Resilience within the System: A Story of Cardiac Arrest, Training, and Black Women’s Health

Featuring Kimberly Porter-Ukeje and Marnellie Bishop

Host: Ali Buchanan · A podcast by Community Doula Alliance

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Ali Buchanan (00:07)

Welcome back to the Doula Debrief Podcast, everybody. This is Ali Buchanan, and today we are going to have a very special conversation between Kimberly and Marnellie. It’s really going to talk about a story that hasn’t been shared too much.

So we are going to be centering a story about the importance of our training, but also how being a Black woman and caring about our health is so important — really, the power of encapsulating all of the things that we have to carry in our bodies, and how it plays out in the things that we do, how we show up and work. So joining us today, of course, is Kimberly and Marnellie, and we have so much to talk about. So welcome, Kimberly and Marnellie. Are you excited to share the story?

Kimberly Porter-Ukeje (00:54)

Yeah. I mean, it’s not the best story to tell, but it is a story of survival. So yes, it’s good to be on the other side. So yeah, I’m happy to share this today.

Ali Buchanan (01:05)

So take us back — last year, summer of 2025. What was happening that day, what were you guys doing? And then kind of lead into the happenings of this medical emergency.

Marnellie Bishop (01:25)

So we were in one of our partnership meetings. As we’ve talked about in a previous podcast, we’re in the development phase — actually the implementation phase — of the Doula Model program. So we were meeting with Washington County and another partner, and we were really helping this other partner design their hub, their Doula Model.

And as always, we start talking about the things we’re passionate about. At one point, Kimberly is talking — Kimberly is telling a story, Kimberly is sharing an experience about Black women and health history, and then even the history of birth work for the Black community, the Black and African community. And I’m sitting right over here, because I’m at CDA, so I can see kind of where it all happened. We have our big screen up, so Kimberly and I are sitting next to each other, and then the other screens are there because we’re on a Zoom call. And Kimberly’s talking, and I’m kind of just sitting next to her, and all of a sudden I hear her go — and then she flops over, and I go, “What, Kimberly, are you okay?” And something about that moment just had me go — click, click — on my computer, to turn the camera off, mute my mic. And then I call out. I called out to Jasmine, who is our Doula Community Manager — she was in her office — and I call out to Kamaria, Kimberly’s daughter, who was also there, because at the time we had brought Kamaria in to help with the planning of our five-year gala. So they were both sitting in the office working on things.

And I immediately called out and said, “Kamaria, come out here — your mom has either fainted, or I don’t know, something’s happening with your mom.” And Jasmine comes out and says, “What’s happening?” And I go, “Kimberly has collapsed.” And because she’s in a rolling office chair, I’m like, we need to get her to the ground, because she’s not stable sitting here in the chair. So Kamaria comes around, we’re helping to lie her down, and Kamaria’s like, “No, keep her on her side — maybe she’s just choking, maybe she’s choking.” And I said, “No, Kamaria, she is not responsive. Something else is going on.” And you hear what’s medically called — like, the body is trying to reset. I could hear Kimberly’s body trying to take these gasps, trying to oxygenate — like the brain is telling the body to do something, but it’s like the circuits are misaligned.

And so I immediately talk to Jasmine and say, “You need to call 911 right now. Kamaria, I need to start CPR.” She’s like, “No, no, no, she’s just choking, she’s just choking.” And I said, if you lay her down on her back, she’s going to keep choking — and I go, “No.” I don’t know how much time had lapsed at that point, but I also feel like — as a doula, you work with people through contractions enough that it feels like a minute has passed. And when we think about CPR, we know minutes shift outcomes. So I immediately start chest compressions, because I can hear her gasping, or what is considered ROSC — I don’t know, do you know what ROSC is? R-O-S-C —

Ali Buchanan (05:40)

ROSC is return of spontaneous circulation.

