My Diagnosis Wasn’t The End of My Story — It Was The Beginning
A chronic diagnosis can feel like an unexpected detour, but it can also mark the beginning of a life rebuilt with profound purpose. When navigating chronic illness, finding hope and choosing self-advocacy can transform grief into a powerful gateway for healing and reinvention. In this episode, host Irene sits down with Brenda Snow, founder of Snow Companies and author of Diagnosed: The Essential Guide to Navigating the Patient’s Journey. Brenda shares her deeply personal journey of living with multiple sclerosis for over three decades, revealing how she turned her own health crisis into a mission to elevate patient stories across the life sciences industry. Tune in to discover how embracing acceptance, community support, and intentional living can help you rewrite your narrative after a life-altering loss.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL HEAR ABOUT THINGS LIKE:
- How Brenda Snow experienced early, transient symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS) and faced medical dismissal before receiving an accurate diagnosis at age 29.
- The crucial role of leaning into help from family, friends, and community when managing a chronic health condition.
- How multiple sclerosis impacts the central nervous system by damaging the myelin sheath and affecting signal transmission in the body.
- Navigating the complex emotional stages of guilt, anger, grief, and eventual acceptance following a life-altering diagnosis.
- Brenda’s out-of-body near-death experience in the hospital and how it removed her fear of dying while giving her a renewed sense of purpose.
- How patient advocacy, storytelling, and philanthropy can serve as powerful tools for personal healing and reinvention.
SOME QUESTIONS IRENE ASKS BRENDA:
- Can you take us back to when your journey first began, what those early symptoms were like, and what happened in your life at that time?
- For those people who aren’t familiar with MS, how does it develop in the body, and what brings it on?
- How did you think of yourself when this was happening, and did it reshape your sense of identity?
- Can you tell us about that out-of-body experience?
- How can grief become a gateway to healing, self-discovery, and rebirth?
Grab Brenda’s book, Diagnosed: The Essential Guide to Navigating the Patient’s Journey at https://amzn.to/3Uzmlt4
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My Diagnosis Wasn’t The End of My Story — It Was The Beginning
Transforming Personal Pain into Purpose
Welcome to the show. Before we get started with the episode, make sure to like and subscribe wherever you’re tuning in or watching so you never miss an episode. Every week we share heartfelt stories, spiritual insights, and practical guidance to help you navigate grief and trauma, find hope, and discover rebirth after loss. By subscribing, you’ll get access to every episode and join our supportive community on this journey. Thanks for being here, and let’s dive in. Everyone, I could not be more delighted to welcome Brenda Snow, who built her groundbreaking agency, Snow Companies, from her own experience living with multiple sclerosis.
Over the past three decades, Brenda has become a powerful voice in the life sciences world, earning more than 200 industry awards, including the leading trade magazine’s Trailblazer, Lifetime Achievement Honor, and repeated recognition from Pharma Voice as one of the most inspiring leaders in the field. Beyond the accolades, Brenda’s true legacy lies in the countless patients and caregivers whose stories she has elevated, honored, and empowered. As Brenda enters her next chapter, she continues to lead with heart. I could tell you, having spoken with Brenda, that is completely true.
Her days are filled with philanthropy, meaningful travel, and cherished moments with her family, especially her granddaughter, who inspires her creativity and joy. Splitting her time between Virginia and Florida, Brenda remains guided by a simple but profound belief. One story can change a life. It’s this philosophy that shaped her bestselling book, Diagnosed: The Essential Guide to Navigating the Patient’s Journey, a compassionate roadmap for navigating the emotional, spiritual, and practical realities of chronic illness.
In Diagnosed, Brenda draws from 30 years of living with MS and 25 years of listening deeply to thousands of patients. She reveals a journey that mirrors the grief cycle, one marked by shock, loss, adaptation, and ultimately renewal. Her message is clear. A diagnosis is not the end of your story. It can be the beginning of a life rebuilt with intention, meaning, and unexpected beauty. Brenda sees grief not as a barrier, but as a gateway to healing and self-discovery.
