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Sara Kourouma: From Childhood Loss to Empowerment, Creating Community for BRCA Carriers

Release Date: 01/15/2026

Solo Episode: Living with Hereditary Cancer and Risk in a Loud World

Walking the Genetic Line

Host: Sara Champie, LCSW Theme: Navigating medical vulnerability, global instability, and nervous system overwhelm during hereditary cancer risk and treatment. Episode summary What happens when your body is healing, your life is medically uncertain, and the world around you feels like it’s unraveling? In this solo episode, therapist Sara Champie explores a reality many people navigating hereditary cancer risk quietly experience: the nervous system strain of managing personal medical vulnerability while absorbing the constant noise of global crisis. When surgery, treatment, or high-stakes...

Katie McMurray: The Emotional Impact of Grief, Sisterhood, and Preventative Surgery

Walking the Genetic Line

Guest: Katie McMurray Theme: BRCA1, sisterhood, developmental trauma, and choosing preventative surgery in young adulthood Episode summary When Katie was 17, she lost her mother to breast cancer. Years later, genetic testing confirmed what she had long suspected: she carries a BRCA1 mutation. In this episode, Katie and Sara Champie explore what happens when grief resurfaces through genetic testing — how identity shifts, how fear and agency intertwine, and how the loss of a parent shapes medical decision-making. At 25, during the height of COVID, Katie chose preventative mastectomy surgery....

Ingrid Nishimoto, LCSW: Peutz-Jeghers Syndrome and Intergenerational Emotional Inheritance

Walking the Genetic Line

Guest: Ingrid Nishimoto, LCSW Theme: Inherited Narratives—Moving Beyond the Parent’s Story to Claim Your Own Episode Summary When Ingrid Nishimoto was diagnosed with Peutz-Jeghers Syndrome at age 17, she wasn't just handed a medical management plan; she was handed a mirror of her father’s life and early death. In this profound conversation with Sara Champie, LCSW, Ingrid explores the "Time Collapse" that occurs when a genetic diagnosis makes the past and future converge in the present. As a fellow psychotherapist, Ingrid deconstructs the emotional burden of living past the age a parent...

Sara Kavanaugh: From Health Anxiety to Empowerment—Transforming Hereditary Cancer Risk into Healing

Walking the Genetic Line

Guest: Sara Kavanaugh Theme: Living as a Previvor—Agency, Advocacy, and Reframing Anxiety After Genetic Testing Episode summary When Sara Kavanaugh learned she carried mutations in her MSH6 (Lynch syndrome) and Check2 genes, she moved from decades of health anxiety—and ambiguous uncertainty—to a new sense of empowerment and structure. In this dialogue with psychotherapist and fellow traveler Sara Champie, Sara shares how learning her genetic status fundamentally changed her identity, led her to fierce self-advocacy, and inspired her to create the Positive Gene Podcast—a resource and...

Sara Kourouma: From Childhood Loss to Empowerment, Creating Community for BRCA Carriers

Walking the Genetic Line

Guest: Sara Kourouma Theme: Loss, agency, and community—the emotional journey of living with BRCA2 Episode summary When Sara Kourouma discovered she carried the BRCA2 mutation as a young adult—after losing her mother to breast cancer at age 10—she was thrust into a landscape defined by uncertainty, risk, and the weight of generational loss. In this episode, Sara Champie sits down with Sara Kourouma, a clinical social worker serving New York and Texas, to explore how privilege, access, grief, and human connection have shaped her journey through surveillance, multiple prophylactic...

Beth Martinetti: Family, Fertility, and Identity after Hereditary Cancer Diagnosis

Walking the Genetic Line

Episode Summary When Beth Martinetti—Pilates instructor, mother of three, and lifelong student of her own body—discovered multiple genetic mutations at 45, it was the latest chapter in a lifetime shaped by both visible and invisible challenges. Beth shares her journey from adolescent injury and Ehlers-Danlos diagnosis, through complicated pregnancies, to a midlife cascade: mysterious symptoms, pivotal encounters with validating doctors, and ultimately, the discovery that she carries BRCA1, CHEK2, and a variant in BARD1. Still in the thick of surgical recovery, Beth invites us into her...

Dr. Corinne Menn: The Truth About Hormone Replacement for BRCA Carriers and Previvers

Walking the Genetic Line

Guest: Dr. Corinne Menn Theme: Claiming agency in hereditary cancer risk, surgical menopause, and a new era of HRT care Episode summary When Dr. Corinne Menn—board certified OB/GYN, Menopause Society certified practitioner, 23+ year breast cancer survivor, and BRCA2 carrier—joins us, she brings unparalleled lived and clinical expertise to walking the genetic line. In this conversation, Dr. Corinne Menn shares her deeply personal journey: breast cancer at 28, the loss of her mother to ovarian cancer, and the years navigating her own genetic risk and premature menopause. Together, we...

