Tag: Casey Quinlan

A Life Well Lived, Fights Well Fought

Apr 27, 2023

By KIM BELLARD

I first became aware of Casey Quinlan in 2017, when she published an article in Tincture, which I was helping to edit. In it, she discussed how she’d had her medical history and advance directive tattooed on her chest, out of frustration with the lack of health information exchange in healthcare. As she said, “ALL. THOSE. FUCKING. FORMS. ON. CLIPBOARDS.”

Well, I thought: she sounds like an interesting person.

I started following her on Twitter, enjoying her outspokenness and agreeing with many of her points of view. Then early in the pandemic Matthew Holt started THCB Gang podcast, and I got to participate in many of them with her as a co-panelist. It was sometimes hard to get a word in edgewise, but when she was on we always knew it was going to be an extra-lively session. And the stories she could tell…

I never met Casey IRL. I never worked with her. I never even had a one-on-one conversation with her, unless you count Twitter replies. There are large parts of her life that I don’t know anything about. But, boy, the force of her personality, the strength of her will, the sharpness of her intellect, and the fearlessness of her spirit were always clear.

She fought her cancer as fiercely as she lived her life generally. We knew the end was inevitable, but it nonetheless was hard to imagine. There have been outpourings of support on Twitter, on CaringBridge, and elsewhere. I have to mention in particular the efforts of Jan Oldenburg, who was there with her near the end and also took on the various bureaucracies on Casey’s behalf when Casey was no longer able to.

Casey’s passing is a loss to her friends, her followers, and the patient community at large. And to those of us who got to know her even a little bit.

In Memoriam: Mighty Casey has moved on

Apr 25, 2023• 1

Casey Quinlan, our friend and frequent THCB Gang member, died today. She may have gone quietly but she for sure lived her life way out loud. It’s not unexpected; she was diagnosed with a recurrent stage 4 cancer two years back, and I was lucky enough to have dinner with her on a rare east coast trip last June. She was hoping to come to the West Coast late last Fall but was too sick to make it. It looked like things were getting better and she was on THCBGang in February but soon things turned and she spent the last few weeks in hospice. She leaves a huge hole in the patient advocacy movement and a huge wave of love from her friends today on Twitter. And she remains the only person who has come up to me after I gave a talk and shared a shot of bourbon from her hip flask at 9 am! The talk was about the US health care system. So we both needed it! We’ll miss you Casey… Matthew Holt

THCB Gang Episode 116, Thursday February 16

Feb 16, 2023

Joining Matthew Holt (@boltyboy) on #THCBGang on Thursday February 16 were futurist Ian Morrison (@seccurve); delivery & platform expert Vince Kuraitis (@VinceKuraitis); and Olympic rower for 2 countries and all around dynamo Jennifer Goldsack, (@GoldsackJen). Sadly, fierce patient activist Casey Quinlan (@MightyCasey) had to cry off, and sadly never returned to THCBGang.

We really dug into distributed care and who was going to control the emerging virtual first conundrum.