Celebrating 100 Episodes: A Family’s Bladder Cancer Journey

September 22, 2025

Transcript

Voice over:

This is Bladder Cancer Matters, the podcast for bladder cancer patients, caregivers, advocates, and medical and research professionals. It’s brought to you by the Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network, otherwise known as BCAN. BCAN works to increase public awareness about bladder cancer, advances bladder cancer research, and provides educational and support services for bladder cancer patients and their loved ones. To learn more, please visit bcan.org.

Rick Bangs

Hi, I’m Rick Bangs, the host of Bladder Cancer Matters, a podcast for, by and about the bladder cancer community. Today is part of a series of podcasts that we’ll be doing in observance of BCAN’s 20th anniversary, which we’re celebrating all throughout 2025. In this anniversary year, BCAN is launching a Partners in Progress podcast series in which we’ll highlight the commitment of BCAN’s pharmaceutical company partners to creating better todays and more tomorrows for bladder cancer patients and families.

Today we’re featuring Ferring Pharmaceuticals again this time as the August 2025 Partners in Progress. Ferring is a privately owned biopharma company focusing on developing life-changing innovations that help people live better lives. Today we’ll be speaking to two family members of Fran Curtis, our previous Ferring Partners in Progress podcast guest. You may recall that Fran has benefited from Ferring Europe Oncology’s Bladder cancer drug, Adstiladrin, which has the generic name nadofaragene firadenovec-vncg. It’s important to remember that different treatments have different results in patients, and your results may vary.

Joining us today are Fran’s children. Her son Drew Sorensen is 33, and he lives near Charleston, South Carolina. Drew his father to a seven-month-old boy named Bennett. And Drew’s mom, Fran is known as Grammy. Drew is a home maintenance technician for a national rental company. His favorite things to do are traveling, playing the guitar, and watching Moving, as well as getting beaten by his sister in the New York Times Daily Games. Fran, Drew’s mom, is his forever dance partner, whether it is the chicken dance or the mother-son dance at his wedding.

Fran’s daughter, Erica Sorensen, 36 lives near the beach in Belmar, New Jersey. Erica is a registered nurse with eight years of ER experience, currently working in endoscopy. Her favorite things include trying new restaurants, reading and reigning supreme over her mom and her brother Drew in the New York Times Daily puzzles. Fran, her mom, is her best friend, and while it’s been scary navigating this cancer journey with her, she’s so thankful that she can be a source of support.

Welcome to the podcast, Drew and Erica.

Erica Sorensen

Hi.

Drew Sorensen

Thanks for having us.

Rick Bangs

All right, Drew, tell me a little bit about yourself and your relationship to Fran. You’re her son, but tell us a little bit more about that relationship.

Drew Sorensen

Yeah, so as you said before, I live right near Charleston, South Carolina, so that was a big move, 12-hour drive, about a two-hour plane ride. I definitely am a mama’s boy, so that was a hard move to make, especially when everything was kind of going on and we were thinking about it. I wish I was home a lot of the time, especially when I see there’s my sister and my stepdad and my mom all at the dinner and stuff like that really hurts my heart. But FaceTime definitely makes that easier. I always make sure to FaceTime at least once a week with my seven-month-old son, Bennett, and he knows who Grammy is and he’s waving and smiling and it’s always good to hear her laugh through that FaceTime. So it’s a great relationship though.

Rick Bangs

Wonderful. So your mother gets diagnosed, so what were your thoughts at the time of her bladder cancer diagnosis?

Drew Sorensen

I think as most people, when they hear that C word, it’s kind of punch in the gut. It’s not her first battle with cancer, but this was obviously her bladder cancer diagnosis. So a lot of heartbreak, a lot of anger, a lot of frustration. Just that kind of why? Why her? Or why my family? That kind of transformed though into, well, okay, how do I help? At this point once I got over myself, I’m seeing my mom, actually, it almost seems like handling it better than I am. So it was like, all right, how do I help? How do I do what’s best for her? Do what’s best for the family, and how do I help along?

Rick Bangs

Okay, so let’s talk about help because help and caregiving, so the same thing, but it means different things to different people. So what was your experience as caregiver?

Drew Sorensen

Yeah, I mean, the obvious easy example is she needed rides to and from treatment. So Fox Chase I think was about hour and a half, two hour drive from where she lived. So it was a lot of getting in the car, listening to Johnny Cash, and other old country and kind of singing, just talking about life and everything. And waiting there while she’s in getting treatment, and then that long drive home. And it’s one of those things where it lets me frame it. No one likes going the doctor, but I used in my head a framing of, well, okay, this is quality time with my mom that otherwise I probably would’ve been at my house doing something, goofing off, whatever. So I looked at it that way.

