Reflections on Mortality
In this solo episode, Dave gets real about something we all face: mortality.
After receiving difficult news about two people in his life, Dave reflects on the weight of it all.
Why don’t men talk about health?
Why do we brush off warning signs until it’s too late?
And what does it mean when it all hits you in the same day?
This one’s personal.
It’s raw.
But the message cuts through loud and clear:
- We’re not invincible
- Time is shorter than we think
- It’s never too early to check in with yourself, or your mates
Topics include:
- Men and health - why we don’t go to the doctor
- Fear of diagnosis and job security
- Stories of sudden loss, illness, and the shock that follows
- The emotional aftermath of two gut punches in one day
- Why checking in with loved ones really matters
If you’ve ever lost someone unexpectedly, or worried about your own health, this one’s for you.
No guests.
No script.
Just Dave, talking it out.
Transcript
How do you handle it when you find out your friends are dying?
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:Let's talk about it today.
Speaker A:I've got a little bit different episode for you.
Speaker A:First of all, we're outside.
Speaker A:Second of all, it's just me.
Speaker A:So I've had some news from a couple of different people in my life that hasn't been the best news.
Speaker A:And it really has made me reflective and really made me think about a few things.
Speaker A:And I just wanted to talk through it.
Speaker A:So I thought maybe I would just do it myself and post this up and see how it goes.
Speaker A:But yesterday, from two different people.
Speaker A:So one person, I'm not gonna name names because I don't think that it's not important who they are to anyone listening, but if they listen, they'll know who it is.
Speaker A:But one was a man who's a friend of mine.
Speaker A:We don't know each other that well, but I do consider him a friend.
Speaker A:And he just casually dropped into conversation the other day that he'd sort of.
Speaker A:His heart had stopped and he'd been battling that.
Speaker A:And there were a couple of other people in the group chat, all men.
Speaker A:And we pretty much just ignored the comment and just thought he was, you know, taking the piss or something like that.
Speaker A:But we found out yesterday that actually, no, he's actually been having heart problems and just didn't bother to mention it to anyone.
Speaker A:Just kind of got on with it and, you know, approached it from the fact of, well, you know, there's not much I can do about it, so I just have to get on with it.
Speaker A:And it really got me thinking about fucking men.
Speaker A:Like, we never talk about anything like that, even, you know, with our friends.
Speaker A:And like I said, you know, I'm not one of his best friends.
Speaker A:I assume, you know, probably better friends or whatever knew about it.
Speaker A:And I guess he did mention it, to be fair.
Speaker A:But, you know, men, we don't like to talk about that stuff, and we certainly don't like to go to the doctor.
Speaker A:And this is a topic I want to dig into with some of my male friends on another show.
Speaker A:But it really just.
Speaker A:It really made me think, because, fuck, man, we could have lost him.
Speaker A:And that would have just been a total random thing where some guy that I knew or I'm getting to know more and more, just literally like that, lights out and he's gone.
Speaker A:And it makes you think about your own mortality, I think, when that happens.
Speaker A:And he's not the first person, obviously I'm in my mid-50s now, so I've had quite a few people leave my life for various reasons.
Speaker A:I had a friend die at 27, I think he was about 27, from congestive heart failure.
Speaker A:And, you know, he and I partied a lot.
Speaker A:We were very good friends in high school.
Speaker A:We partied a lot together.
Speaker A:We spent a lot of time together.
Speaker A:We did loads of naughty stuff that I'm sure stories will come out about that later.
Speaker A:But, yeah, that was my first real sort of experience with someone dying randomly.
Speaker A:I did have a friend when I was in seventh grade who died of brain cancer, which was also a really random kind of occurrence.
Speaker A:He was just playing a.
Speaker A:He was playing indoor soccer, got tackled against the wall, blacked out.
Speaker A:And so, you know, that was unusual.
Speaker A:You didn't normally get knocked out.
Speaker A:And he was out for quite a while.
Speaker A:So they ended up taking him to the hospital.
Speaker A:They did a brain scan, turned out he had brain cancer.
Speaker A:And, you know, he lives.
Speaker A:I think they gave him a few weeks to live when they first diagnosed it, but he lived for nearly 18 months before he passed away.
Speaker A:But that was kind of.
Speaker A:We kind of knew about that one, and it gave us some time to process it.
Speaker A:But my other friend just, literally just died.
Speaker A:I don't think anybody knew that was coming.
Speaker A:I had another friend in the past couple of years who also died of a massive heart attack.
Speaker A:Just, you know, was living with his family.
Speaker A:He had a very young family, like three kids under the age of about six or seven, had just moved overseas with his family and literally just was like, oh, yeah, I'm not feeling too well.