Marnellie Bishop (05:43)

ROSC — return of spontaneous circulation, R-O-S-C. Her gasping was, to me, a sign — but I never felt your pulse. If I had felt your pulse, then I would have known whether the pulse was going. But I just keep going, I keep doing chest compressions. At one point, I’m counting in my head — one and two and three — all the way to thirty, and I’m able to get rescue breaths in, and then I go right back to it. And then we hear 911 is talking to Jasmine, she’s giving the address — again, I don’t know how much time has elapsed, but I’m still going. Emergency services arrive, they come in, and then they take over.

In the meantime, Jasmine is trying to calm Kamaria, I’m trying to calm Kamaria. At some point, right as EMS arrived, I unmuted — because the meeting was still going, they were talking back to me — and I’m like… so they were probably sitting there like, “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh,” because there’s no information coming to them, they just see a black screen. So when EMS arrive, I’m able to hit unmute and say, “EMS is here, I’m logging off.” And I just log off, turn that off.

They come in, EMS does all the things they need to do to clear the space, make sure everything is safe, and then they bring the mechanical chest compression device in — this machine that they put right over Kimberly. They’ve done all the things, they also have an Ambu bag, which is helping to give rescue breaths. And then I’m talking to Kamaria, who has Cameron on the phone on the other side, and I’m like, “Cameron, something has happened to your mom, EMS is here.” He’s like, “What’s happening, what’s happening?” And Kamaria is in a whole other state. They’ve been able to contact Kimberly’s mom, and she’s on her way.

We were supposed to have a whole doula team meeting that evening, so I text Nia right away — I was like, “Nia, there’s been a medical emergency, I need you to email out to everybody right now and say the meeting is canceled.” So she sends that email out, and then Jasmine and I start getting texts from the doulas — “What’s happening, what’s happening, what’s happening?” And we just continue to say, “There’s been a medical emergency, we’ll give you updates as they become available.”

What else was happening — things I heard were, they had given you two shots of epinephrine, trying to stimulate, restart. And then they’re asking questions — what happened, when — because that’s part of rapid response too, right, they have to ask questions to get an understanding of what’s going on. And then they notice — which we’ll also talk about — they notice you have a scar on your chest, and they’re like, “Has she had a mastectomy recently?” And I’m like, “To the day, it’s been a month that she’s had a mastectomy.” And they’re like, “Okay, what else can you do?” And I’m like, I find your purse, I find your ID, I find your insurance card — I’m like, “Here she is,” and then they take off.

And then Jasmine is here, Kamaria’s here — Kamaria’s outside, actually, kind of trying to—

Ali Buchanan (09:28)

Yeah.

Marnellie Bishop (09:29)

—just get back in her body. Jasmine and I continue to check in with her, because it’s one of those things — how much do we check in on you, or how much do we leave you alone? We’re trying to gauge that with her. Jasmine finds a bag, grabs all of your things, puts everything in the bag, Kimberly, and we hand everything off to Kamaria when your mom arrives.

So then they go off to the hospital — thankfully our office is really close to OHSU, that’s where you went. And then Jasmine and I sit there and debrief, like, what just happened? We start to run the timeline, and she was like, “Marnellie, you were doing CPR for like seven minutes.” And I go, what? It doesn’t feel — and this is also the parallel to birth, you have no concept of time when you’re in that moment. You’re just like, I’ve learned some things, I know what needs to be done to the best of my ability — go.

And obviously in that moment you’re thinking, what is happening — and here’s where I’m going to get emotional, because my dad passed from cardiac arrest. And I think about who was there to support him, and there were people capable of supporting him, and he didn’t make it. So then to hear that they eventually got a femoral pulse from Kimberly — all right, we have a pulse, that’s something, something to cling to, to hope on.

And then — you’re at OHSU, the food arrives that we’d ordered for our meeting, and thankfully one other doula was already on her way, and she was like, “I’m coming, you probably just need another person to help ground” — which was certainly very helpful. She actually took the food we had and took it to a local shelter, and they were excited to have it. And then Jasmine and I were like, are we okay to drive home — we both called our husbands, and we were both driving and talking to our husbands on the way home. And I got home, and I immediately go down to my mom, because I’d just experienced something that reminds me of a really sad time. And then I get the text while I’m with your mom — Kimberly, I’m with my mom — and your mom texts me, “She’s stable. The doctors say that what you did was life-saving. She wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t done that CPR.” And I’m with my mom, and we both just — whew. We think of that moment and we’re just like…

Ali Buchanan (13:01)

…stepped up to the plate for that.

