Second Opinion: A Vasectomy, an Escaped Eyeball & a Hospital Love Triangle

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

What happens when a routine childhood cold turns your sweet eight-year-old into a full-blown horror movie scene overnight? Sickboy royalty Jessica Slice returns to the show for an intimate, terrifying, and wildly eye-opening conversation about the nightmare her family lived through when her daughter suddenly stopped walking, lost her speech, and entered a state of extreme, violent psychosis.When ER doctors brushed off her daughter's sudden motor tics with a casual "kids are weird" and offered to throw an eight-year-old into an adult psych ward alongside an adult roommate, Jessica refused to take broken systems for an answer. Enter PANS (Pediatric Acute-onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome) - a controversial, deeply misunderstood condition where a basic infection triggers an immune response that crosses the blood-brain barrier and sets off neuroinflammation in the brain.From mysterious motor spasms to stealth trips across the border for IVIG treatment, Jessica gives us a raw, unfiltered look at relentless maternal advocacy, medical gaslighting, and the fight to save her daughter's mind.For physician-vetted resources on PANS/PANDAS or to follow Jessica's writing and advocacy work, check out the links below:https://www.pandasppn.org/https://jessicaslice.comFollow Sickboy: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SickboyPodInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/sickboypodcastTiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sickboypodcastDiscord: https://discord.gg/expeUDN

Jeremie was just looking into the history of performance-enhancing drugs when he accidentally stumbled into the absolute dumpster fire that was the 1904 St. Louis Olympic Marathon. What follows is arguably the most chaotic, medically irresponsible, and unhinged sporting event ever recorded. Between a racist organizer conducting forced dehydration experiments, clouds of dust causing internal hemorrhaging, a Cuban mailman who took a mid-race nap after eating rotten apples, and a guy who "won" gold after taking a cocktail of rat poison, raw egg whites, and French brandy - only 14 out of 32 runners made it to the finish line alive. Grab a drink (preferably water, not strychnine) and join Jeremie, Brian, and Taylor as they break down how human survival accidentally became an Olympic sport. Follow Sickboy: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sickboypodcastTiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sickboypodcastDiscord: https://discord.gg/expeUDN

Surviving eight shots of Narcan at twelve years old is one hell of an introduction to chronic illness, and for Haylee, that was just the tip of the iceberg. Meet Haylee, a master’s student living with an absolute alphabet soup of diagnoses, including Cerebral Palsy, Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), ARFID, AuDHD, OCD, and a recent addition of Bipolar disorder. In this raw and intimate conversation, Haylee breaks down what life is actually like when your body and brain are constantly clashing. From surviving a 26-hour leg surgery and an accidental morphine overdose at just twelve years old, to navigating the cold, isolating reality of transitioning out of pediatric care, Haylee doesn't hold back. She opens up about the trauma of medical PTSD, navigating safe-food obsessions, and using music and song-writing to quiet her brain during manic episodes. It’s an honest, eye-opening look at disability, identity, and proving everyone, including her doctors, wrong.Follow Sickboy: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sickboypodcastTiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sickboypodcastDiscord: https://discord.gg/expeUDN

Meet Judy. She’s a real estate agent who inadvertently became an extreme sports athlete in the deadly game of "Halifax Crosswalks". After getting smoked by a car going 80 km/h, Judy somehow survived the impact. But the real nightmare was just beginning. Enter Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), colloquially and terrifyingly known as the "suicide disease". Judy takes the boys through the sheer agony of a nervous system gone rogue, where even a slight touch felt like torture and sleep became a distant memory. Refusing to go down the opioid pipeline after watching her parents suffer from severe medication side effects, Judy and her husband embarked on a desperate, sleepless, 8-day drive to Florida to escape the cold. But this isn't just a chronic illness survival story. It’s a full-blown Hollywood thriller. We’re talking a blown-up rental car, a near-death experience in a Florida ER, and a spontaneous, miraculous recovery where her disease simply vanished into thin air. And if that wasn't wild enough? A prescribed medication sent her into a psychotic break that landed Judy in a Florida mental institution for six days, firmly convinced she had been downloaded with special powers from God to heal the other patients. Buckle up for one of the wildest rides in Sickboy history.Check out Judys book here: https://books.friesenpress.com/store/title/119734000557751458/Judy-Isiah-Foran-My-Drive-Through-HellFollow Sickboy: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sickboypodcastTiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sickboypodcastDiscord: https://discord.gg/expeUDN