I’m looking forward to talking with Brenda, who is joining us from Virginia, about grieving the life she thought she would have and choosing to reimagine who she could become. We’ll explore the emotional and spiritual reckoning that followed her MS diagnosis, the moment she realized she could transform her pain into purpose, and how advocacy, connection, and joy became her compass. Brenda’s journey shines as a powerful example of resilience, reinvention, and the remarkable strength it takes to step into a new sense of self after profound loss. This conversation will surely be filled with hard-earned wisdom, courage, and a deep well of hope.
Brenda, a warm welcome.
I wish I could take you everywhere with me. That’s the best stuff anybody’s ever said.
What a compliment. Thank you so much. It’s an honor to be with you, truly. Thank you. Let’s begin from the beginning. Can you take us back to when your journey first began? At age 29, when you were diagnosed with MS, what were those early symptoms like, and what happened in your life at that time that shaped how you experienced those first signs, aside from being probably hysterical? Tell us more.
Recognizing Early Multiple Sclerosis Symptoms and Facing Medical Dismissal
Twenty-nine is when I received the diagnosis, but a few years prior, I had all these weird transient symptoms, urinary incontinence, and doctors trying to tell me it was because I had a kid, but I had her C-section. I’m like, “I do not know about that.” I had eye problems, I had numbness and tingling, and I got really pooh-poohed as a hysterical woman, a hysterical single mother, really pandered to. I probably did not have the courage and the gumption I have today. I did not acknowledge those symptoms. When I was 29, it was wham. There was no more. All of a sudden, I had periods of temporary blindness, periods of double vision, all the time. I could not control my bladder in some cases, both bladder and bowel.
You were ahead of your time. That was most people when they turned 79.
I was doing old age first. What can I say? My foot, it was numb, and it was like traveling up the left side of my body that was affected, and my gait was changing. There’s something desperately wrong with me. Again, it was just so shocking to me all these years later. Lots of times when I share my story, I cry and have emotions around this because I was not helped. I was told again that I had a migraine headache. I had all kinds of things. The ultimate insult.
I’m from California originally, a leading institution out in the San Francisco Bay Area. The doctor told me, but really I became persona non grata and told my father that I should be institutionalized in a mental institution and that my young daughter should be taken away from me, that MS was a rare disease. I surely did not have it. I was making all this up. We can talk about meditation and manifesting, but I was not manifesting this. I can assure you.
Who was helping you with your daughter and everything while you were going through all this?
I had a great tribe of people. I had my parents step in. I had friends who were stepping in. Sometimes the kindness of strangers or people you least expect, such as people at my daughter’s school. She was an early kindergartener. It really was being vulnerable enough to say yes to the help so many times.
That’s another lesson in life, yes.
It is. That’s one right there. A lot of times, they do not. That’s one of the first pieces of advice that I give. It’s like, just lean into the help when it’s offered because it’s really naive and somewhat tragic if you think you can do everything by yourself all the time. It’s just not possible. There are so many blessings and joys in accepting that help and letting it transform you. You get so much back, but the person who wants to give to you, it is a really beautiful thing for their life too. It’s like your story when it was like, be kind. It’s the ultimate act of kindness and love, I think, to help somebody else.
Understanding How Multiple Sclerosis Affects the Central Nervous System
Brenda, I have to tell you that I had the same experience because I was very independent, always there for everyone else. When I had that car accident and I had four surgeries, I needed my friends to help me. One of them was lamenting, “I’m so sorry.” She said, “I read you’re giving me a gift.” You get that’s exactly what you’re saying. She said, “You’re giving me a gift. Let me, I love you. Let me help you.” For those people who aren’t familiar with MS, how does it develop in the body? What brings it on?
It’s interesting as science progresses. They isolate more and more things. It’s not necessarily a genetic condition, although they are isolating, let’s just say, things that are similar in cluster groups of families or people that have it, but it’s an autoimmune trigger at first. While it is a disease of the central nervous system, meaning the brain and the spinal cord, there is an autoimmune trigger where your body thinks your own myelin, which is that sheet that covers the message sending signal in your body, it goes, “You’re a foreign object and I’m going to eat you up and leave giant holes in the brain and the spinal cord on that covering that myelin sheath.”
