Out of Patients with Matthew Zachary
Out of Patients with Matthew Zachary
Matthew Zachary is the healthcare policy love child of Jon Stewart, Howard Stern, Thomas Paine, Ralph Nader, and Jerry Seinfeld. He has 19 years of receipts to prove it. Editorially independent. Answerable to no one. What started as The Stupid Cancer Show in 2007 became Out of Patients. The first online health podcast in America, predating the medium itself. Zachary survived brain cancer at 21, built the young adult cancer movement from scratch, and spent two decades channeling patient rage into something the system never saw coming. Now he is marching into Washington. Out of Patients goes where the comfortable shows will not. Politics. Healthcare policy. Economics. Institutional accountability. Consumer protection. The forces shaping what 330 million Americans can access, afford, and survive. Battle-scarred patients. Exhausted caregivers. Rare insiders brave enough to name what is killing us. And the occasional elected official about to find out what an organized patient constituency actually looks like. This is the show that started the conversation America is still not ready to finish.
July 28, 2025

Meet My Grief: Notes from an Orphaned Teen

Meet My Grief: Notes from an Orphaned Teen

Lexi Silver is 15 years old. She lost both of her parents before she turned 11. That should tell you enough—but it doesn’t. Because Lexi isn’t here for your pity. She’s not a sob story. She’s not a trauma statistic. She’s a writer, an advocate, and one of the most emotionally intelligent people you’ll ever hear speak into a microphone.

In this episode, Lexi breaks down what grief actually feels like when you’re a kid and the adults around you just don’t get it. She talks about losing her mom on Christmas morning, her dad nine months later, how the system let her down, and how Instagram trolls tell her she’s faking it for attention. She also explains why she writes, what Experience Camps gave her, how she channels anger into poems, and what to say—and not say—to someone grieving.

Her life isn’t a Netflix drama. But it should be.

And by the way, she’s not “so strong.” She’s just human. You’ll never forget this conversation.


RELATED LINKS

• Lexi on Instagram: @meet.my.grief

• Buy her book: The Girl Behind Grief’s Shadow

• Experience Camps


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Out of Patients EP412: Meet My Grief: Notes from an Orphaned Teen

Lexi Silver is fifteen. She has buried both of her parents. She has sat through funerals most adults will never face. She writes about grief with the precision of a scalpel and the blunt force of a sledgehammer. And she does it without apology. …