Connect & Thrive

09/05/2026

CAT is thrilled to sponsor this incredible event. 💛🐆🌟

Join us for the screening of the documentary film "Does Sound Heal" followed by an immersive Sound Bath exploring music, frequency and science.

09/05/2026

Treatment takes a lot out of the body, and so does recovery, and so do the long days that caregivers give to someone close to them. Food should give something back on days like those. That is what Organic Pharmer soups do.

Every soup is 100% organic and plant-based, with no gluten, dairy, corn, soy, or eggs, and nothing artificial anywhere in the bowl. You get warmth that goes down easy when appetite runs low, plus nutrition your body can put to work while it recovers.

Organic Pharmer was co-founded by Dr. Susan Blum, a board-certified physician and functional medicine expert who built her practice around the idea that whole foods can support the body through illness and inflammation. Her expertise goes into every recipe.

Keep a few in the fridge for the days when a good meal makes all the difference.

Organic Pharmer e-gift cards are available now through Connect & Thrive.

Nourish. Reset. Thrive.

09/03/2026

She should not have to compete for compassion.

On GoFundMe and similar platforms, the support a woman receives often depends on timing, follower count, and how far her story spreads before the next one buries it. We think cancer support should work differently.

Connect & Thrive was created to help address the barriers that make healing support inaccessible for too many women. CAT offers two ways for a community to support a woman’s healing:

KittyFunds™ let friends, family, coworkers, and community contribute in one coordinated place. Every contribution connects to CAT’s curated Marketplace, where she chooses trusted services and healthy living products that support her mind, body, and spirit alongside conventional treatment. Nutrition counseling, coaching, massage, so much of what genuinely helps falls outside what insurance covers. A KittyFund™ helps close that gap.

CAT E-Gift Cards keep things simple for one person who wants to help right away. Choose an amount, send it in about a minute, and she uses it whenever she is ready.
With both, 100% goes directly to her, so she decides what her healing looks like.

Start a KittyFund™ or send a CAT E-Gift Card at the link in bio.

CaregiverSupport

09/01/2026

As promised, I am sharing more about what unfolded during and after my healing session at Raven’s Rest Ranch.

My session was guided by owner Kim McStay, whose powerful work includes equine-assisted learning and energy healing. All three horses came to me during the session, but my experience with Winter was profound.

During the session, Kim sensed significant stuck energy around my throat chakra, which is associated in energy work with voice and self-expression. She also shared that Winter had experienced extraordinary grief and loss and believed that Winter was drawn to me to help me process mine.

Kim explained that horses feel deeply and remain present, allowing emotional energy to move through them rather than stay stuck.

After the session ended, Winter came back to me. In this video, I am silently thanking her for giving me her time and choosing to help me release so much of what I had been carrying. Near the end, she gave my toe a little nip, snapping me back into the moment and making me smile.

Winter reminded me that some of the deepest connections do not require words. Sometimes healing begins with being fully present, feeling what needs to be felt, and allowing ourselves to let go.

Experiencing healing modalities firsthand is part of how I build Connect & Thrive (CAT). These are the kinds of experiences I pursue not only for my own healing, but also to help CAT’s community discover forms of integrative support they may not know exist.

Imagine giving someone you care about the opportunity to choose an experience she might never have discovered for herself, and that experience becomes a meaningful turning point in her healing journey.

CAT’s E-Gift Cards can be sent directly to the recipient. A KittyFund™ is an organized crowdfunding campaign that allows friends and family to contribute together. Both provide funds that recipients can use toward the integrative healing support they choose through CAT.

Help make an experience like this possible for someone you care about. Visit the link in bio to learn more.

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08/28/2026

Nutrition myths are common in cancer care. Some of them sound intuitive, which is part of what makes them persistent. But the science tells a different story.

Nutritional status has been associated with outcomes for people on immune checkpoint inhibitors, PI3K inhibitors, and EGFR-targeted therapies.

Mediterranean-style eating, higher fiber, and fewer ultra-processed foods have each been linked to better immunotherapy response. This is published, peer-reviewed research.

Supplements are not all the same. Early-phase data suggest certain prebiotics, live biotherapeutics, fucoidan, and medicinal mushrooms may support therapy. But evidence is still emerging, and not every product is appropriate for every person or treatment.

The gut microbiome has a role in treatment response, and not all probiotics are helpful. Strain specificity and baseline assessment matter.

Fasting and ketogenic approaches are not always harmful. Some have shown potential synergy with immunotherapy in early research. But they are not universally appropriate either.

And body weight is not the only measure of nutritional health. Muscle mass, metabolic status, inflammation, and microbiome composition all matter sometimes more.

This has been a 9-part series. Thank you for reading, sharing, and asking questions along the way. If you’re looking for nutritional counseling, Connect & Thrive's Marketplace is a great place to start.

Source: Fuller-Shavel N, Davies EJ, Peleg Hasson S (2025). Frontiers in Nutrition, 12:1670598. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2025.1670598.

08/26/2026

When you need her most, Hope finds her way to you. 🐆

Hope is the Spirit Guide of Connect & Thrive (CAT), a heart-centered social impact company that uplifts cancer previvors, patients, thrivers, and caregivers. She embodies the resilience, grace, determination, and compassion at the core of CAT’s mission, reminding us that no one should face a healing journey alone.

CAT turns caring into intentional giving. Friends, family, and coworkers can back someone they care for in ways that go past words. Through CAT’s Marketplace, that support opens access to evidence-based healing modalities and healthy living products that insurance rarely covers.

Give with purpose. Support with heart. 💛🌟

Link in bio.

08/25/2026

Some pieces of art speak to who we are, and Hannah Bullen-Ryner creates exactly that kind of work. As a full-time land artist in Hertfordshire, she forms tiny woodland beings from foraged natural materials, and her commissioned pieces are now available through CAT.

CAT empowers women affected by cancer to pursue their healing journeys with confidence and hope by helping them access evidence-based healing modalities and healthy living products.

The commission process opens with a personal consultation.

Hannah asks about the imagery, symbolism, or emotions you want reflected, and she takes time to understand what you hope the piece will express. From there, she steps into the woodland with your story in mind.

Working on the bare earth, she uses only natural materials she gathers near her home. Petals, moss, leaves, bark, feathers, and berries slowly become a woodland being formed entirely by your story and the season around her.

No two pieces come out the same, because no two stories match, and no two days in the woodland offer the same palette.

You might want to honor someone dear to you, mark a milestone in your own healing, celebrate a person who means the world to you, or name a feeling that words can't quite reach.

Hannah's work comes from a place of deep care, and the final piece becomes yours to keep in a photograph, even after nature reclaims the original.

To request a commissioned piece from Hannah through CAT, follow the link in bio. 💛🌿