In other words, the message does not get sent sometimes at all, or it gets sent really poorly. Even today, while I’m doing very well, I’ve had lots of years to understand and assimilate, if you will, my MS. Last week, I had a very intense week with not enough sleep. Boom, my left foot, the ability to do something as simple as flex and point, was gone. I knew I had to go to bed for a couple of days. Otherwise, it was going to, no pun intended, snowball, my last name. That’s what MS does to the body. They do not necessarily know who will get it or what triggers it, but we do know that it skews more toward women than men. It usually, sadly, really cruelly hits you in those formative, productive years. Between, like, late 20s and 40s.
It’s like the prime of your life.
When you’re trying to build your career, you’re building families, you’re maybe finishing studies, and then wham. It’s interesting when I think about your topic about grief, reinvention, and spirituality. It’s an interesting time to get a chronic condition with no cure because you’re just starting to find out who you are. I can look back on my journey and say, “I did not really have any of the tools or the life experience to deal with this s***.” I just did not have it in my wheelhouse then.
It's an interesting time to get a chronic condition with no cure because you're just starting to find out who you are. Share on X
Who does? I mean, who really says, “I may get an illness like this one day. I have to be prepared.” Let’s have a family conference.
Exactly. Where I am in my life now, I do have more experience and ways that I can look back, or I could handle it differently today. That’s another challenge for people. There are other diseases like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. You’re seeing cancers on the rise for young people. Colon, breast. It’s another layer of complexity for sure.
That’s for sure. How did you think of yourself when this was happening? Did it reshape your sense of identity?
Totally.
Are you expected to live one way, and so how?
Yes, my identity was completely gone and shot. First of all, there was the physicality. I was a visibly disabled woman in a wheelchair with one side of my body that did not work. I had been on such high IV steroids, talking about a gram a day in a shunt in my arm, because at that time there was really nothing more to do. I had a lot of hair loss and mood swings. I had all these medications put on about 60 to 70 pounds on my frame.
That’s enough.
Just the identity of looking in the mirror was gone, but put that aside. It was the self-identity of what happens next for me. Everything that I thought I was going to do in my life was completely thrown out the window. I couldn’t take care of my young daughter. It’s illegal now. I’m happy that I’ve spent some of my career working on legislation like this, but I was terminated from my job, which you cannot do now for people with a disability, but I was. I had no money. Luckily, I had a family with some resources. I cannot tell you how many people have turned out, left destitute, homeless.
This is so cruel.
This is unbelievable. It was that identity of I cannot do anything for myself. What am I going to do for myself? We talk about grief. You talk a lot about grief. There were so many stages of grief. There was that first grief of, I know what I have. Maybe I can fix it. Really quickly, that little bit of grain of hope, that went away for a while. It did not circle back to the end because then I had all of the grief associated with every day being a bad day, unending pain and suffering, unending illness, wondering, spending a lot of time grieving my future identity.
Now I would say to people, “I do not know if that future identity was real. I was grieving something that hadn’t come to fruition.” In my mind, it felt very real. I try to help and coach people now, like, let that go. Let’s deal with the here and now. We can reinvent ourselves. We can transform, but try not to get so preoccupied with grieving this thing that is not there, has not come to fruition. I was hyper-focused on that. I was doom and gloom, and it took me a long time before I could work through the grief to let that go.
I wanted to ask you a couple of questions now. You’re grieving the future you once imagined. That sounds to me like part of the healing is acceptance, which must have taken you a very long time to accept that this is what’s going on. I know you had some challenging emotional and spiritual moments while you were grieving this life you believed you would live that was now kaput. Can you tell us about that?
Navigating Guilt, Anger, and Grieving an Imagined Future
A little bit. For me, I think for my cycle, I think guilt and grief are also really closely intertwined. I had a lot of guilt at first because I had people who actually said to me, “What did you do to cause this?”
What did that doctor do to you?