The other thing is to not make it so gloom and doom, I love comedy, that comic relief. So whether it was playing a silly song on my guitar, or again, busting out Johnny Cash, doing an impression or something. Just making the home as light and airy as we could. Because when she was first diagnosed, I was still living at home with her actually. So a little easier to be there with that joke or that impression, or whatever it may be to make her laugh.

Rick Bangs

Okay. So what were kind of the easy parts and why were they easy?

Drew Sorensen

Yeah, I mean, like I said, my mom and I get along very well, kind of the same, I feel like, comedy sense. So making her laugh was always easy. I’m the type, and my mom’s the type, if there’s a polka song and there’s people doing a polka dance, we’ll run out on the dance floor not knowing any of the steps or whatever, and we’ll pretend that we do, and all that stuff. And my mom’s one to not let cancer slow her down. So yeah, anytime we could just be silly and laugh and have a good time, just kind of make her not think about it for a while. That was the easy part.

Rick Bangs

And the occasional chicken dance.

Drew Sorensen

Yeah, of course. Of course.

Rick Bangs

Yeah. Okay. So what parts were difficult and why?

Drew Sorensen

Difficult for me, like I said, I was very frustrated and angry with the initial diagnosis, but masking that was a little difficult. That took me time to process. And then there was a reoccurrence right around the time I was actually getting married, and that was just devastating. And again, frustrating, like, come on, I thought we beat this and why my mom again? But the other thing is like you said, my sister’s a nurse and my wife’s actually a nurse, but I have no medical sense about me whatsoever. So my mom navigating that world and trying to understand who and what and what doctors, and they’re doing what, and they belong to what body part and all that, that was very confusing. And at times also frustrating because you just hear stuff, and I’m like, can we say it in English? How exactly does this all ebb and flow together? So yeah, that was difficult right there, masking the emotions and then just trying to understand everything.

Rick Bangs

Sure, sure. So what advice do you have for other caregivers of bladder cancer survivors?

Drew Sorensen

Yeah, I know for my mom, again, like you said in the opening, everybody’s different. So your mileage may vary with my jokey approach, but I think the biggest thing too is just be there and listen. My mom’s a big puzzle person, big board game person. So it might’ve been, again, I might’ve been playing a game or something with one of my friends online, and instead I was like, let me go see if my mom wants to play Monopoly or Boggle or whatever. It’s just spending time with her. I feel like a big one’s try to keep life as normal as it was beforehand. I know my mom would’ve probably punch me in the face if we treated her like she was some sickly patient. She kicks butt and she doesn’t want to be helped along or anything. So as long as you can do everything to keep the most normal you can, life as is, and like I said, just be there and listen.

Rick Bangs

All right. So Erica, your Fran’s daughter, I want to hear a little bit about yourself and then your relationship with your mom.

Erica Sorensen

Sure. So I can confidently say my mom is my best friend, and it’s been that way since I was probably 18 years old. We definitely, like at every mother daughter went through rough patches in high school, but she is the most important person to me, and I am lucky that I do live closer. I see her usually once a week or every other week. But same with Drew, the three of us are extremely close, I would say. And we really just love have a text group going and texting all day long, and anytime we get together, it’s just lots of laughs. So she is very close with both of us.

Rick Bangs

So it’s really close except when you’re competing with these New York Time games, right?

Erica Sorensen

Well, it’s not a competition because I crush them.

Rick Bangs

Okay, good. Glad we cleared that up. Okay, so you hear your mother’s got bladder cancer later on you hear she’s got a recurrence. So what are your thoughts?

Erica Sorensen

Yeah, so being in the medical field, and this might touch a little on another question coming up, but being in the medical field, when I found out that she had bladder cancer, my immediate reaction was get your bladder removed. Because for me, I’ve seen patients who have suprapubic catheters or neo bladders, and if there’s cancer in a part of your body and you can get it out, get it out, was kind of my viewpoint. She struggled a lot with that and rightfully so, and I don’t think that I gave it kind of a weight that was appropriate.

She’s like, “That’s my body and I don’t want part of my body taken out if there are alternate routes to recovery.” And especially with the recurrence happening a few years later, that’s when I was like, okay, for real, you need to get your bladder out. And she still was adamant, “I want to exhaust every option before that.” So it’s a unique position being, I’m not an oncology nurse, I’m not a urology nurse, so I have maybe generously, a third of the knowledge. So I know enough to be worried, and I know enough to be scared at times, but not enough to adequately digest information that’s coming to me.

