If you or someone you know is living with a serious illness and would like to share your experience and perspective, please contact us:
Dying to Tell You
We are all born with an expiration date. Palliative Care Chaplain Cody Hufstedler sits down with people who are living with serious illness for intimate, one-on-one conversations that explore the challenges, insights and, yes, joys of facing mortality. Far from morbid, these episodes dealing with hospice, healthcare, end-of-life, illness, and death are deeply alive explorations of life’s greatest mysteries and windows into the wonderful, human richness of living.

Your Host
Cody Hufstedler is a Palliative Care Chaplain who has been working with terminally ill patients for more than a decade. And while the people he talks to for DTTY are not his patients—to maintain ethical boundaries—the thousands of conversations he's had in his professional role inform these more intimate and personal talks.
Episodes

4 days ago
When Cancer Changed Even Reality
4 days ago
4 days ago
An Out-of-Body Experience & A Grateful Heart
"I remember thinking...oh! That's what it was about!"
Our first guest of Season 3 is Sue, who joined us all the way from Australia. And although she isn’t our first international guest, nor is she even our first guest from Australia, Sue’s story is certainly a first for us.
Sue shares with us the moment she found out she had advanced stage cancer, a moment in which she experienced a true Out of Body Experience (OBE) and saw existence from an entirely new perspective. To quote Sue, "I realized...this is what it's all about!"
And that’s just the beginning of her story. It’s a beautiful conversation filled with as much laughter as tears, and plenty of amazement and insight.

Thursday Jul 03, 2025
"Let That Sh*t Go" — Linda, An Encore Episode
Thursday Jul 03, 2025
Thursday Jul 03, 2025
Linda was a guest in Season One of Dying To Tell You, a fiery and hilarious woman facing a terminal diagnosis from kidney cancer. So much of Cody's conversation with Linda orbits around the very difficult challenge of letting things go. A lesson from the end of life that can—and should—resonate with anyone, regardless of their current health or prognosis.
As we get ready for Season Three starting next week (!), please enjoy this encore airing of Linda's interview. And if you want to go further, Episode One of Season Two is a conversation with Linda's daughter Aimee, who helped Linda take Medical Aid In Dying (MAID) at the end of her life.
It's a story that is so honest and clear-eyed about the reality of such a decision and its consequences. Surprisingly, it's also as inappropriately hilarious as Linda herself.

Thursday Jun 26, 2025
"I don't need to know about tomorrow" — Riyaz, An Encore Episode
Thursday Jun 26, 2025
Thursday Jun 26, 2025
Riyaz was spiritual teacher and therapist who joined us in Season 2 of Dying To Tell You, and leading up to Season 3 we wanted to honor some of the guests who have been on the show and who have since passed on.
Please enjoy this encore presentation of Riyaz's episode, which originally aired in Season Two.

Thursday Jun 19, 2025
"Was today the last day...?" — Rachel, An Encore Episode
Thursday Jun 19, 2025
Thursday Jun 19, 2025
Rachel was our first guest on Dying To Tell You who had ALS, and leading up to Season 3 we wanted to honor some of the guests who have been on the show and who have since passed on.
Please enjoy this encore presentation of Rachel's episode, which originally aired in Season Two.

Thursday Jun 12, 2025
Redefining How We "Beat" Cancer — Nancy, An Encore Episode
Thursday Jun 12, 2025
Thursday Jun 12, 2025
Nancy was our second guest on Dying To Tell You, and leading up to Season 3 we wanted to honor some of the guests who have been on the show and who have since passed on.
Please enjoy this encore presentation of Nancy's episode, which originally aired in Season One.

Thursday Jun 05, 2025
Festival of the Soul — Aaron, An Encore Episode
Thursday Jun 05, 2025
Thursday Jun 05, 2025
Aaron was the first guest on Dying To Tell You, and leading up to Season 3 we wanted to honor some of the guests who have been on the show and who have since passed on.
Please enjoy this encore presentation of Aaron's episode, which originally aired in Season One.