Exactly. I had all of this guilt that was self-imposed. The first thing I tell anybody going through something like this is that what you did to deserve this is absolutely nothing, zero. I had to work through that guilt in order to get to my grief. The grief was like many faucets, multi-layered. I had to work through different stages of it. It’s not always linear, I would tell people. Just when I thought I was feeling better about that, it came up.
Here I am, 30 years into it. There’s still time that I have grief. It does not mean that just because I did that back then, there’s not going to be times now when grief starts to give way to acceptance. For me, it was anger. I got really pissed off, like really angry that the health system was not helping me, really angry that it was not paying for medications and hospital stays, really angry that I had been terminated from my job, really angry that this happened to me. I had to work.
How about being really angry that you couldn’t hold your daughter and love her the way you wanted to?
Yes. I remember one of the highlights, and I’ve done a lot of amazing things since then and achieved things I never thought possible. Right there with some of those super accolades that you were so nice about was the day I could make toast for her again and get her off to school. That was like a huge win. That was a moment where it was like, “I can be a mom.” Some of that anger started to change and subside. That started to move into acceptance.
Sometimes we have to ask ourselves really tough questions. I remembered the day that I was sitting there saying, “You can let this diagnosis and all of the stuff that’s happened to you be like the ugliest weed in your garden. Just choke out any life, or you can lean down and hold its hand and decide how you and this ugly thing called MS become one and accept her because she’s part of you now, whether you like it or not.”
Did you use that to explain it to your daughter as she got older?
I did. I always help people.
That was a big thing.
Yes, because I know you have a question coming up, but one of the things is that I basically died and was brought back to life. My daughter went through all of this trauma. Every question was, “Are you going to die?” Imagine her grief as she’s still working through it. She’s a 30-year-old because I was her only person too, her constant. I also had guilt and grief about that. I almost died. The reason I willed myself back to life, we can talk about that, is for her. When I had my out-of-body experience, I was at the top of the hospital room. I’ll never forget it.
I looked down at myself on the bed. I can recite to you everything those doctors and nurses said when I had coded, and they brought out the crash cart. Years later, I asked for that transcript to see if what had been documented by the healthcare professionals was the same thing I heard. Bang on. No difference. I was technically almost in a coma. They said I wouldn’t hear anything or anything. Not only did I hear it, but I also saw it.
I can tell you what they did. They took the bed. They moved it up. The blood would go down to my brain. I sat there, and I saw the light going off the door. I saw my dad come into the room. They took him out. I watched all this, and then I thought, “Stephanie, like, I cannot go. I got to go back. I’m the only person to fight for her. I’m the only person you have to go back to.” I woke up three days later in the ICU.
What a change in your whole life, because the one thing is, yes, you’ve got this illness now, but now all of a sudden you’re not afraid of dying. That’s what happened to me with the car accident. I am no longer afraid of dying. I know I’m going on. It’s just the passion of trying to keep the human vehicle going here.
Making a difference on the earth while you can, that becomes your new purpose. I find that really helps with grief, part of my reinvention, which is why I’m so big into philanthropy, because helping other people is the biggest joy ever, period, for me. It’s what makes me whole. I felt like after all of this stuff, it’s even why I started my business and my company. It was like, I feel like helping others helped heal me too.
Making a difference on the earth while you can, that becomes your new purpose. Share on X
I can relate so much because one of the ways that I got through my trauma and my accident was my son. I needed to be. As I mentioned to you, the first thought after my whole experience was I have to teach him that you can get hit by a grenade in life and still keep going. That probably motivated you to go for healing and to do all these things that you had to do, right?
A hundred percent. It’s not like, yes, it motivated me, and it was a little bit of a light bulb moment. It was the beginning of that. It was then the journey that I became on. I wasn’t doing everything that I’m doing today. More into the energy work, I would say that’s in the last few years. More into talking to healers. That’s more in the last few years. In the beginning, I was just learning about the power of my own personal narrative, the power of manifesting my future, the power of letting go, the power of acknowledging and naming grief, acceptance, anger, all of those things, and saying, “What does it mean? What am I supposed to learn from this? What am I supposed to learn to keep going?”