Rick Bangs

Right, but you can help translate, right?

Erica Sorensen

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. She sends me her labs and her scans when she gets them back. And again, sometimes I’m like, “Oh, okay, this is very reassuring.” And other times I’m like, “I have no idea what the heck that means. Please help us, Dr. Google.”

Rick Bangs

Right. Excellent. Okay, so you act as a caregiver, and we discussed with Drew it’s different things for different people. So what was your experience as caregiver?

Erica Sorensen

So I actually had a conversation with my mom prior to this podcast, and I said, I feel that the word caregiver is in my mind and maybe coming from a nursing background is the physical labors of helping shower or cooking meals and helping eat, or doling out medications and things. My mom is so… There’s none of that. She runs circles around me. She is very, very easy on that front. It’s more emotional support. Like Drew said, being there trying to make things normal when they’re definitely not normal. Being kind of just a light when things might be looking a little bit dark. As far as my mom goes, it’s really emotional support from me, I would say.

Rick Bangs

And that’s a critical role.

Erica Sorensen

Right. And I know there are times when I’ve gone with her to get her treatments and she has to lay flat for an hour while the installation is doing its thing.

Rick Bangs

Oh, right.

Erica Sorensen

So she said that it was always nice when I come as opposed to my brother or my stepfather, because we just do our word games, we’ll talk about different articles we’ve read or books that we’ve read, and she says it makes it feel like the time flies. Which is always what you want when you’re in an uncomfortable position.

Rick Bangs

Right. You’re playing the entertainment role, which is also a critical role too.

Erica Sorensen

Distraction. Yeah, nice distraction.

Rick Bangs

Yeah. Okay. So what parts of this were easy and why?

Erica Sorensen

I think that my mom makes it easy on us. Again, her being very independent. And then we’ve been very lucky that she can keep her daily routine. She isn’t, looking at her on the street, or if you saw her in the supermarket, you wouldn’t know that she was sick. And that’s thanks to all the treatments that she’s gotten. So that’s kind of been very reassuring, seeing her stay strong physically throughout this experience.

Rick Bangs

Okay. And so now, what parts were difficult and why?

Erica Sorensen

Absolutely the recurrences have been emotionally hard. It’s one of those, and I know that bladder cancer is one of those things that is recurrent, but it still is just such a gut punch every time she gets that bad news. And it’s just a feeling of helplessness. You want to be able to do something or fix it, and there’s just truly nothing that we can do except to support her.

Rick Bangs

Right, right. And then I’m pretty sure highest recurrence rate of any cancer, so-

Erica Sorensen

It is. Yeah.

Rick Bangs

Yeah, so unfortunately, not unusual.

Erica Sorensen

Right.

Rick Bangs

All right. So now did you play a role relative to selecting or supporting that decision for her original treatment? And then later on, what about this drug called Adstiladrin?

Erica Sorensen

Yeah, so like I said, when she first was diagnosed, I was very much team, get the bladder out, just be done with it. We’ll deal with whatever surgical complications. And she was adamant that she didn’t want to do that, and I had to support her in that. It’s her body. And this isn’t her first cancer journey, unfortunately. So she kind of knows the ropes about second opinions and things like that. At the time that she was diagnosed, BCG was kind of the gold standard, and then actually there was a shortage. So that was scary because they were kind of giving partial doses or diluting.

As a family member, you’re like, excuse me, she’s not getting the best treatment. What are you talking about? But there was no getting around that. And then after the repeated recurrences, and she was told she was no longer a candidate for the BCG, things got scary. We’re very, very lucky. So she’s been active with BCAN for years, and we were lucky that she was at a conference actually when she got the phone call about her latest recurrence, which is a little over a year ago. And my initial feeling was just so… I was so upset because I’m like, she’s alone in a hotel. I think she was in DC maybe, and I felt bad that we couldn’t be there for her. But she was surrounded by the best advocates-

Rick Bangs

Right, she was at a BCAN Patient Summit, if I’m not mistaken.

Erica Sorensen

Yeah, and she was surrounded by medical professionals.

Rick Bangs

Exactly.

Erica Sorensen

Yeah, at that conference, even prior to receiving that phone call, but at that conference, she had visited a booth for Adstiladrin and met an employee there who turned out to be a big blessing in an emotionally supportive way. And so after she got the call, that person and other people were able to be around her and help her through it. But that planted that little seed of, oh, this drug Adstiladrin. And at the time, I don’t think it was even out on the market yet. It was just becoming a thing. So she said, “When I was talking with these people at the conference, after I got that phone call, they were saying, this might be an option for me.”

