Midlife Reinvention, Candy, and Connection in Your 60s

Elaine Ebner spent 35 years in technology and technology media, leading sales organizations and building the kind of strategic relationships that careers are made of. She knows how to build things. What makes her story worth listening to is what she chose to build once the corporate chapter closed, and the quiet method she used to do it.

After leaving tech, she launched Orinda Living, a community magazine celebrating local families and neighborhood life. Then, in 2019, her adult son was diagnosed with cancer. What she witnessed during his treatment, specifically the way taste changes made eating nearly impossible, became the seed of something she could not walk away from. She founded CancerSux, a company that makes handcrafted hard candy designed to address the taste disruption that comes with treatment. She also co-founded PWRG Lamorinda, a professional women's referral group. Connecting and empowering women is not a side project for her. It runs through everything.

The side effect almost no one talks about

When I asked Elaine to start with the science, she went straight to the part of cancer treatment that patients are rarely warned about. Chemo, radiation, and immunotherapy kill rapidly growing cells, including the cells in the mouth, and that affects taste at the source.

"It's very rarely discussed," she said. "In fact, most of the time doctors won't even mention it when a patient is going through treatment."

As a nurse, this landed hard for me. In the hospital, we always built a nursing care plan in response to a medical diagnosis, and it looked very different from the diagnosis itself, because it was about responding to everything in a person's life that the illness touches. Taste changes are exactly that kind of hidden harm. They affect nutrition. They affect mood, because it is genuinely depressing when you cannot taste your food. Elaine put it plainly: doctors tend to focus on the straight-ahead question of how to get rid of the disease, and the care factor, the everyday human suffering, can get lost in the shuffle.

How you actually start something at 60

Here is the part I want women in this chapter to hear. Elaine did not start CancerSux with a grand plan.

"When I started CancerSux, I had no idea what I was doing," she said. "Every step I took was just another step forward, and every time I took a step forward, I told people I was taking that step forward, which in my mind said, I guess you're doing this."

She learned quickly that hard candy is chemistry, not baking, and that chemistry is not her strong suit. So she found someone to develop the flavors. That answered one question and opened the next: how do you find a manufacturer? She started thinking about this in 2020 and did not launch until 2025. Not because she was slow, but because she let action create momentum instead of waiting for certainty.

The name carries the same spirit. It came from a text. When her son was struggling with taste changes, Elaine texted him "cancer sucks," and he agreed. Then the double meaning surfaced. Sucks, as in something you suck on. "Well gosh, they should make candy called CancerSucks," she thought. And then the reframe that changed everything: "Why does it have to be they? Why can't it be me?"

Her daughter suggested spelling it S-U-X, and Elaine dismissed it at first as silly. On reflection she saw her daughter was right. The playful spelling adds a small note of defiance and a little bit of joy to something you buy for someone you love who is going through the hardest season of their life.

Reinvention is really just curiosity

Elaine has reinvented herself more than once, and I wanted to know whether that takes vision. She pushed back on the word.

"I think it's curiosity leading to an actual something," she said. "Following your curiosity, asking the questions, and thinking, I could do that."

That is a gentler and more usable idea than vision, which can feel like something you either have or you don't. Curiosity is available to everyone. It is what took her from corporate tech startups into technology media in the earliest days of the industry, when there was no roadmap, and it is what took her from a community magazine into candy chemistry decades later.

Connection you have to build on purpose

The second half of our conversation moved to friendship, and here Elaine named something many women feel in this stage and rarely say out loud. When we were younger, connection was built in. We saw the same people at work, at school drop-off, on the sidelines. Now that proximity is gone, and friendship has to become deliberate.

Her practice is simple and worth stealing. "You don't leave until you have another date on your calendar," she said. That first coffee or walk does not end until the next one is scheduled. She also builds connection around what she enjoys, inviting people to a workshop or a walk at the reservoir, so that the shared activity does the work of deepening the relationship.

When your adult child is in crisis

Because Elaine's son was a young adult when he was diagnosed, I asked what she would say to another mother facing the same thing. Her answer was the emotional center of the episode.

Follow their lead. Show up as a parent and simply be there. She never arrived with a plan or a prepared dinner. She arrived with a question: "What do you feel like eating?" Then she cooked alongside him, watched something together, and let the silence be what it needed to be.

"Sometimes listening is listening to the silence," she said. "And that can have a lot of meaning."

What she described is stability and vulnerability held at the same time. Being present without demanding a specific outcome. It is a hard, generous form of love, and it applies far beyond a cancer diagnosis.

For more on building friendship on purpose in this season, browse the connection and midlife-friendship conversations on the blog.

What does Sexy mean to you right now?

I close every conversation with the same question, and Elaine's answer was pure Elaine.

"Leading with kindness is so important, because if you lead with kindness, it naturally leads to those listening skills, listening in silence, listening deeply. It leads to a more joyful life and a more grateful life. When you see an older woman smile, that kindness is just so important. I just feel like that's so sexy."

She is right. And it is exactly what kept drawing the two of us together every time we ended up in the same room.

Listen to the Full Episode

Episode 34: Reinvention, Candy, and Connection in Your 60s with Elaine Ebner

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Connect with Elaine Ebner

CancerSux
Instagram @cancersuxrelief
Facebook @cancersuxrelief
TikTok @cancersuxrelief

About Dvora Citron

Dvora Citron is a Registered Nurse, National Board Certified Health & Wellness Coach, Lifestyle Medicine Practitioner, and the founder of slant2plants®. She hosts Sexy in Your 60s to bring women the real ingredients of vibrant aging through science, story, support, and soul. Her work helps women 50 and older create the health, confidence, and longevity they want in ways that feel realistic and sustainable.

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