Kimberly Porter-Ukeje (13:05)

That’s huge.

Ali Buchanan (13:06)

And — I remember you called me right after too, to let me know, and I was just listening. It’s so weird that we all had an experience with that, but my sister-in-law passed from cardiac arrest. Nobody in her office knew CPR, nobody provided that life-saving support. And if somebody had — I think, what is it, fifteen minutes without oxygen? Then brain activity is impacted.

Marnellie Bishop (13:44)

Yeah.

Ali Buchanan (13:45)

So by the time EMS got to her, she had already been too long without oxygen. So they brought her back, but there was nothing — so we had to make that decision. And that’s all I kept saying to you, I was like, if even — if you had stopped for a little bit, that could have changed where we are today. And so Kimberly, how does that feel hearing the story? Because I saw you kind of thinking, like, wait, so — where does that bring you back to?

Kimberly Porter-Ukeje (14:29)

I mean, it’s just overwhelming to hear it, right? That person was me. Now, looking back and hearing stuff about — you know, people will do something like pass out like that, and then bystanders don’t do anything, they wait for 911. And that split moment could be a life-and-death situation. So I think for me, that’s what I think about — that if Marnellie hadn’t been there… I know Kamaria couldn’t have—

Marnellie Bishop (15:01)

But also — rightly so, right? Think about it being your mom. Think about it also at that time, where she was at in her own life experience, right — she’s a young college student who’s just having the time of her life, and then to see this and witness this — that was like one of those moments where I was just like, this is a hard thing for you to experience as a young person.

Kimberly Porter-Ukeje (15:32)

It’s just still unbelievable to believe, you know — just to know that happened, and why that happened, and what was going on in the meeting, and what triggered that. I mean, did I have cardiac issues before? What triggered that moment? The doctor says — the way he described it — at that point, my heart was just like that, you could feel it. And I didn’t have cardiac issues before, none of that kind of stuff. I wasn’t even diagnosed with high blood pressure then — it was just, you know, breast cancer. So just looking back — what if? How come I didn’t know? What if I had been at a grocery store? All those things still play in my mind. But yeah, I’m glad that Marnellie was there, because I wouldn’t be here.

And so — it is hard to hear that story, because it’s hard — it’s just like, it’s not me. When you’re telling that story, I can’t believe that’s Kimberly. That was me. So that’s still — because you all were all in it, I’m the one that it was, so it’s hard to hear that that happened to me, because I wasn’t there. I’m just visualizing everybody in the space, the ambulance coming, Kamaria calling my mom, calling Kamaria — I just, it’s all playing in my head, and I’m just there, barely alive, while all this stuff is going on. I think that’s what comes up for me — I just don’t remember.

Ali Buchanan (16:50)

You did bring up something too that not many people know about you — that you were diagnosed with breast cancer. You had fought that for a year before, right, before that happened. And like Marnellie said, you’d had your mastectomy. Tell us how you managed that up until the cardiac arrest, because I think that’s also — we talk about this all the time, with racial weathering and how we carry things in our body, and the stress of being somebody of color, a Black woman, and what all that means. So walk us through that experience.

Kimberly Porter-Ukeje (17:31)

So let’s go back to November of 2024. That was when I was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer. They let me know I’d have to go through chemotherapy and radiation, and potentially a mastectomy. Diagnosed with stage three, started chemotherapy — I think I started in January — and never really claimed it. I never claimed stage three breast cancer, I just — they told me what it was, I was just like, it’s a test result. I didn’t know anything about breast cancer — I knew about breast cancer awareness, I had my annual mammogram like you normally do, and that’s what came up. But I never claimed that I have breast cancer — I claim it now, as a survivor, but in the moment I was just doing the treatment.