Is there a particular modality or group of modalities that helped you with this? It really helps spiritually when you learn that there’s often a purpose or reason the stuff has happened.
Discovering Spiritual Modalities and Becoming a Conduit for Healing
I feel a little bit like you. I feel like my calling is to be a conduit for people to know I’m a safe place to share their hopes, their dreams, their darkest fears, and that their personal story matters. Many people, especially in this crazy world and with the speed at which life is moving, just being a validating, listening soul is what you do on your show. It’s just so important. It really sends a message to your fellow human.
I see you, I care about you, and what you feel matters. That is just the creed by which I approach business, the way I approach writing a book, the way I approach my neighbors, my family, anything that comes from that place. That started to be the first modality. I felt it was a calling, and I loved doing it. The other thing, as it’s gone on, is learning more about spirituality. I would not say that I have a traditional denominational type of spirituality.
I do not often fly south the window when you’re becoming more enlightened and learning about all this.
I definitely believe that my energy and my soul are part of a universal life force for me. I’m into that stuff. As I said, I just finished Reiki training, which has been really incredible, not only for me, but also a way to give to others.
Is it helping you? Is the Reiki helping you personally?
Yes, it’s really amazing. Again, I feel like I was blessed financially and in business. All of this stuff that I do, like, is free. My book proceeds, every penny went to charity. That is, there’s just, again, I do not want healing to be a barrier to healing for people who might need my energy. That’s one thing I dig that I’m into. I do a lot of manifesting every night, for sure. I got really into the whole body working together, like looking at not only my thoughts and these energy practices, but also what I consume and put into my body, and the way I move my body. All of those things have brought a sense of peace that I was struggling with at times in my journey before the more recent history.
How do you handle being triggered? I find that when I do a show, I find that sometimes people’s stories really hurt me for what they’ve been through and all. It brings me back to some of my own experiences that must happen for you all the time with what you’re doing.
It does. It’s like, really an empath. I can tell you, in my career, there were times that some of these stories, I felt them so deeply and I cried so hard, and I took that so that I could barely get out of the chair to walk back up into my hotel room. I feel like when that has happened, there’s a reason, and I need to have a quiet moment to understand what that reason meant for me and how I’m assimilating that into my life and what that meant for the other person.
Nine times out of 10, for the other person, it meant that they were on a path to finding their own joy and finding that there were going to be great things for them in their future, that this notion of their life was going to be horrid because of a diagnosis started to dissipate. If I could take that on for them, I’m okay with it. I know that I need to rest and do some things after the heavy moments, like this big-time hydration and rest. If it’s a way that gets people moving toward their truth and toward their new future, then I’m all for it.
You’re such a great role model for them. It’s wonderful. I want to talk to you about Diagnosed: The Essential Guide to Navigating the Patient’s Journey. You’re reminding people that a diagnosis does not have to be an ending. It can be the beginning of a beautiful, fulfilling new chapter, which I liken to you thinking you were going on one road and all of a sudden life handed you a detour. Now what do you do? You’re on the detour. What does that mean to you? What else would you like audiences to know about your book?
Writing ‘Diagnosed’: Creating a Roadmap for the Chronic Illness Journey
Here’s the book. I do not know if people can see it. I was asked so many times over my 30 years of professional career. Ever since I’ve been on the book tour and stuff, like, I was either told, “You should write a book,” or I had no time. COVID came, and I was like, “Maybe I’ll try to do this.” Why I did it is because there was nothing out there. When you hear the words, “You have MS,” or “You have cancer,” or “You have bipolar disorder,” or whatever it is, there’s nothing.
It’s like when you have a baby, you watch all the cartoons, and the stork flies the baby to you with the manual. There was nothing out there like that for people. There were checklists of things to do. “Do not forget to take your medicine. Every three months, go to the doctor.” There was not a real book I felt that said like, “From the day you hear this word, your mind’s going to be blown, and you think it’s going to be the shittiest worst effing thing, excuse my French, that’s ever happened to you. I’m going to spell it out, look, there is a bright future for you.” Assuming you want to do the work, right?
