Good morning to everyone except testicular cancer.

A personal thread.

Earlier this year, I found a mass on my left testicle.

I’ll be going into @Providence_Hlth’s St Paul’s Hospital tomorrow for an oriechtomy.

Cancer is scary and awful. And it’s hard to imagine worse timing.

But I’m feeling a lot of gratitude and keeping focused on that. I’m grateful to be a British Columbian, a Canadian, and living on these unceded Indigenous territories.

I’m grateful that because of competent health care and government workers and community effort that the COVID crisis is relatively under control in BC.

Health care workers from receptionists to techs to specialists have been excellent, if overworked, and I’m very thankful for their extra efforts, especially during the pandemic.

@VCHhealthcare @adriandix

Every day, I shudder - sometimes literally - imagining what my newly diagnosed cancer experience would be like if I wasn’t here, with universal health care, a sane and reasonable community, and competent leaders and public workers.

It is horrifying, literally horrifying, to imagine being a US American and getting newly diagnosed with cancer right now.

I am disgusted by the DNC, in particular, for their platform rejection of universal health care last week.

It is an honest nightmare watching the US rn.

If I got sick in the US, this one procedure would be $6-8k at a time when our household income has plummeted due to COVID.

I’m just so grateful for our health care system and will fight anyone who comes for it. We have to protect it - and keep improving. #bcpoli

A final word for now: Get checked people.

If you have balls or breasts, do a regular self-exam. Early detection has likely made my life a lot easier than it could have been.

Take care of yourselves and take care of our health system.