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In 2016, filmmaker Laura O’Grady reached out after reading about me in Impact magazine. She wanted to make a documentary. Side-by-side footage: my CrossFit life and my real CF life. Each week of the five-week Open, she’d film me competing, then cut to the truth—the coughing, the pounding, the transplant list interviews, the clinic visits.

When it launched in July 2017, it went viral on the biggest platform in the fitness world. But that was just the beginning.

Telus TV funded the project through their Storyline program. They promoted it on cable networks across Canada. Suddenly, my aunt in Prince George texted me—she’d seen a clip on CNN. People across Alberta, Saskatchewan, and BC were texting me that they’d seen me on their screens.

The documentary opened doors. It gave me credibility, a platform, a different audience for my fundraising. We raised $40,000 over four years with the Burpees for Breath challenge.

But it also trapped me in a narrative I couldn’t escape. When you become the inspiration, you become trapped in the miracle. You can’t admit you’re struggling. You can’t tell the truth. You have to keep producing the miracle for everyone else.

This is Episode 8: The story of how a documentary that was supposed to show my truth became the thing that buried it deeper.

Nicole’s Notes—where I’m finally dropping the mask and telling you what’s really true.

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When you're living your most public life—keynoting in front of CEOs, your face on 50-foot hospital banners, raising millions for your foundation—who sees you disappearing at home?

This is the story of the duality. Of building a public persona as the inspirational CF patient while your marriage quietly dies. Of performing health and strength while your lungs decline. Oxygen is the moment when hiding became impossible.

Nicole Zeller talks about 25 years of marriage, the shift from support to resentment, and what it takes to let someone go finally. About the galas where she was celebrated while feeling invisible to the one person who was supposed to love her. About the 50-foot banner and the man who couldn't accept what she refused to hide anymore.

This episode explores what happens when you stop performing for someone who resents your refusal to disappear.

Content warnings: Medical trauma, marriage dissolution, caregiver burden

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Episode 6: I weighed 74 pounds at my wedding. Ten years later, the University of Calgary named a research lab after me. This is how I went from surviving on a feeding tube to raising millions for CF research and discovering that my survival meant something bigger. This episode is the story of redemption. Not because I'm special. But because I refused to die on someone else's timeline.

From small wins in weight gain to speaking at CF conventions. From pitching my story to CEOs to starting the Summit Foundation. From galas to a research lab bearing my name.