Assuming it’s a choice. It’s a choice. You have a choice to sit in the swamp.
It’s not magic. It is a choice. I talk about hope and choice. Those have been my two words for 35 years. Hope and choice and the power that can happen when you embrace those as part of your mentality and exercise them. Execution. This stuff is not magical. It can be magical if you do it.
There is power that can happen when you embrace hope and choice as part of your mentality and exercise them. Share on X
You have to do the work. In Diagnosed, you share powerful personal stories, right?
Yes, I do.
All of them inspire people to do what they can.
It’s not a memoir. What I wanted to do is use my story as a background, and so many other cool people. I’ve talked to hundreds of thousands of patients, literally. Some of them were kind enough to let me put excerpts in here that illustrate the point I’m trying to make.
That’s great. Let me ask you, Brenda, for people newly diagnosed with MS today, how does the road look ahead, or a road ahead look for them/ As opposed to what happened to you in 1993, I’ll bet there’s a light-year difference.
A hell of a lot better. That’s the good news. I feel really proud of the work that I’ve done that played a small part in that one thing. Diagnostically, diagnostic tools and awareness. MS has changed. You’re not waiting years to get a diagnosis. Hopefully, people do not have as many insensitive moments as I had early on. We know that if you can get a diagnosis earlier and start on a path to treatment, and I use that word, yes, there’s FDA-approved and EMEA, Europe. There are different governing bodies. There are medications like that, but there are medications like the ones we’re talking about.
A holistic body approach. Is it occupational therapy or physical therapy? Is it spiritual therapy? Is it mentorship? Is it coaching? I like to look at all of those things, help put this Humpty Dumpty back together again, not just one. That is more accessible to people, certainly, the power of the internet. One caveat. There’s a lot of crap out there, too. Be careful if it sounds too good to be true. It usually is. I always say to people, only take on the information that you can handle at that time. If it starts to feel too heavy or too much, then stop.
Let me ask you this. Do you encourage people to go to therapy or go into these modalities? I know that you’re probably encouraging them to strengthen their connection with themselves. What does all that look like?
That’s probably one of the beautiful benefits and blessings that I couldn’t foresee that happened to me. As I did all these things, I really became a stronger person. I really found out who I was and what I knew to be true about me. Without that connection to myself, I know that choice, hope, joy, execution, all of those things that ultimately pushed me forward to my life of beauty would not have been possible. Connection to others is key. You’re going to need that help. You have got to have a connection to yourself. I tell people, “Love yourself. You’re worth it. You’re absolutely worth it. You have got to start loving yourself and accepting this for you before all these other things can start to take root.”
Love yourself. You're worth it. You have got to start loving yourself and accepting this for you before all these other things can start to take root. Share on X
You end up becoming a, you spread the good because you’re becoming a role model. I also like what you did with your daughter. When I did it with my son, in a way, we motivated ourselves to move forward, and you need that word for me too. You need that for “What do I have to do? Where am I going to go with this?” Now I want to talk to you about your death experience. You were given a new medication to manage another symptom.
You’re allergic to it. Just like you needed another thing. You went into anaphylactic shock, and you had a heart attack just because you needed another experience in your life, and nearly died on the floor of your home. After you were rushed to the hospital, you had an out-of-body experience. We have that in common too, Brenda. Tell us about yours.
There’s a reason we were brought together, actually.
Can you tell us about that out-of-body experience?
An Out-of-Body Experience: Overcoming the Fear of Death
As I was referencing earlier, I remember the pain of the heart attack. It was excruciating. I remember being put into an ambulance, and I remember being worried sick about my daughter because she witnessed it. I do not remember much about getting to the hospital. I remember once I was in the hospital, to add insult to injury, again. One of the things they were trying on me made it worse.
You cannot speak up for yourself.
No, I couldn’t at that point. I was intubated. As I said, what I have a memory of is literally everything that happened, from the roof of the hospital room, looking down and seeing myself and seeing them with the crash cart, seeing them basically putting the bed, believe it’s called Trendelenburg position or something, where the blood needs to go to your head. I remember them saying she’s dying. I remember my blood pressure was almost non-existent. I remember my dad coming in the door and then pushing him out.