So November, got diagnosed, told my family, told Kamaria, told my mom, and they never really kind of went, “Oh my God, you’re gonna die” — it was never any of that. It was like my mom’s like, “Well, what do we got to do? What did the doctor say? What can we do?” I said, “Well, they said I have to go through chemotherapy, have to go to radiation, have to have a mastectomy.” And she’s like, “Okay, let’s do it, okay.”

So then I had about six months of chemotherapy at Kaiser — that was not as bad as I thought. Like I said, I never claimed it, so I just felt like I was going in for my weekly treatment. My mom was there every day for three hours as I was getting my injections, and when we went in I’m like, “These people look really sick.” And my mom’s like, “Yeah, they have cancer, Kim, like you.” And I’m like, “No, I don’t have that type of cancer, not that type — I’m just here to get my treatment, I’m not trying to go nowhere, I’m trying to hurry up and get this done.” So I never claimed it. But I saw really sick people, people who really looked like they had cancer — I don’t think I ever really looked like I had it like that. So we went to treatment, six months of chemotherapy, handled that well, rang the bell, graduated from chemotherapy, and then — I think it was May — I had the mastectomy.

So I had that, and that was a lot to go through — I had to have drainage, and bottles, and things like that — but I was working. This is the thing — the whole entire time I was working, I was still working at CDA, I was still doing my consulting business, I was a full-time therapist at Portland Mental Health and Wellness. Because once you have a mastectomy, there’s a lot of drainage you have to deal with — tubes, bottles, things like that — so I would have it, and no one knew. My patients never knew, but I had all this drainage, and I was doing all this stuff, keeping working, changing bandages, all types of stuff. I don’t know how I did that, but I did. Still working the whole time.

And then I just recently finished radiation — I think in January of this year, I had to do six weeks of intense radiation, and then I rang that bell for radiation. I think I’d just finished, a week before, with the radiation. And yeah, that’s kind of — from 2024 up until the cardiac arrest, June 4th. So yeah, just all of that.

But I think for me — I’m not a very religious person, but I do believe in God, and someone was watching over me. Because when Marnellie talks about going back — I don’t know how long I was in the hospital, I’d say ten, fourteen days, maybe.

Marnellie Bishop (21:02)

At least — I’d say at least ten days, because you walked into the office July tenth. Your mom dropped you off, and you came in and you’re like, “What’s happening?” And I’m like, “You tell me — how are you doing?” I know what you looked like when I last saw you, and then to see you walk through that door was a whole other experience — because there were texts between me and your mom for those first few days while you were in the hospital, and she was really just, as much as possible, holding it together for Kamaria and Cameron. Your mom is so strong — your mom has been through a lot herself, Kimberly. I remember when we were also that day trying to coordinate getting your car, because I was like, I don’t want to leave her car at the office. And your keys were with your stuff. So my husband and I went and got the keys from Kamaria, and Kamaria came out and she’s like, “Marnellie, how did you know what to do? If you hadn’t done what you did, my mom might not be in there stable, we might be doing something different.”

Kimberly Porter-Ukeje (22:24)

Right. And—

Marnellie Bishop (22:26)

Yeah. It’s overwhelming, like you said. I couldn’t grasp it. I was like, it’s just another day — honestly, how I played it off was, it’s just another day, I do this every day. And to this day I still can’t—

Kimberly Porter-Ukeje (22:41)

Right. And for me — even now, you said June, I keep saying it, June twenty-fifth, right, is when it happened. What I remember — okay, that day, and then I don’t know what was going on. I remember July fourth — that’s when I remember looking around, like, where the hell am I at? That’s when—

Ali Buchanan (23:00)

When you came out of the coma. Yeah.

Kimberly Porter-Ukeje (23:02)

Right.

Marnellie Bishop (23:03)

Yeah.