And so immediately of course, I start researching and Googling, and everything else and reading what I. and it was very reassuring looking at the studies and statistics from what I could interpret, it made me feel hopeful. And there might be a way through this instead of just total despair, like the other times.

Rick Bangs

Yeah. That’s awesome. What advice do you have for other caregivers of bladder cancer survivors?

Erica Sorensen

I think it’s just important, like my brother was saying, just try to keep everything normal as much as possible when nothing is normal. It sounds crazy, but something as simple as just like I had a routine of, I am her child, I bring my laundry there sometimes. So I had a routine of bringing my laundry there, and we would have a glass of wine and walk the dog. And it seems like when you get a big diagnosis or life-changing information that everything should stop, but it doesn’t. And so little things like that, just continuing our routine and having those moments together that felt like the old times or the week prior before we had this bad news. It kind of just keep things going and moving forward.

I also think that having support from different things like BCAN is huge. I worry that people don’t take advantage enough of support systems like that. And I do actually tell some of my patients at work about BCAN or other Reach for Recovery, or different things that they can do for their cancer journey. Because I think having a network where you can hear stories from other people who went through similar things is so important for the patient and for the caregiver.

Rick Bangs

Okay. So let’s talk about these resources or support. So Ferring or BCAN resources, were there any that you found particularly helpful to yourself or to your mom? Or are there any that you would now recommend that you know about but didn’t know about at the time?

Erica Sorensen

When she was very first diagnosed, we did a walk that was the first kind of foray into BCAN. And it was lovely. Of course, it was on the Jersey Shore, so it was on the beach, and it was just nice to see this group of people vibrant and having a nice brisk walk together. You could see that there was just a lot of love and support there, and it does make you feel less alone. My mom kind of dove headfirst into BCAN a little bit after that. And as I mentioned, she’s been on different panels and gone to conferences all up and down the East Coast. Actually, she went to Vegas too.

But being involved in that I think kind of gives a sense of purpose too. And I’ve gone with her to these conferences. There’s just so much hope in those rooms. You learn about all these new treatments that are being developed. You hear about these beautiful outcomes. And again, it’s realizing that you’re not alone in this journey, that I think is such an important aspect.

Rick Bangs

Excellent. Okay. Any final thoughts? I want Drew, you go first.

Drew Sorensen

Yeah. I would say just do everything in your power to help and just show unrelenting support. It’s a loved one that obviously is coming to you in probably their most time of need. So yeah, just that unrelenting support. Let them know that you’re there.

Rick Bangs

Excellent. And Erica, how about you? Any final thoughts?

Erica Sorensen

I agree with all that, and I would also say it is important to look and see what outside resources are also available, because you’re not alone in the journey. As the patient or the caregiver, you’re not alone ever. So there is support out there and take advantage of everything. So my mom also through BCAN does the Survivor to Survivor program. It’s a one-to-one peer support for people on their bladder cancer journey, and they try to match people up based on common characteristics like age or gender or location. And I know that she has actually been even matched with others who are on the Adstiladrin journey through that kind of matching process. So that’s been really fun for her. She finds a lot of value in it, and I know it’s important for survivors, or for people on their journey to speak with each other so that they know that they’re not alone on this journey.

Rick Bangs

Okay. So Drew and Erica, I want to thank you for sharing your bladder cancer caregiving and Adstiladrin stories, and for your part in creating better today’s and more tomorrows for bladder cancer patients and families.

Erica Sorensen

Thanks for having us.

Drew Sorensen

Yeah, thank you for having me.

Rick Bangs

Our pleasure. If you’d like more information on bladder cancer, please visit the BCAN website, www.bcan.org. And for more information on caregiving and bladder cancer, go to www.bcan.org/tips, T-I-P-S. If you’d like more information about Adstiladrin, you can go to www.adstiladrin.com. Just a reminder, if you’d more information about bladder cancer, you can also contact the Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network at 1888-901-2226. That’s all the time we have today. Be sure to like, comment and subscribe to this podcast so we have your feedback.

Thanks for listening, and we’ll be back soon with another interesting episode of Bladder Cancer Matters. Thanks again, Drew and Erica.

Erica Sorensen

Thank you.

Drew Sorensen

Thank you.

Voice over:

Thank you for listening to Bladder Cancer Matters, a podcast by the Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network, or BCAN. BCAN works to increase public awareness about bladder cancer, advanced bladder cancer research, and provide educational and support services for bladder cancer patients. For more information about this podcast and additional information about bladder cancer, please visit bcan.org.