This week, Carrie and Emma are going somewhere they probably shouldn't go quite so enthusiastically: we're talking about bizarre deaths.

And when Carrie is an Anatomical Pathology Technician, that means Emma has an almost unlimited supply of questions.

Naturally, Emma wants to know everything.

What actually happens to the human body after a fire? Which parts of the body can burn? What does a body look like after a road traffic accident? What happens when someone decides to put something somewhere in their body that it really wasn't designed to go?

And, perhaps most importantly, how does Carrie manage to keep answering Emma's increasingly enthusiastic questions without completely losing the will to live?

In this episode, the two explore some of the strangest, most unusual and sometimes genuinely unbelievable deaths and medical situations, mixing historical cases with stories from Carrie's own career in anatomical pathology and her experiences working on the ambulance team.

As always, Carrie discusses real experiences with care and discretion, but that doesn't stop Emma from asking the questions that most people would probably think twice about asking out loud.

The conversation covers everything from bizarre accidents and unusual deaths to medical conditions that can become life-threatening when they're ignored.

That story leads into a wider discussion about elderly people, how easily serious problems can sometimes be overlooked, and why something that appears relatively minor can become much more dangerous if medical attention is delayed.

Then things take another turn as Carrie and Emma discuss body modification, foreign objects and some of the frankly questionable things people have attempted to put into — or remove from — their own bodies.

Which is where Emma has to confess to a story involving her son…

A raisin…

And a nose.

Let's just say that removing a raisin from a child's nose is not quite as straightforward as you might imagine.

Expect fascinating facts, uncomfortable questions, bizarre circumstances, some genuinely sad moments, plenty of "surely that can't be true?" stories and, of course, the dark humour and completely unpredictable conversations you've come to expect from Carrie and Emma.

Because when you combine an Anatomical Pathology Technician with someone whose curiosity knows absolutely no boundaries, you never quite know where the conversation is going to end up.

Listener discretion is advised. This episode discusses death, accidental and unexpected deaths, medical emergencies, road traffic accidents, post-mortem examination and other potentially distressing subjects. Some real-life cases are discussed in a deliberately non-graphic and respectful manner.

So, if you've ever wondered about the stranger side of death, the unusual things that can happen to the human body, or simply what on earth could possibly lead to a mortuary having to remove someone's head…

This is the episode for you.

And yes, Emma really does ask Carrie whether parts of the human body can actually burn.

You have been warned.

If you’ve enjoyed it, found it useful, thought-provoking, or just found us thoroughly entertaining — which is entirely possible — please like, follow, subscribe and share. It genuinely helps us grow.

You can find us on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, and the podcast is now available on all major platforms, with the video version on YouTube and Spotify. https://linktr.ee/itsadeathsentencepodcast

We’re also on Patreon if you’d like to support what we do.

And if you want to find out what we’re up to beyond the podcast, come and follow Dead Curious CIC on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. That’s our Community Interest Company delivering creative death education workshops — because apparently talking about death wasn’t enough, so we decided to make a whole organisation out of it!

Massive thanks to Walsh Funerals and Memorials for sponsoring this episode.

Thank you for listening - find us on socials @itsadeathsentencepodcast follow and like us for more episodes. Find contact info on our web page www.its-a-death-sentence.com here you can contact us, buy our merch and send us your stories.

www.its-a-death-sentence.com

YouTube- @itsadeathsentencepodcast

Get in touch - we are Dying to talk to you

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Twelve months. One year. 365 days. And somehow… it still doesn't quite feel real.

In this deeply personal episode of It's A Death Sentence, Emma and Carrie reflect on 12 months of grief after losing two of the people they loved most: Emma's dad and Carrie's brother.

What actually changes when you reach that one-year mark?

Is grief different at 12 months, or are you simply different because you've had 12 months to learn how to live alongside it?

They talk about the strange, suspended feeling of grief — those moments when you instinctively think “I need to tell Dad that” or “I need to tell my brother this”, before remembering they're not there anymore.

They explore the long goodbye of dementia and terminal illness, and whether some of the grieving had already happened before their loved ones died.

They talk about the things nobody warns you about:

· Missing the completely ordinary, mundane things you never expected to miss

· Forgetting for a split second that they're gone

· The random Tuesday-afternoon grief that can hit harder than the big anniversaries

· Feeling guilty for laughing, enjoying yourself or simply having a brilliant day

· How memories begin to change as the illness becomes less dominant

· Watching children grow up without the people they should have had beside them

· Becoming the oldest generation in your immediate family

· The strange emotional finality of finishing the paperwork and “death admin”

· Finding yourself laughing at memories and wondering whether you're allowed to

· And the question of what you would say to them if you could talk to them now

There's sadness, of course.

But there's also plenty of laughter, because grief isn't one emotion. It's messy, unpredictable, sometimes ridiculous and often completely ordinary.

And perhaps that's the biggest thing Emma and Carrie have learned over the last year:

You don't necessarily move on from someone. You learn how to carry them differently.

They ask whether grief actually gets smaller — or whether we just get bigger around it.

And after six months of surviving the first half-year, they ask:

What is 12 months actually about?

No neat answers. No five-step guide to grief. Just two friends, talking honestly about what happens when the person is still missing… but life keeps moving.

