I was 19. I remember waking up one morning, looking in the mirror and seeing my face covered in tiny scars and wrinkles. It was textured, leathery. I looked ten years older, and this had happened overnight. 
 

There are many reactions you receive when you tell someone you’re a survivor of sexual assault but the most common are pity and doubt. When I tell the details of my story those who pitied me stop saying sorry and start telling me how lucky I am and those who doubted me believe that I must be lying. 

So I laid there in a mild panic and slowly began mellowing out.  I drifted in between a dream-like state and being fully conscious, my body felt amazing, and it was there where I had a revelation...

The new stat is that in our lifetime 1 in 2 men will develop cancer and of those men 50% will die. For women it's 1 in 3 will develop and 1 in 5 will die. I don't share these statistics to be morbid, but to show you that you're not alone if you're going through this struggle.

Overcoming those early obstacles taught him many lessons which he has applied to his life ever since. He has been on a journey that has led him to something much bigger.

Hi! I’m Kate and I have chronic migraines. I always feel like such a drama queen when I describe my migraines, which is why I don’t usually tell people what they’re like. It’s hard to explain feeling like you’re dying, but also knowing you’ll be okay and just have to endure it. I also don’t want anyone to feel bad for me, or pity me.

When I first started listening to Sickboy I never considered myself a candidate for a contributor. After all I wasn't sick, I've just got some fun facial scaring. But it quickly became apparent that sickboy wasn't for the morbid curiosity of hearing about sickness. It is a series of conversations about difference in the human experience. I'm glad I got to share mine.

I was watching 60 Minutes on the crack epidemic in America, and I thought, look at all these people who smoke crack! It must be really good. The show basically demonstrated how to make it, so I made it and thought, wow, it is really good.

You notice the figure, which was standing quietly in the corner, slowly start making its way towards you. You are helpless. As it gets closer, you can see it is faceless, and you have a sick feeling that it’s going to kill you. Your mind is racing, circling a feeling of pure fear.

I was born in Montreal and immediately put up for adoption when my biological parents saw that I was born without hands and part of my legs, but I have never let any of this stop me.

Without my ostomy, I wouldn’t have been able to do all of those things. Without my ostomy, I’d be dead. Sure, my life now involves pooping in a bag attached to my stomach, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Since the inception of Sickboy, I’ve become much more acquainted with the power of vulnerability. Being open about your struggles not only brings you personal relief, but it also allows you to connect with those you speak to on a much deeper level. When you’re able to...

When you have as many allergies as I do, you start to think of life as an iceberg- there’s the parts of life that people see, but there’s also a huge amount of health management that goes on under the surface. For example ,throughout my childhood, I was responsible for sorting and counting my pills every Sunday nigh

When you hear the words “rheumatoid arthritis” your mind usually wanders to a couple obvious thoughts. What comes to mind is usually an image of aged crippled hands, an old man’s voice complaining about the weather, and 80-something year olds daydreaming of the warm, dry Arizona climate.

The first time I sought to explain Borderline Personality Disorder to someone I shuffled through a few internal questions – How was I going to explain this to someone outside my head? Would it make me feel sad or proud? Where would I even begin? Did I even understand what was going on in my brain? 

The pain was immense(!!) and the visual, when I finally decided to take photos, was disgusting. I watched at a white blob of pus grew, grew and grew consuming my eye. I was scared.

I feel pretty embarrassed and ashamed about many of the things I said on the podcast, but I recognize that talking about it is what will reduce the stigma surrounding the disease. 

While we were supposed to be setting up for Camp we found ourselves geeking out over our latest favourite discoveries in the world of music which suddenly led us into the story of his Cancer journey, a wild ride of love, heartbreak, beauty, terror and wonder. I feel so grateful to have met this human and have had the opportunity to escape the busy and hectic life of social media and technology, hunker down in a hut on the beaches of Maui and have an hour and a half of real talk. 

That may mean two people from a car crash, lying on the floor, 1 with a stroke, 2 pregnant women in labour, three mothers with fevered children, two of whom are unconscious. The driver, with no medical knowledge, and a nurse, with limited skills, sit in the front while the patients fend for themselves in the back. There are no paramedics, no ‘pre-hospital’ or out-of-hospital care. But, if they survive long enough to get to the Emergency Department, they have a chance now whereas three and a half years ago they did not.