Martha Kaiser: From Melanoma Diagnosis to Genetic Discovery – A Journey of Agency and Ancestry

Walking the Genetic Line

Guest: Martha Kaiser Theme: Walking with CDKN2A, Ancestral Discovery, and Agency in Rare Genetic Mutations Episode Summary When Martha Kaiser discovered she carries the rare CDKN2A gene mutation—known for elevating risks of melanoma and pancreatic cancer—her journey shifted from uncertainty, loss, and family trauma to active agency and deep exploration. In this conversation, she shares not only the medical dimensions of living with a lesser-known mutation, but how intergenerational silence, gut intuition, and the drive to protect her children led her to become both a patient advocate and a...

Solo Episode: What “Evidence-Based Care” Really Means: Bridging Science, Trauma, and Healing Hereditary Cancer

Walking the Genetic Line

🧬 Episode Summary In this solo episode, host Sara Champie, LCSW, explores one of the most common phrases in medicine and psychology—evidence-based care—and what it really means when we apply it to lived human experience. Sara walks us through the two definitions that often get conflated: evidence-based research, which measures outcomes in controlled studies, and evidence-based practice, which integrates science, clinical wisdom, and a client’s unique values and culture. She then bridges these frameworks through the lens of hereditary cancer risk, showing how the most profound healing...

Katherine Lewandowski: Reclaiming Self After Preventative Surgery

Walking the Genetic Line

Guest: Katherine Lewandowski Theme: Choosing care, surviving change, and finding a stronger self after prophylactic surgery Episode summary When Katherine learned at 43 that she carried BRCA2—shortly after her father’s metastatic prostate cancer diagnosis—she moved from shock and shame to decisive action. In this conversation, she shares how grief, meticulous research, and a values-aligned care team led her through prophylactic bilateral mastectomy with DIEP flap reconstruction and surgical menopause—and why she now feels more like herself: stronger, clearer, and more alive. We...

More Episodes

Guest: Sara Kourouma
Theme: Loss, agency, and community—the emotional journey of living with BRCA2

Episode summary
When Sara Kourouma discovered she carried the BRCA2 mutation as a young adult—after losing her mother to breast cancer at age 10—she was thrust into a landscape defined by uncertainty, risk, and the weight of generational loss. In this episode, Sara Champie sits down with Sara Kourouma, a clinical social worker serving New York and Texas, to explore how privilege, access, grief, and human connection have shaped her journey through surveillance, multiple prophylactic surgeries, and finding a sacred role in supporting others living with hereditary cancer risk.

We cover

Childhood loss and the evolution of understanding risk: Growing up after her mother’s passing, and how major developmental milestones brought a fresh wave of grief and questioning.
Early genetic testing and access barriers: Navigating the impact of genetic knowledge on health and life insurance, and the privilege of paying out-of-pocket to keep results private.
Decision-making in the shadow of family history: How approaching her mother’s age at diagnosis shaped Sara Kourouma’s relationship to her own risk and medical choices.
Choosing prophylactic surgeries and finding agency: Why Sara Kourouma ultimately chose mastectomy, hysterectomy, and DIEP flap (autologous) reconstruction—and the emotional labor of claiming her needs as a parent and partner.
The gaps in psychological care: The critical difference between medical expertise and psychosocial support, and the healing power of group connection and lived experience.
Building community, in person and virtually: Why message boards aren’t enough, and the importance of human-to-human support for navigating body changes, hormones, and life transitions.
Living with ongoing risk and uncertainty: The ever-changing landscape of surveillance, learning to listen to her body, and the meaning of living fully, today.

Highlights & takeaways

“To be alive is risk. We happen to know our risk, and how can I use that information to empower myself in ways my mom never could?”
Privilege and access shape every aspect of care and decision-making—financial, relational, and emotional.
There’s profound healing in being witnessed by those who truly understand your experience—community is as vital as medical care.
Living fully with risk doesn’t mean denying uncertainty, but learning to stay present, ask for help, and make meaning together.
“My mother’s story lives on as a value in my life: live fully, make it meaningful.”

Content note
This episode includes discussion of childhood bereavement, parental death, surgical details, genetic testing, body image, and navigating privilege and access in medical care.

Resources mentioned

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You’re not alone—we can walk this line together.

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