Kimberly Porter-Ukeje (23:04)

So I was laying in the bed, and I looked — because the last thing I remember, I was in the meeting, right? So I’m waking up like, what’s going on? And nurses are saying it’s the Fourth of July. And I said, “What the hell am I doing?” I mean, I was cussing, yelling, screaming, calling them all types — “Why am I here? Why am I naked?” I’m trying to get back, I said, “I gotta go to work.” She’s like, “Ma’am, you just had a cardiac arrest, you’re not going anywhere.” I said, “Yes, I am — get me out of here.” And so I’m trying to get up, not realizing what had happened. Even when they’re telling me, I’m like, that’s not me, that didn’t happen to me, you’re lying, why are you trapping me — I felt like I was in jail, like they were keeping me there. So I tried to get out of the bed, I fell — because I do physical therapy, I talk about the physical therapy, I did some physical therapy before I even left the hospital, I had to walk around because my brain had stopped. My brain wasn’t operating with my legs, so I would fall.

So I did the physical therapy. I remember I woke up, “Get me out of here, I gotta go to work, call my mom.” They said, “Miss Porter, your daughter is yelling at the nurses, we think — can you come?” And that’s when my mom realized, “That’s my daughter, that’s Kim, she’s back,” because I was acting like my normal self. I was in a coma pretty much for all those days. I wake up — what do you think I’m gonna do, just sit there? It was a nice vacation? No — I’m trapped, what is going on, I have no underwear on, no panties, nothing, tubes all over me, I don’t know what’s happening. So yeah, I remember, because it was the Fourth of July, and I remember there were fireworks — you could see them, barely, out the window. It was kind of like being trapped.

And then after I realized — I still didn’t really realize everything that happened until this year. Marnellie and Jasmine told me, because Kamaria wouldn’t really talk about it, my mom, nobody really talked about it, what actually happened. So I didn’t really know until this year. But we’re talking about being a Black woman and having been diagnosed with stage three breast cancer, then going to cardiac arrest — even at that moment, even on July 4th, I still wanted to go back to work. I still didn’t realize — forget about work, you need to take care of yourself, right? Even then I felt like I had to be strong and continue on, when actually I should have rested. And I still haven’t really rested, to be honest with you.

Marnellie Bishop (25:34)

It’s recorded.

Ali Buchanan (25:34)

Recording, right? We got that — we got that. We’re gonna need you to rest.

Marnellie Bishop (25:39)

Needed a rest.

Kimberly Porter-Ukeje (25:41)

Yeah, I haven’t — yeah. But I think looking back on it, in terms of the cardiac arrest part, I think that I’ve always been raised to be a strong Black woman, and when things do happen to us medically, we’re just told it’s okay — “This happened to me too, so you just need to keep on.” Whereas we really—

Ali Buchanan (25:59)

You’re strong, therefore you push through.

Kimberly Porter-Ukeje (26:03)

Yeah.

Marnellie Bishop (26:03)

Mm-hmm.

Ali Buchanan (26:04)

Sit with it — you don’t rest, and if you rest, it’s because you did X, you earned that rest. And it’s like — let’s not.

Kimberly Porter-Ukeje (26:14)

Yeah, you’re always told you gotta keep going, and I think that’s why a lot of us have compromised hearts — because we max ourselves out, right? And then it takes — high blood pressure, stress every day at work, being a Black person in America, all the things that are going on — I mean, we’re just used to being exposed to that type of trauma every day that we’re numb to it. And actually, it’s killing us, it’s causing us to have medical issues, but we’re still told to keep pushing through, keep working, keep doing what you’ve got to do. So I think that’s reflective of what happened to me — even at the time when I was waking up, I still wanted to get up and go to work. That was my main thing — I gotta get up.

Marnellie Bishop (26:56)

Say what you said to the nurses — “I’m Kimberly Porter, look me up.”