Your poor father, like whatever you went through, look at what he went through.
It’s going to be one of my next books. I remember thinking, I did not see a bright light or anything like that. You’ve heard some stories like that.
It’s because it really wasn’t your time.
I remember a little bit about it. It was like it was not scary. It was a very calm, peaceful feeling. It was like, “My daughter needs me. I’m the only person she has. I have to go back. I’m going back. It is not my time. I am clearly not going to die right now.” That was my last thought. I do not remember leaving the roof of the hospital room and going back into my body. I woke up three days later in the ICU and then went, “Whoa.”
It’s interesting too, because I think there are a lot of people who hear this stuff, and you get the naysayers and the pushback. For a long time, I did not really share that. I just kept that. It was a spiritual thing. I kept that for a very small group of people. When I was writing the book, I was like, “That happened. I am my authentic self, and I tell the truth. I’m putting it in.” You’re the first person who had enough courage to ask about it, though.
Sister, I share the experience. For me, I left my body. I found myself in this huge black expanse. In my experience, it was like, if you’re looking at a clock at 11:00, I left my body at 11:00. Now, time does not exist over there. In human terms, I’m looking around, “Where am I? What is this?” This big black expanse. I literally felt my soul, because let’s face it, my body was in a seatbelt spinning. I felt my soul pushed back into my body.
About 2:00, time-wise, I suddenly continued the flip. It was my husband’s time to go and not mine. You had a similar experience. You did not get the tunnel rate or what, because they’re like, “What the hell is she doing here? She has more than two.” Our experiences opened the minds of a lot of other people who know it’s because we’re not. I’ve been told, “I can believe you, Irene, because you’re not all wavy gravy.”
Listen, if it moves the needle and helps people who are receptive, great. For the people for whom it does not, “That’s okay, too, man,” whatever. Maybe there’s something else I can say or do to help you. That’s not that, and I’m willing to do it.
Sometimes you plan to see, and they get it later on. Now I want to ask you about healing because you did so much major. Look at you. You’re like a bright light after all that you’ve been through. Tell us how grief can become a gateway to healing, self-discovery, and rebirth, which is what happened to you. What’s it also about? Transformation?
It is. I would like to tell you, the fairy godmother waved her magic wand and said, “Now you’re healed and fixed and go forward.” I remember that I had to make a decision after feeling really grim physically for a number of years and also really grim, negative self-talk, low self-esteem, this identity crisis, feeling like I wasn’t worthwhile, and doing the work and working through these emotions. As I was coming out and letting go of some grief and some guilt and some anger and trying to accept, I just had like a self-talk moment one day.
Choosing Self-Love, Reframing Pain, and Reclaiming Daily Joy
I was like, “You can choose to feel like this for the rest of your life, or you can choose to try to find something positive about this experience and this new life of yours and embrace it and start to figure out what to do next. If you do not take this decision, do you like doing what you’ve done for the last three years?” The answer was a hard no. It was like, “No, I do not want to do this anymore.” That was like my moment to be like, “We need to have a kinder, gentler self-talk, and we need to start focusing on your little wins, the things that you can do.” They really just started to build on each other, honestly.
You can choose to feel like this for the rest of your life, or you can choose to try to find something positive about this experience and start to figure out what to do next. Share on X
That’s beautiful. Look what you’ve done with it, with Snow Industries and all those things that you’ve done. That’s amazing. It’s fantastic.
Thank you.
My next question is, I want to talk to you about joy. A lot of people feel that this thing happened to me. Look at you. I can never have joy again. I’m getting this. We’re just talking about this. Does that become your daily practice instead of reverting to “I do not feel good today. Here we go again and all that?”
I’m big on reframing. The Snow family creed has been beaten into me by my parents. “You can always find the negative. You should always try to find the positive. You look at both those things, and you decide how you want to go forward, Brenda.” That was beaten into me probably from the age of four. I reframed it. I mentioned earlier at the top of the show that, last week, it was really, my MS was probably the worst it’s been in a while. I just reframed and said, “You actually have to cancel. There were some really important family things we were doing.
