Episode Overview

Podcast: Still My Baby
Episode: Listen Now: Alive with Steve Burns
Air Date: September 17, 2025
Host: Steve Burns (guest hosting/presenting for "Alive with Steve Burns")
Guest: Julie McFadden, hospice and palliative care nurse, author of "Nothing to Fear: Demystifying Death to Live More Fully"

This episode is a crossover or featured segment from Steve Burns’ new show "Alive," where he dives into conversations about life, death, and everything in between. Burns, known for his warm, familiar tone (notably from “Blue’s Clues”), opens up about personal brushes with Internet death rumors and his real-life encounters with loss, before welcoming hospice nurse Julie McFadden. The heart of the conversation centers on demystifying death, understanding hospice and palliative care, and the human experiences that surround dying.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Steve’s Personal Relationship with Mortality and the Internet (00:02–06:28)

• Steve reflects on adulthood’s challenges—money, privacy, and existential topics like death.
• He recounts how persistent Internet rumors of his own death affected him:

  "There was this Internet rumor going around that I was dead...no matter what we did, we couldn't get rid of the rumor." (A, 02:40)

  • The rumor lasted over a decade and became "a cultural preference."
• He shares how real losses—his father and his dog—have given him a new lens through which to view mortality:

  "The inevitable fact of our death is the one certainty we hold while we're alive." (A, 05:21)

2. Introducing Julie McFadden: "Nothing to Fear" (06:28–06:48)

• Steve credits TikTok for discovering nurse Julie’s work and lauds her transparent, approachable education about death and dying online.
• Julie is introduced as a guest who deeply understands the process of dying from her years in hospice and palliative care nursing.

3. Demystifying Hospice and Palliative Care (06:48–09:00)

• Hospice:
  • Julie reframes hospice as being about living, not just dying:

    "Hospice is about living. People think it's about dying...but it is for people who want to live out the rest of their lives, wherever that may be." (B, 06:51)

  • In the U.S., home hospice (care at home by a team) is the most common.
• Palliative Care:
  • Focuses on symptom management and holistic care, even through ongoing treatment:

    "A team of people...looks at you like as a whole person and manages your symptoms while you go through treatment..." (B, 07:36)

  • Julie advocates for immediate palliative care post-diagnosis, which is not yet standard because of limited physician awareness and strict criteria.

    "Many doctors aren't fully aware of what palliative care actually is and what it's for, so they won't refer early enough." (B, 08:13)

4. Steve’s Personal Experience as a Caregiver (08:40–10:06)

• Steve describes his father's passing as a slow, subtractive process:

  "Things were being taken. You know, things were taken forever and gone. His strength was taken forever and gone. I remember his beard was taken forever and gone. And it occurred to me that I had never seen my father's face until he was dying of cancer, you know, and it was such a gradual dimming..." (A, 08:56)

• He notes the difficulty of pinpointing the moment of death, even from close proximity:

  "I was right there with him...I couldn't identify the moment. You know what I mean?" (A, 09:43)

5. The Line Between Life and Death (10:06–10:35)

• Julie affirms the complexity in identifying "the moment" of someone's passing and offers a physiological perspective:

  "There really is a biological, physiological, metabolic thing that is going on when someone's dying. And our bodies are built to die." (B, 10:09)

  • She reveals there’s a chapter in her upcoming book dedicated to this.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On death rumors and cultural myth-making:

  "It started to feel like a cultural preference. Does that make sense? Yeah. If I'm being honest, it actually...kind of messed me up." — Steve Burns (A, 04:25)

• On the certainty of death:

  "The inevitable fact of our death is the one certainty we hold while we're alive." — Steve Burns (A, 05:21)

• On the mission of hospice:

  "Hospice is about living. People think it's about dying...but it is for people who want to live out the rest of their lives." — Julie McFadden (B, 06:51)

• On automatic palliative care:

  "I wish everyone could be on palliative care the second they got diagnosed with any kind of life limiting terminal or chronic illness...everyone needs it, I think." — Julie McFadden (B, 07:48)

• On the gradual nature of dying:

  "It was such a gradual dimming...I couldn't identify the moment." — Steve Burns (A, 09:40)

• On the biology of dying:

  "Our bodies are built to die." — Julie McFadden (B, 10:24)

Important Segment Timestamps

| Time (MM:SS) | Segment/Topic | |------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:02–03:00 | Steve reflects on adulthood and existential anxieties | | 03:00–06:28 | Persistent Internet rumors of Steve’s death; real loss | | 06:28–06:48 | Welcoming Julie McFadden | | 06:48–08:05 | Demystifying hospice and palliative care | | 08:05–08:40 | Doctor awareness and access difficulties | | 08:40–10:06 | Steve’s story about losing his father, witnessing dying | | 10:06–10:35 | Where is the "line" between life and death? |

Tone & Takeaways

Steve Burns brings approachable vulnerability, honesty, and warmth; he’s open about his fears and confusion regarding mortality. Julie McFadden provides both reassurance ("hospice is about living") and direct language ("our bodies are built to die"). The episode feels intimate, reassuring, and deeply human, providing listeners with frameworks to confront mortality openly and compassionately.

For listeners new to this episode:
You’ll find a frank, heartfelt discussion on the stigma and reality of death, made accessible by Steve’s personal stories and Julie’s professional expertise. The conversation deftly moves from the surreal experience of being the subject of your own death rumors to the universal realities of losing loved ones, and finally to the ongoing challenge of demystifying death in a culture conditioned to avoid it.