Saturday May 03, 2025
By The Way - Connecting To Loved Ones No Longer With Us
Saturday May 03, 2025
Saturday May 03, 2025
—Call (720) 600-7056 and leave a message for your loved ones—
Inspired by the beautiful idea behind Japanese wind phones, we want to welcome you to a new effort here at Dying To Tell You, a way for you to leave messages for loved ones who have passed on. It's called By The Way, and while it is a phone number and a voicemail box, it is also so much more.
You are invited to use this number to leave a message for anyone who is no longer with you. It can be a passing thought, a funny story, a remembrance...whatever you want to say to them, say it here.
We will share these messages with our podcast community, on our website dttypodcast.com as well as part of our episodes. But most importantly, we feel that just saying these things out loud has a kind of power and deep connection that goes well beyond words.
Please join us by calling 720-600-7056 and leaving your own By The Way for your loved ones.
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Thursday Apr 24, 2025
"We are a resilient being" • Learning to grow from end-of-life challenges
Thursday Apr 24, 2025
Thursday Apr 24, 2025
Lisa Pahl, LCSW shares how a patient she encountered early in her hospice career taught her how even the worst experiences can help us grow.
Lisa is the co-creator of The Death Deck and The E•O•L Deck, tools that inspire meaningful conversations on what matters most in our lives and in our deaths.
As a licensed clinical social worker with over 17 years of experience within hospice and emergency medicine, Lisa helps people cope with illness, dying, and grief. With a passionate belief that peace at the end begins with meaningful conversations over time, she engages people in talking about and preparing for this important stage of life.
Learn more about the Death Deck at https://thedeathdeck.com
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Dying To Tell You: The Caring Perspective is a series of interviews with healthcare professionals who sit down with Cody to share stories of patients and experiences that have changed how they practice, how they view death, and how they live their lives.
Watch the full series here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6bIkZBcQvNH74IKCjIrRR_jCzZtS7WNw
Listen to Seasons One and Two of Dying To Tell You anywhere you get your podcasts.
If you'd like to be a guest on the show or know someone you'd recommend, please reach out to us at https://dttypodcast.com/share

Thursday Apr 17, 2025
Finding forgiveness in healthcare
Thursday Apr 17, 2025
Thursday Apr 17, 2025
"In this line of work, you can't see death as failure. But in this case…very much felt like a failure. I hadn’t controlled his pain.”
A brief note of caution: as the title suggests, this episode contains a story involving death by suicide.
Dr. Laura Kennedy, a palliative care physician, shares a tragic story with Cody from early in her practice—an experience that was, in her own words, "devastating." What she learned from it was that sometimes the established and careful route of treatment might not always be best for every patient.
And that even when you think you've failed, it's ok to forgive yourself, learn, and move forward.
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Dying To Tell You: The Caring Perspective is a series of interviews with healthcare professionals who sit down with Cody to share stories of patients and experiences that have changed how they practice, how they view death, and how they live their lives.
Watch the full series here.
Listen to Seasons One and Two of Dying To Tell You anywhere you get your podcasts.
And if you'd like to be a guest on the show or know someone you'd recommend, please reach out to us at https://dttypodcast.com/share

Thursday Apr 10, 2025
Deanna & The Joys of Hospice
Thursday Apr 10, 2025
Thursday Apr 10, 2025
This week, we check back in with former guest and irrepressible force Deanna! A few weeks back, we drove up to Casper, WY to meet Deanna in person for the first time. And during our lovely visit, we all decided it was time for a public update on Deanna, who was diagnosed with ALS at the start of 2024.
Deanna has moved to in-patient hospice in recent months and, along with her husband Oren, wanted to share her experience with us and the world. Her take on the emotional and physical benefits of in-patient hospice is truly eye-opening.
Deanna, her friends, and her family are incredibly grateful that hospice allows her friends and family to—in a phrase we heard repeatedly—just love on her. Not physically care for her. Not worry about her meds. Not be on call to handle all of the challenging aspects of end-of-life care. Just...love on her.
Unbeknownst to Deanna, we also had a special surprise for her waiting in the wings. And it's honestly best to see it happen...so even if you listen to this full episode as usual, swing on over to our channel on YouTube to watch the surprise happen.
And please check out Deanna's book "Embracing the End: Discovering Peace and Purpose At the End of Life" now available for sale on Amazon. It's a great, hilarious, and heart-lifting read. Because of course it is.
