This episode delves into the profound and often tumultuous journey of grappling with uncertainty and health challenges. I share my experiences during a period of unexpected illness, characterized by a series of tests and consultations that led to the contemplation of serious health implications. Rather than offering a polished narrative or conclusive insights, I aim to articulate the raw reality of navigating such experiences, underscoring the importance of acknowledging discomfort and the tendency to defer self-care. Through this candid reflection, I explore the subtle shifts in perspective that accompany the confrontation of mortality and the fragility of normalcy. Ultimately, this episode serves as a contemplative space for both listeners and myself, as I navigate the ongoing complexities of my situation and the evolving nature of understanding what truly matters in life.

This isn't really a comeback episode, it's just where I'm at.

I took some time away from the podcast, and to be honest, I didn't really know if or when I was going to come back.

Things got a little bit uncertain over the last little while.

I've been going through some health stuff, and it's been one of those experiences where everything kind of slows down whether you want it to or not.

I haven't really sat down and tried to package it up or turn it into something neat.

We're still in the middle of it.

I don't fully understand it, and I don't really have anything tied up with a bow at the end.

It's not a lesson, not as advice, just what it's been like, because I think sometimes we jump too quickly to what things mean or what we're supposed to take from them.

And I'm not there with this.

It's just something I'm in.

So this episode is really just me working through what's happened so far.

From the first moment, something felt off through the tests, the uncertainty, hearing words you don't expect to hear, and everything that's come with that, this is just part of the experiment.

Now.

I remember there was a point where something just felt off and it became dramatic and it was painful.

Something that would definitely make you stop everything straight away.

And I think that's the part that sticks with me the most, how easy it is to brush something like that aside.

You tell your tell yourself it's nothing.

You've probably felt worse before.

You don't want to make a big deal out of anything, so you just carry on.

And I did that for a bit.

Just went about things like normal.

Didn't really sit with it too much, but it doesn't fully leave your mind either.

It kind of sits there in the background.

And then there's this moment.

It's not loud, it's not dramatic, but it's like something quietly clicks where you go, all right, I should probably get this checked out.

And even then, it's not panic, it's not fear.

It's more just uncertainty, like you're stepping into something you don't fully understand yet.

I didn't walk into the doctors thinking this could be cancer.

That wasn't even really in my head at the time.

It was more just, let's rule something out.

But looking back now, that decision just to go and get it looked at, that's probably the moment everything started to shift.

Because once you step into that system, appointments, tests, Waiting for results.

Things don't really move at your pace anymore.

You've kind of in it in that point.

You don't really know where it's going yet.

You just know you've crossed into something different.

From that point, everything starts to move, but not in a way that feels clear.

It's appointments, scans, conversations, and a lot of waiting.

More waiting than anything, really.

And that waiting does something to you because no one's really telling you anything definitive yet.

But at the same time you can tell that is not nothing.

There's a shift in how people speak to you.

It's subtle, but you notice it.

Things get a bit more careful, a bit more measured.

You start trying to read into between the lines, even when there's not much there.

I remember sitting there at one point just thinking, I don't actually know what's going on, but I know this isn't simple.

And that's a strange place to be at because you're not dealing with a problem yet, you're dealing with the possibility of one.

And your mind goes in different directions, but not in the way people might expect.

It's not constant panic, it's more moments.

You can completely be normal.

One minute talking, laughing, doing whatever, and then something drops in your head and you remember and then it's gone.

It's this kind of in between space where life is still happening, but there's something sitting underneath it.

When the word cancer finally comes into conversation, even if it's just a possibility, it doesn't land like a movie moment.

There's no big reaction, at least for me.

It wasn't like that.

It was more just quiet.

Like everything narrows for a second and you're trying to process something that doesn't really feel real yet.

And I think it was fair straight away.

If anything, it was more confusion trying to understand what it actually means, what happens next, what this is going to look like.

And you don't get all those moments and answers at once.

You get bits and then you go home and then you wait again.

And that's probably the hardest part, not knowing where you're actually standing.