What happens when your body suddenly decides to stop making the exact hormone that keeps you alive? Meet Sarah, a badass who trains in Muay Thai, manages ADHD and C-PTSD, and spent months wondering why climbing a single flight of stairs felt like summiting Everest. Before a life-threatening crash landed her in the hospital with a cortisol level of "less than one," Sarah was taking straight shots of soy sauce out of the fridge, dumping salt into her morning water, and getting told by urgent care doctors that her slurred words and sudden vomiting were probably just a "depressive episode." Sarah sits down with the fellas to break down the reality of living with Addison’s Disease and how an autoimmune diagnosis forced her into her "Year of Ease"—learning to drop the hustle culture, stop feeling guilty about relaxing on the couch, and give herself permission to slow down. It’s raw, messy, deeply relatable, and a vital reminder to advocate fiercely for your own health. Follow Sickboy: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sickboypodcastTiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sickboypodcastDiscord: https://discord.gg/expeUDN

How do you convince the CRA that bulk silicone nipples are a legitimate business expense? This week, the fellas sit down with Miranda, affectionately known as "the boob lady”, an artist and advocate crafting hyper-realistic silicone prosthetic nipples and body casts for cancer survivors, trans folks, and anyone navigating post-surgery body trauma. Miranda opens up about her wild path to this work: from compressing her chest as an early-blooming dancer in Northern Ontario, to finding a lump at 16 and being brushed off by a doctor who told her to "only worry if it starts bleeding." Flash forward to a solo exchange trip in Denmark when her nipple actually did start bleeding, leading to emergency surgery far from home, severed milk ducts, and years of unprocessed medical trauma. From custom pierced silicone nips to calling out Canadian healthcare bureaucracy for labeling nipples as merely "cosmetic," Miranda shares how she’s using empathy, art, and humor to help people love—or at least hate a little bit less—the meat suits they're living in.Be sure to check out Miranda’s beautiful work! IG: @withmimi.caWebsite: www.withmimi.ca Follow Sickboy: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sickboypodcastTiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sickboypodcastDiscord: https://discord.gg/expeUDN

What happens when a deep-seated thirst for childhood revenge turns into a career in genetic engineering? You get an absolute badass who is plotting the ultimate downfall of the world's deadliest killer. Krystal is a Ugandan entomologist (aka a massive bug nerd) who has dedicated her life to taking down the mosquito. Growing up in Uganda, surviving malaria was basically a terrifying game of Russian roulette. Krystal shares the raw, heart-wrenching origin story that fueled her career: watching her little brother suffer through brutal, fever-induced seizures all night while her family simply couldn't afford the medication to treat him. Krystal completely schools Jeremie and Brian on what malaria actually does to the human body - and it is no joke. We're talking brain damage from cerebral malaria, "black water fever" (where your urine turns black from liver damage), and even gangrene that leads to amputations. We also dig into the wild fact that out of the 3,500 species of mosquitoes on Earth, only about four are the real assholes responsible for the vast majority of malaria transmission in Africa. This episode is a massive reality check about the devastating barriers to healthcare in the developing world, the literal life-saving impact of the Global Fund, and the badass science that might just eradicate this disease for good. Grab your bug spray and tune in.Follow Sickboy: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sickboypodcastTiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sickboypodcastDiscord: https://discord.gg/expeUDN