That Time I was on The Irreverent Health Podcast
I went on the Irreverent Health Podcast with Matt Hampton and Tom Ingegno to talk about what happens when you get dropped into cancer at 21 with no script, no roadmap, and no clue. I laid out the chaos of 1995: seizures, slurred speech, an MRI when nobody even knew what an MRI was, and the neurosurgeon who left Sloan Kettering and showed up at Staten Island at the exact moment I needed him. That’s the karmic lottery of survival. Not brilliance, not grit, but dumb timing.
We talked about what comes after. When a doctor gives you a 50 percent chance of surviving five years, you’re forced into existential math. Do you take the chemo that might give you decades but strip away the only thing you love—music—or do you roll the dice and keep your identity intact. My godfather sat across from me at 48 years old and said, “Better to die as a pianist than live to 100 deaf.” That conversation still defines my rage thirty years later.
I dragged out the receipts on how the cancer movement borrowed from ACT UP and the AIDS quilt. Not because cancer patients are activists by nature, but because nobody wants to die and everybody wants less misery. The difference is that AIDS patients forced the government to change while cancer patients got turned into mascots for pink ribbons and corporate jog-a-thons.
We also tore into how survivorship care finally evolved from “treat the tumor” to “how do I get to work, have sex, and feed my kids while surviving”. That shift wasn’t a gift. Patients bled for that. Now yoga, mental health, fertility, and nutrition are covered by insurance. That wasn’t inevitable. It was demanded.
The episode felt like sitting at a bar with two guys who get it. No sacred cows. No polite applause for a broken system. Just calling out the absurdity of surviving cancer in a country that monetizes your misery.
If this hits home, toss it a like, a *repost*, comment, or tag someone you may be ambivalent about. One click makes a bigger difference than you think.
LINK ➡️ https://irreverenthealth.com/matthew-zachary-crazy-cancer/