If you've lost someone, are grieving someone, or simply want to understand what grief can really look like beyond the funeral and the first few months, this one is for you.

If you’ve enjoyed it, found it useful, thought-provoking, or just found us thoroughly entertaining — which is entirely possible — please like, follow, subscribe and share. It genuinely helps us grow.

You can find us on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, and the podcast is now available on all major platforms, with the video version on YouTube and Spotify. https://linktr.ee/itsadeathsentencepodcast

We’re also on Patreon if you’d like to support what we do.

And if you want to find out what we’re up to beyond the podcast, come and follow Dead Curious CIC on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. That’s our Community Interest Company delivering creative death education workshops — because apparently talking about death wasn’t enough, so we decided to make a whole organisation out of it!

And finally… Halloween!

Come and celebrate the success of the podcast with us at our Halloween Masquerade Ball, Saturday 31st October at Moor Hall, Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham.

There’ll be food, a string quartet, live band, DJ, dancing until late and, presumably, some questionable decisions in fancy dress.

Limited Tickets still available Tickets are on Eventbrite — link Eventbrite Masquerade Halloween Ball ticket

Please share us with anyone who might need us… or anyone who just enjoys two women talking about death over a microphone.

Thanks for listening — and as always, we’re dying to talk to you.

#ItsADeathSentence #12MonthsLater #Grief #GriefJourney #GriefAndLoss #Bereavement #LivingWithGrief #LosingAParent

Thank you for listening - find us on socials @itsadeathsentencepodcast follow and like us for more episodes. Find contact info on our web page www.its-a-death-sentence.com here you can contact us, buy our merch and send us your stories.

www.its-a-death-sentence.com

YouTube- @itsadeathsentencepodcast

Get in touch - we are Dying to talk to you

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When we picture someone grieving, we’re often shown the same image: hollow cheeks, a shrinking body, clothes hanging from a suddenly smaller frame. The beautiful, tragic, almost glamorous picture of the bereaved person who has simply… stopped eating.

But what happens when grief does the opposite?

In this episode of It’s A Death Sentence, Emma and Carrie have one of their most candid conversations yet about weight, grief, trauma, food and the complicated relationship so many of us have with our bodies.

Because for millions of people, stress and trauma don’t make the weight fall off. They make us eat. They make us comfort eat, lose our routines, reach for things that make us feel better for five minutes — and sometimes gain weight when we are already struggling to cope.

And what about those of us for whom weight management was already a lifelong battle before grief came along?

Emma gets brutally honest about her own relationship with weight, including her use of Ozempic and Mounjaro, the pressure to maintain a particular body size, and the lifelong cycle of losing, gaining, restricting and starting again. Carrie joins her in exploring how much of this is actually about food — and how much is about everything else going on underneath it.

Because grief doesn't just live in your head.

It lives in your body too.

And yet, when Emma and Carrie went looking for the language to describe weight gain through grief, they found remarkably little.

One term they discovered was Kummerspeck — a German word which literally translates roughly as “grief bacon.”

Grief bacon.

Really?

It says a lot about how we talk about bodies that even the language we have for gaining weight through emotional pain can feel flippant, judgemental or downright unkind.

Meanwhile, there are countless poetic descriptions and cultural references for becoming thin, gaunt or emaciated through grief — as though losing weight is somehow the more believable, more acceptable or even more beautiful physical manifestation of suffering.

So Emma and Carrie go down a rather unexpected rabbit hole.

They explore the language, symbolism and somatics of grief and the body, looking at some of the fascinating phrases used around the world to describe the physical effects of losing someone — and asking why we seem to have such a limited vocabulary for what happens when grief makes us bigger rather than smaller.

This isn't a diet episode.

It isn't about telling you what you should weigh, what you should eat, or how you should look.

It's about the weight we carry — literally, emotionally and culturally.

And, as ever, Emma and Carrie bring honesty, compassion, curiosity and a healthy dose of humour to a subject that can be incredibly difficult to talk about.

Because grief doesn't have a body type.

And neither should it have a dress size.

This is The Weight of Grief.

And that’s us for this episode of It’s A Death Sentence!

If you’ve enjoyed it, found it useful, thought-provoking, or just found us thoroughly entertaining — which is entirely possible — please like, follow, subscribe and share. It genuinely helps us grow.

You can find us on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube, and the podcast is now available on all major platforms, with the video version on YouTube and Spotify. https://linktr.ee/itsadeathsentencepodcast

We’re also on Patreon if you’d like to support what we do.

And if you want to find out what we’re up to beyond the podcast, come and follow Dead Curious CIC on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. That’s our Community Interest Company delivering creative death education workshops — because apparently talking about death wasn’t enough, so we decided to make a whole organisation out of it!

And finally… Halloween!

Come and celebrate the success of the podcast with us at our Halloween Masquerade Ball, Saturday 31st October at Moor Hall, Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham.

There’ll be food, a string quartet, live band, DJ, dancing until late.

Tickets are on Eventbrite — link Eventbrite Masquerade Halloween Ball ticket

Thank you for listening - find us on socials @itsadeathsentencepodcast follow and like us for more episodes. Find contact info on our web page www.its-a-death-sentence.com here you can contact us, buy our merch and send us your stories.

www.its-a-death-sentence.com

YouTube- @itsadeathsentencepodcast

Get in touch - we are Dying to talk to you

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.