The Cancer Mavericks: A History of Survivorship

Before cancer was a hashtag. Before survivorship was a talking point. Before anyone rang a damn bell—there were Mavericks.

They didn’t look like heroes. They weren’t trying to go viral. They were patients, parents, doctors, punks, poets, and misfits who got sick, got angry, and got loud. They questioned authority, rewrote the rules, and turned personal trauma into public transformation. They didn’t wait to be invited into the room—they built new rooms.

The Cancer Mavericks is a documentary podcast series about the people who made survivorship matter—before it had a name. From the National Cancer Act to the birth of the AYA movement, from grassroots organizing to celebrity activism, from chemo brain to the cancer Moonshot—this is the untold history of how patients forced the system to care.

Created and hosted by 30-year brain cancer survivor and healthcare rebel Matthew Zachary, this isn’t a story about cancer. It’s a story about what people do after.

Bold. Human. Unapologetically real.