Because you can't fully react to something that hasn't been confirmed.

But you also can't ignore it anymore.

So you're just kind of sitting in it.

I think one of the things that's been sitting with me through all of this is how close I came to just ignoring it.

And not in a reckless way, just in a really normal way, like, it'll be fine, I'll deal with it later.

I've probably had worse, and I don't think that's unique to me.

I think a lot of guys are wired like that.

You don't want to make a big deal out of something unless it forces you to.

You don't want to be the person who goes and gets checked for something small.

And then it feels like you've overreacted.

So you wait, you push it to the side, and you carry on.

And most of the time nothing happens, which almost reinforces, makes you think, see, it's always fine, until one time it's not.

And the strange part is, even when you do go and get checked, you still don't feel like you've done anything significant.

Just feels like another appointment.

But looking back now, that decision, as simple as it was, probably matters more than anything else.

Because with something like seminoma, from what I come to understand, it's one of those things where catching it earlier makes a huge difference.

And I didn't know that at the time.

I wasn't thinking in those terms.

I was just following a feeling that something wasn't quite right.

So this is me saying what anyone should or shouldn't do.

It's just noticing how easy it is to put things off and how much can sit on something as simple as a siding to get checked and looked at, especially as a guy, because I think we're pretty good at convincing ourselves we're fine.

There's something.

This whole experience has shifted for me, and I don't really have a clean way to explain it, but I'll try.

I think before all of this, I had a pretty clear idea of what I thought mattered.

What was right, what was wrong, what was worth your time, what wasn't.

And a lot of that felt solid, like completely fixed.

But when something like this comes into your life, something you didn't plan, can't control, and don't fully understand, it kind of exposes how much of that was constructed.

Not fake, but conditional.

Because all of a sudden things you thought were important just lose weight.

Arguments, ego, trying to prove something.

Even time, in a weird way, like the way you spend it, starts to feel a lot more obvious.

And not because you've had some big realization or you're trying to be better.

It's almost the opposite.

It's like the noise just drops out.

And what's left is pretty simple, but also uncomfortable, because you start to see how much energy gets spent on things that don't actually hold up when something real shows up.

And I don't mean that in a Motivational way.

I mean it more like quiet observation.

Like if this is the backdrop now, what actually deserves your attention?

And I don't think the answer is dramatic.

It's not live every day like it's your last or anything like that.

It's.

If anything, it's smaller, it's more honest.

It's who you are when there's nothing to gain.

How you speak to people when you're not trying to win anything.

What you give your attention to when you realize it's limited.

And I think a part of that hit me the hardest is how quickly all of that can change.

Not gradually, not over years.

Just like that.

One piece of information, one moment, one shift, and the way you see everything rearranges itself.

At the start, I'd be lying if I said my head wasn't a good place.

I had those thoughts, the ones you don't really want to admit out loud.

Why me?

After everything, after the years in Vic Pol, after showing up for people on their worst days, after putting yourself second for so many times, for my family and the people around me, it just didn't make sense.

It felt unfair in a way I couldn't really justify.

And I sat in that for a little bit.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that voice wasn't who I am.

It was just self pity.

Trying to make sense of something that doesn't make sense.

Because the truth is, those things I was questioning, that's exactly what made me who I am in the first place.

Showing up for people, putting others first, carrying that responsibility, that's not something I lost.

And it's not something I'd trade even now.

If anything, that's just made me see it clearer, that it was never a burden, it was a choice.

And it still is.

So it makes you question how stable your normal really was to begin with.

And I don't think I've landed anywhere with it.

I don't have a new set of rules or a better system.

If anything, I trust my old ones less.

I just feel a bit closer to what actually matters and a bit less interested in everything that pretends to.

Once everything moves into treatment, the experience changes again.

Because up until that point, a lot of it is uncertainty, tests, waiting, conversations.

But once you're actually in it, once treatment starts, it becomes very real very quickly.

And it'll always end the way you expect.

There's a physical side, obviously.

Energy drops, your body just feels different.

Some days are fine, some days aren't.

