For the last few years, I’ve smugly described myself as the luckiest person alive.
Great wife. Great kids. No boss. No stress.
A body honed by yoga and middle-aged self-congratulation.
I was the human version of a smug Instagram post: spiritually aligned, physically lean, emotionally invincible.
Then came Thursday 13th March — the day the cosmic joke landed.
Back in November, I cancelled my private health insurance like a complete genius. The price had doubled and I thought, Forget it, I’m a fitness machine. I do yoga five times a week. I’ve tamed the binge eating. I’m bulletproof. Hubris, meet karma. Karma, meet neck lump.
It showed up in January. My sister spotted it like an unwanted sequel to a movie no one asked for — “Lump 2: This Time It’s Malignant.”
I checked old videos like a neurotic YouTuber and, yep, there it was 18 months ago just hanging out on my throat like it belonged.
Fast forward a couple of tests: ultrasound, fine-needle biopsy, core biopsy — the medical equivalent of being mugged slowly by increasingly pointy strangers. Then the real horror movie started.
I get summoned to the surgeon’s office. Let’s call him Dr. Grim Outlook. He sits me down and tells me, in his best reassuringly clinical tone, that I have Anaplastic Thyroid Cancer — or as he put it, “the worst one.” Rare as a unicorn. Aggressive. Inoperable if we wait. Without surgery, I’ve got “weeks to months.” With surgery? Maybe a few more months — if they can cut it out.
He’d convened a medical tribunal of 30 people — a “Multi-Disciplinary Team” — basically a cancer X-Factor panel, all trying to decide if my throat was worth saving. He said he might be able to remove it, but wouldn’t know until he sliced me open.
Oh, and bonus twist — if they don’t operate soon, I’ll die by strangulation.
Yep, the tumour would slowly throttle me like some sort of internal serial killer. Cheery, right?
So here I am. From smug yogi to potential obituary headline in under three months. I’ve spent years exposing the flaws in medicine, insurance, government — and now I’m begging the very same machine to slit my neck open in the hope of surviving long enough to keep making fun of it.
Irony is not dead. But I might be.