You can always find the negative. You should always try to find the positive. Share on X
You’re not going to be able to do them for probably two days.” Asked everybody to understand and sent them all off to do it. I did not feel sorry for myself because I had to lie in bed. Reframe that to “This is your moment of peace, introspective sleep. If you do this in a couple of days, you might be back at it.” That’s exactly what it was. Those are some ways that I reframe and look for my joy. I will say it again, because it’s worth stressing.
You’re worth it. You are worth it. I believe every person on this planet, no matter what color their skin is, how much money they have or do not have, what languages they speak, or where they live. I love all people everywhere. You’re all deserving of some joy, whatever that is, absolutely. Love yourself and know that you’re worth the joy, and let it come to you, attract it.
Every person on this planet is deserving of some joy. Love yourself and know that you're worth the joy, and let it come to you. Share on X
That’s beautiful. Talking to you, I think we’re talking about, first of all, love is so much a part of your story.
It is.
You’ve learned through all the healing and all to really love yourself and not let those circumstances color how you feel. The other thing that I think motivated you, as it did me, was the love of your daughter and your granddaughter.
I got a big green heart chakra.
Me too. That really helps when you can. For me, it really helps. It just motivated me to heal. I did not want to keep feeling like this. I knew stuff was going to happen in my son’s life. It’s just life. How do I role model and not be a phony about it? My mom, there’s been nothing worse he said to me than seeing you in total despair, and nothing better than seeing you be able to have joy again. It’s a wonderful thing when you get there to do what you’re doing for your family. It’s wonderful. Brenda, I could talk to you forever.
In closing, I want to thank you for sharing your heart, your wisdom, and this extraordinary journey of yours with us. You’ve shown us that grief does not have to be a place where we get stuck. Look at you. It can be a doorway, a teacher, a catalyst for becoming someone even more aligned, more compassionate, and more alive than we ever imagined.
Your courage to reimagine your identity, to advocate for others, and to choose joy despite chronic illness is a gift that reminds us that there is meaning ahead and there is always the possibility of rebirth. Your book, Diagnosed, beautifully extends that message, offering guidance, hope, and a powerful reminder that a diagnosis can be the beginning of a life filled with purpose and possibility. From my heart, thank you for your presence, your true light, and the inspiring hope you are bringing to the world. I wish you abundant blessings, always.
Me too. I look back at you. You’re the best. I really appreciated this. Sending all my love.
Thank you so much. As I like to say, to be continued, you’ll be coming out with a new book.
I’d love to.
We’ll have to talk to you about that.
All right.
Guest’s Links:
- Connect with Brenda Snow’s Website
- Connect with Brenda Snow on LinkedIn
- Connect with Brenda Snow on Instagram
- Snow Companies
- Diagnosed: The Essential Guide to Navigating the Patient’s Journey
About Brenda Snow
Brenda Snow is an entrepreneur, philanthropist, author, and founder of Snow Companies, a first-of-its-kind global patient engagement agency that revolutionized the way pharmaceutical companies engage with patients and caregivers.
Brenda started Snow Companies after her own diagnosis of multiple sclerosis nearly 30 years ago to help give patients a voice, empower them through education, and improve treatments and the overall patient experience.
Recognized as a trailblazer, Brenda has repeatedly been listed among the life science industry’s Most Inspiring People by PharmaVoice. Additionally, non-profit organizations worldwide have recognized Brenda’s efforts and achievements on behalf of the patient community. Under her leadership, Snow Companies has won over 200 awards including PM360’s Trailblazer Lifetime Achievement award and Inc. magazine’s Fastest Growing Companies award.
In 2025, Brenda released her bestseller, Diagnosed, in which she shares the lessons she learned from navigating her own journey and speaking with thousands of patients. The book is a roadmap on how to navigate the turbulent and emotional journey that comes with a life-changing, chronic illness diagnosis. In Diagnosed, Brenda reminds patients that a diagnosis doesn’t have to be an end – it can be the start of building a life that is beautiful and fulfilling.