Kimberly Porter-Ukeje (27:02)

Yeah, you know, some nurses are not the nicest to us, right, and this nurse happened to be white, and I remember her — she was on her computer, and I said, “Do you know who I am? I am Kimberly Porter, the CEO, I have these many degrees, and da-da-da-da, and you’re gonna tell me I can’t leave? You need to call—” I went off. And she was like, “Ma’am, I don’t care who you are.” And she Googled me, and she said, “Ma’am, I respect who you are, but you’re not going anywhere, you just had a cardiac arrest.” And I said, “I just wanted to let you know who I am.” And that’s when she called my mom, because I was out of control. I felt like — I don’t know, something about white nurses, just the way they talk to you sometimes — especially out there, I was at Sunnyside, I was way out, I wasn’t at OHSU at that point, so they treat you differently out there. But other than that, the other nurses were mostly Latino, and the physical therapy ones that came in were wonderful — there was a Black one that was wonderful. But like I said, I felt like I had to prove who I was, when I shouldn’t have — I should have just been a patient who happened to have a cardiac arrest and get treated fairly. But I felt like I had to tell them who I was so they wouldn’t treat me like crap. But I think it was just me, because I don’t think they were treating me bad, I just think they were doing their job by telling me I couldn’t get out of the bed. But I took it as, “You’re trying to control me, like you always do.” That’s what I thought. And that’s why I put out my credentials, which I shouldn’t have had to do — I shouldn’t have had to do that. But that’s what we have to do. Even when we have those credentials, we’re still seen as less than, inferior to. It just speaks to — even in that moment, in the worst time of my life, I still felt like I had to prove myself. And that’s ridiculous.

Ali Buchanan (28:40)

And it speaks to what we see with the families that we support. I had that same experience in my birth, where I wanted to wear a hat every time I went to my prenatals, to be like, “I have a master’s — stop talking down to me, we can have this conversation.” And we know the stats — your income, your education, it doesn’t change that we’re still dying three to five, six times more than white folks. There’s a disparity, and it makes sense why we do what we do. And I would also love to hear from both of your perspectives — how did this experience change… Marnellie, how you teach and encourage people to get training, like CPR versus BLS, and Kimberly, how has this experience also helped you envision continuing on with CDA, so that we have better outcomes?

Marnellie Bishop (29:37)

I mean — so her cardiac arrest happened on a Tuesday—

Ali Buchanan (29:48)

That’s right, that’s right.

Marnellie Bishop (29:49)

—and we had a planned CPR training that Sunday. So Jasmine and I were sitting in the office, and we had four or five newly trained doulas learning CPR. There’s a point where you have to demonstrate the skills practice — they have the dummies on the floor, and this particular instructor had wristbands, and if you were going at the right pace, the wristband would notice it and turn green. And so I’m hearing the clicking of the mannequin, and I pop my head out, and I say to one of them, “No — why are your arms not straight?” And I grab her elbows and say, “Lock in—”

Ali Buchanan (30:30)

Come back.

Marnellie Bishop (30:31)

“You need to lock in, you need to be right on top.” And she was like, “That’s a lot of work.” And I go — ’cause at the time, we were very much wanting to honor Kimberly’s privacy, so we weren’t sharing what this medical emergency was. And Jasmine and I were sitting in our office like—

Ali Buchanan (30:56)

Yeah. Too soon.

Marnellie Bishop (30:58)

Is it too soon to do this? But I think the element I want to share is: really pay attention to the quality of the training you’re getting. Is there an effort for continuous improvement? Can you hear it demonstrated in how an instructor talks? Is it there to earn a buck, or is it there to teach a skill? That’s the difference. I recently had to recertify, and I took BLS — basic life support, which is different from CPR. CPR/first aid is what you’d take if you’re a babysitter, or just a parent who wants to learn these things. BLS is specific to healthcare providers, so you have this higher level of instruction and communication that’s taught to you. And what I appreciated about that too was — now you also have to work on some of the things we tell our doulas in training: professional collaboration, interprofessional collaboration, closed-loop communication — did you hear what I said, do you understand what I said, teach it back, talk it back to me. And just elevating the quality of care, because at the heart of our organization is to improve the quality of care for our respective communities, because we are the ones who have not been treated well. And if we can learn how to treat each other well, that will elevate us.