Speaker A:I'm going to go to bed.
Speaker A:Went to bed, had a heart attack, died in the middle of the night, which was also nuts because he was super fit and healthy.
Speaker A:He wasn't the guy that you would think would, you know, that kind of thing would happen to you.
Speaker A:But as it turned out later, he had some random heart disease that just meant that literally he could just have a widowmaker heart attack at any moment and just keel over.
Speaker A:And that's what happened.
Speaker A:So, yeah, it's made me think about that a lot.
Speaker A:And so the news yesterday was a little bit surprising.
Speaker A:But again, I want to go back to the thing that, you know, men, we just don't talk about this stuff.
Speaker A:You know, we don't tell anybody.
Speaker A:We don't like to go to the doctor.
Speaker A:There are some reasons for that.
Speaker A:I think societally we're pressured quite a lot to, you know, be the providers and we're the strong ones, and we don't like to, you know, we don't like to show that there's any, that we have any weakness and there are some practical sort of applications of that.
Speaker A:More so in countries like the US where you have insurance.
Speaker A:But for sure, if you work for a company in the US and you have really good insurance and you get diagnosed with some sort of a disease, you're basically locked into that job because if you change jobs that then becomes a pre existing condition that your insurance won't cover.
Speaker A:And I suspect that there are a lot, a lot of men out there who are, who know that they're ill, who know that something's going on, but they don't want to go to the doctor and they don't want to be officially diagnosed with anything because as soon as they are then that becomes a pre existing condition and it's not covered.
Speaker A:When you come to places like Europe where you have free health care like the Nordics or whatever or the uk, that's not so much of a concern.
Speaker A:But it still does mean that if you wanted to get extra private insurance that that has an impact.
Speaker A:And it also technically means that if you get a new job and they ask you if you have any health conditions, you need to declare that you have that.
Speaker A:Whereas if you've never been diagnosed, you don't even know.
Speaker A:You may suspect, but you don't know.
Speaker A:So you don't have to claim anything.
Speaker A:And they can't, jobs can't discriminate against you based on that.
Speaker A:I think if you.
Speaker A:Technically it's illegal to discriminate on that basis but we all know it happens.
Speaker A:Just like age discrimination is illegal, but we all know it happens.
Speaker A:So yeah, I think that's a big concern, particularly for men.
Speaker A:So he wasn't the only news I had.
Speaker A:Yesterday I heard from another friend that a friend of ours, again, kind of not my best friend but you know, someone who I like very much and she has, you know, started to become a friend over time, has also found out that she has, her, her cancer has come back and you know, she was on the road to recovery.
Speaker A:She had found out she had cancer, she'd gone through the treatment, everything seemed to be going well, it was all good.
Speaker A:And then, you know, all of a sudden it's now come on that cancer somewhere else and you know, they don't know if they're going to be able to treat it.
Speaker A:Nobody knows what the story is.
Speaker A:And I think two in one day was just a bit much for me.
Speaker A:I think, you know, if it had been spread out over a Few weeks or something.
Speaker A:It might not have hit me as hard, but it really, you know, having both of that happen in the same day, it really just made me kind of focus on myself.
Speaker A:I've been pretty open about the fact that, you know, the reason I started exercising a few years ago was that I had these weird, you know, sort of heart palpitations, and I felt like I was having a heart attack and went to the hospital, and I was quite a bit overweight, and I was out of shape, which is what got me into exercising and running and, you know, half marathon, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff.
Speaker A:And so I've had that scare myself as well.
Speaker A:And, you know, not so much recently, but again, you know, it just.
Speaker A:It really focuses your attention and it focuses your mind on where you are and the people in your life.
Speaker A:And, you know, you need to not kind of take any of that for granted.
Speaker A:I don't really know where I'm going with any of this.
Speaker A:I think I'm just journaling out loud, and I have no idea how long this has gone on for or anything, but, yeah, I just wanted to kind of reflect out loud.
Speaker A:I think time is short, man.
Speaker A:Time is short, and we need to not.
Speaker A:We need to not take it for granted.
Speaker A:I guess that's my message.
Speaker A:And I know people say this all the time, and, you know, now I'm saying it like every other person, but it really is short.
Speaker A:And I think we really do need to reach out to those people who mean something to you and tell them you love them and, you know, tell them it's okay if they need to talk about something to, you know, you're there to listen and.
Speaker A:And be there to listen for them just in case they need someone to talk to.
Speaker A:So I think that's it.
Speaker A:Just a short one today.
Speaker A:Again, just a few thoughts, but, yeah, take care of yourselves out there, and we'll see you.
