Sickboy

What happens when the drug that saves your life is still out of reach for thousands of people just like you?Will Cathcart is a journalist, writer, war correspondent, and producer who worked on Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown. He also lives with cystic fibrosis. Growing up believing his life would be cut short gave Will what he calls “Carpe Diem syndrome” - a drive that pulled him toward coups, conflict zones, and risks most people would run from. When his lungs began to fail, a groundbreaking CF modulator changed his future almost overnight. It also left him carrying survivor’s guilt for the friends who never got the same chance.Now, Will is turning that second chance into action. He tells the fellas why he travelled to Bangladesh to publicly take a generic version of a CF drug priced at roughly $360,000 a year, how pharmaceutical patents can determine who gets to live, and why a medical miracle means very little when geography and money keep it out of reach.The conversation also gets into parenthood, mortality, the strange burden of receiving a future you never planned for, and Will’s darkly funny novel, This Is How People Die.Have a story you want to share? Apply to be a guest at https://www.sickboypodcast.com.Follow Sickboy:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SickboyPodInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/sickboypodcastTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sickboypodcastDiscord: https://discord.gg/expeUDN

After her first child was born, Andrea Patterson thought she was a bad mom. She was barely sleeping, overwhelmed by anxiety, and afraid to say some of her thoughts out loud. Connecting with other parents through peer support helped her understand what she was going through. Today, she supports families as a perinatal peer support counsellor with Pacific Post Partum Support Society.Andrea joins Jeremie, Brian, and Taylor to talk about intrusive thoughts, the fear of asking for help, the toll of sleep deprivation, and what partners and loved ones can actually do. They also discuss the public reaction to the Lindsay Clancy case without speculating about anyone involved.Content note: Content note: This episode discusses suicidal thoughts, intrusive thoughts, and the deaths of children. When Andrea shares her thoughts on when to get help, it is in relation to postpartum anxiety, depression, and difficult postpartum transitions. Postpartum psychosis is a very different thing and is a medical emergency and requires immediate intervention. If you or someone else is in crisis, seek help now. If there is immediate danger, call local emergency services. In Canada or the U.S., call or text 988 for 24/7 crisis support (Canada, U.S.). For non-emergency postpartum peer support, contact Pacific Post Partum Support Society.https://postpartum.org/contact/Follow Sickboy: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SickboyPodInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/sickboypodcastTiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sickboypodcastDiscord: https://discord.gg/expeUDN

Brian recently joined our friends at Artifacts of Grief to talk about the loss of Alex MacKenzie, his partner’s father, and the complicated experience of grieving someone while also trying to support the people you love through that same loss.In the conversation, Brian talks about learning to make room for his own grief instead of trying to fix it, explain it, or make it go away. It’s about sitting with the uncomfortable stuff, allowing grief to be what it is, and the unexpected artifact that has helped him do exactly that.This episode originally appeared on Artifacts of Grief, a podcast about the objects, rituals, and stories we hold onto after someone dies. We loved the conversation and wanted to share it here with the you guys.Tune into more episodes of Artifacts of Grief wherever you listen to podcasts.

Welcome to Second Opinion — a new Sickboy series where Jeremie digs up wild medical stories, healthcare encounters and morally questionable health dilemmas, then Brian and Taylor give their completely unqualified opinions. This week: competitive suffering gets taken to an absurd new level, an OR team discovers a patient's eyeball has unexpectedly left the building, and a near-death confession puts an estranged wife and current girlfriend in an impossible position.Sickboy has a NEW YouTube channel! You can catch this episode of Second Opinion and all future episodes of the series at: https://www.youtube.com/@SickboyPodFollow Sickboy: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sickboypodcastTiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sickboypodcastDiscord: https://discord.gg/expeUDN

Most people kick off their shoes to relax. For Laura, taking off her shoes drops her spine four centimeters and instantly throws her body out of alignment. This week, the fellas sit down with Laura to unpack Limb Length Discrepancy (LLD). At four years old, Laura was hit by a car, thrown 46 feet, and given a 1% chance of waking up from a medically induced coma. She beat the odds, but her broken femur overgrew during recovery, setting off a domino effect of unaligned hips, shifting ribs, and vertical eye-muscles. Laura gets raw and hilarious about using stacks of books to measure her own legs, getting custom shoe lifts cemented by German cobblers, turning her car accident PTSD into viral TikToks, and navigating the creepy foot-fetish guys cluttering her DMs. It’s an eye-opening conversation about body trauma, medical gaslighting, and finding balance when your foundation is literally uneven.Follow Sickboy: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SickboyPodInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/sickboypodcastTiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sickboypodcastDiscord: https://discord.gg/expeUDN