.
A pediatric-care professional remembers the fear and gratitude that followed her premature son's sudden medical crisis.
Abby Cooley traces a parent's worst kind of waiting: a premature birth, a fragile hope of going home, and then a sudden shift at nine days old when Noah's heart rate spikes and the room around his bedside changes.
A grounded NICU story about exhaustion, family support, and making perinatal care visible.
Monica and Chima's story of welcoming twins at 31 weeks gives the episode a clear center: the pressure, waiting, and divided attention that come with a NICU stay.
A practical calendar update centered on feedback, planning, and event improvements.
The episode lays out the Forcements Fund's 2026 event calendar with a steady, practical tone. Alexis Daniel moves through returning favorites, new events in all three cities, and the one format that will not continue, so the focus stays on what is changing and why.
A service-minded conversation about childhood illness support that is strongest when it stays close to nonprofit strain.
In the Face of Illness centers childhood illness and the practical support families lean on, with Brittany Spence introducing it as a source of hope and support. Jim Meeks Jr.
Anna Fears, a second-grade teacher from Decetta County, tells host Brittany Spence how a 20-week anatomy scan revealed Nora's tetralogy of Fallot, and how Nora was delivered by C-section on May 19 and moved to Labano.
In the Face of Illness host Brittany Spence interviews Kesley Roger, a licensed mental health therapist whose chronic illness redirected her from law enforcement to counseling.
Brittany Spence interviews Arkansas parents Risa and Erin Cole about bringing home their son Truett Joshua Cole after seven months at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital.
Brittany Spence interviews Michelle Jones, a respiratory therapist with 32 years of experience and 21 years at Le Bonheur Children's Hospital, about supporting families caring for children with tracheostomies, ventilators, and other breathing equipment.
Brittany Spence interviews Abby Cooley about Noah’s premature birth at 32 weeks after Abby became critically ill at 26 weeks of pregnancy.
Monica and Chima Onwuka describe raising Micaiah alongside twins Nehemiah and Noriah, who were born at 31 weeks and entered the NICU.
This episode features an interview with Katherine Hatton, a Rhodes College student majoring in health equity, discussing her background, interests, and motivations as part of a podcast focused on resources for families facing childhood illness.
Brittany Spence and Events and Center Director Alexis Daniel map out the 2026 events calendar for In the Face of Illness, including changes in Memphis, Chattanooga, and Nashville.
This 100th episode features notes from past guests offering encouragement and hope to families facing childhood medical challenges.
Brittany Barnett, manager of Patient Family Centered Care at St.
Brittany Spence appeals for year-end donations to support the Forrest Spence Fund's community work and future plans.
Host Brittany Spence talks with Jim and Natalie Meeks about their family's partnership with the Forrest Spence Fund, which supports children facing serious illness.
This episode features an interview with Ramir, the Community Programs Manager for Community HIV Network, discussing her role in providing free HIV prevention services and support for families affected by childhood illness.
This episode features an interview with nine-year-old Jack Chance, who shares his inspiring story of surviving a life-threatening battle with meningitis, hydrocephalus, and a blood clot at Le Bonheur Children's Hospital.
This episode features Holly Carpenter discussing her experience as a mother to a premature son in the NICU during the COVID pandemic and her subsequent role as Nashville director of the Forrest Spence Fund to support families facing childhood illness.
This episode features an interview with Summer Curry, a single mother discussing her family's journey caring for her son Avery who was diagnosed with B-cell leukemia at 17 months old.
This episode features an interview with NICU nurse Ann Barron about her role caring for premature infants and the operations of the neonatal intensive care unit at Methodist Le Bonheur Germantown Hospital.