You don't really get much warning which one it's going to be.

But I think what caught me off guard more than anything wasn't the big stuff.

It was the small things, the things that seem almost insignificant until they happen.

Like my hair.

I don't think twice about it going into this.

Hair loss is one of those things you hear about.

You expect it on some level, but then when it actually starts to happen, it bits different.

I remember noticing it properly for the first time, just bits coming out more than usual.

That sounds minor, but it kind of stopped me for a second because it wasn't just about how it looked.

It was like a visible sign that something was actually happening to me.

Up until then, a lot of it still felt a bit removed.

Even with everything going on, you can still feel yourself.

But that moment, seeing it feeling made it harder to ignore.

It made it real in a different way.

And I didn't expect it to hit me as much as it did.

Not in a dramatic way, just quietly, like something had shifted again.

And I think that's been a pattern throughout this whole process.

It's not always the big moments that get you.

It's the small ones that catch you off guard, the ones you don't prepare for.

Outside of that.

A lot of treatment is just showing up, sitting there, letting it happen.

There's a lot of time where nothing is really happening on the surface, but everything is happening underneath.

You don't feel strong or resilient.

Most of the time, just feel normal, extremely tired, extremely flat.

Just trying to get through the day.

And I think that's something I didn't really understand before.

They're going through something like this.

Doesn't feel heroic, doesn't feel like you're overcoming something.

Every day mostly just feels like life has narrowed a bit and your job isn't just to stay inside it.

Where I'm at now is probably the hardest part to explain because nothing is really finished.

It's not like you go through something like this and then one day you just step out of it and everything makes sense again.

It's more like you're still in it, just further along.

Physically, some days are better than others.

Some days feel almost normal.

And then other days it's like everything just feels a bit heavier.

Energy's low, you feel super sick, your head's not quite there, you can't really predict it.

Mentally, it's similar.

I think from the outside, you could probably look at.

Look like you're handling things pretty well.

You're still talking, still showing up, still doing what you need to do.

But that's only part of it.

There are definitely moments where it catches up with me, and I didn't really expect that.

I've had times where I'll just be sitting there or doing something completely normal and it kind of hits all at once and I'll just break down again.

Not in a dramatic way, not for long, but enough to feel it, enough to realize there's more going on under the surface than I probably let on.

And it's not always tied to anything specific.

It's not like there's a clear thought or a trigger.

It's just the weight of it, I guess.

Everything at once, and then it passes, and you go back to your being okay again, or at least functional.

And I think that's been the strange balance of it all.

You can be okay and not okay at the same time.

You can be handling things and still struggling with it, and both those things can be true.

I don't feel like I figured anything out.

I don't feel stronger or more resilient or anything like that.

If anything, I just feel more aware of how quickly things can shift and how little control you actually have over a lot of it.

So where I'm at now is just taking it as it comes, trying not to get ahead of it, trying not to force meaning out of it, just dealing with what's in front of me and as it shows up and being okay with the fact that I don't really know how it will all play out yet.

I think naturally this changes the podcast a bit.

Not in a force way, but just in how I see it now.

Before all of this, I was probably a bit more focused on trying to find answers, trying to pull something useful out of every conversation, trying to make things make sense.

I don't really feel that same way anymore.

I'm less interested in wrapping things up neatly and more interested in just understanding people as they are.

Where they're at, where they've come from, what they've been through, how they actually think about things, not what they think they're supposed to say.

So going forward, the conversations will probably feel a bit different, a bit looser, a bit more honest.

Less about optimization, more about reality.

And I don't really know exactly what that looks like yet or how consistent it will be, especially with everything going on.

But I'm okay with that.

I'd rather be real than forced and just take it as it goes.

I don't really know how to approach this episode, or even if I should.

If anything else, that just feels like an honest place to start again.

And that's probably all.

This is just the starting point.

I'll keep sharing posts as this all unfolds and where it makes sense to, and I'll bring conversations back into it as well.

But for now, this is just where things are.

Still in it, still figuring out, still part of the experiment.

And that's enough.