And Kimberly didn’t answer her question — you asked about how this experience is now emphasizing the vision for CDA as it continues to grow.

Kimberly Porter-Ukeje (32:41)

It enhances the vision and the mission and the intentionality of what we’re doing, as we look at ourselves as women, our health, and how to take care of ourselves, right? I definitely support everyone getting a mammogram, a yearly mammogram — I was at stage three, I’m lucky it didn’t go to stage four, but I was really close. So we have to be aware of our health and take care of ourselves on that breast cancer side. But then also on the cardiac side — this type of work can be very stressful, very taxing on our bodies, right? So being able to take care of ourselves — and I know we’re all entrepreneurs, we have three jobs, we talk about this in our classes, how to juggle that — if you have a nine-to-five, and then you have the doula business, and then you’re a childbirth educator. I think in this birth space, we want to do all the things, and I tried to do all of them at one time. And I did it, but at what cost? I think that’s probably what caused it, honestly — because I wanted to be a childbirth educator, lactation consultant, doula, CEO, all the things, and I have all those credentials.

But if I wasn’t making it, it wouldn’t matter what credential I had, right? At that moment, when I told that doctor about my credentials, it didn’t matter. I brought this up when I went to the postpartum summit with other women, I talked about it — we talked about stress and being a Black woman, and I’m like, “Hey, y’all, I’m a living witness — all these degrees you guys have, every freaking fifty degrees — but at the end of the day, when you’re laying there in that bed, with your blood pressure high and you’re on your last breath, it doesn’t matter.” It doesn’t matter. But why do we think we need to have all those credentials? That was a bigger conversation. But at the end of the day, it does affect our health, it does affect our heart — and we’re doing heart work, it affects our heart. So yeah, I’ve learned a lot. I’ve slowed down a little bit — no, just a little bit, I only have one job now, which is CDA, which is a big one — just being more aware of what’s happening to our communities. Pancreatic cancer is really big in Black communities, in Black men — that’s why my dad died of pancreatic cancer. Maybe if he’d known sooner, maybe — all the what-ifs, right?

So I think moving forward, we’re talking about our strategic plan and leadership, but also our health — not just what we’re doing for the family, for our babies, but we also need to make sure that we’re in order, and our doulas are healthy, and we are healthy as a leadership team, to be able to provide the leadership and direction for our staff and our doulas. It’s been a lot — it’s unfortunate that had to happen, but in a way I’m kind of glad it shifted me into a whole different mindset of where I need to be, and how we need to move forward as an organization. So yeah, it’s impacting me in a very positive way — I don’t see it as a negative. I never claimed it, right — I think that’s part of the resilience I want to demonstrate to you all: that I’m a living example of resilience. Even in the midst of bad stuff happening, it was still okay.

Ali Buchanan (35:49)

Well, good. Well, thank you so much, both of you, for sharing your stories. That experience is life-changing and very personal, and sometimes it’s hard to work through that — so thank you both for sharing that. So we’ll drop some links for some resources for folks to get trained, and then, of course, supporting breast cancer awareness, since this is coming out in October.

Kimberly Porter-Ukeje (36:11)

I’m glad we were able to share this story and let other people learn from what we’ve experienced, the two of us together. And I’m forever grateful for Marnellie for saving my life.

Marnellie Bishop (36:23)

You’re welcome. I’d do it again — I don’t want to do it again, but if I just happen to be there, I’ll do it again.

Ali Buchanan (36:31)

It’s just another day — that’s—

Marnellie Bishop (36:33)

That’s another day.

Ali Buchanan (36:34)

—the Marnellie way.

Kimberly Porter-Ukeje (36:36)

But I think, mostly, Marnellie — what it does, it teaches other people not to just be a bystander. While everybody else is waiting for someone else to do it, you be the one to do it, because that can be life-changing, and it takes a while for the ambulance to get there.

Ali Buchanan (36:50)

Well, thank you again.

Marnellie Bishop (36:53)

All right, bye, bye — see you on the next podcast.