Jeremie Saunders: The Funny Side of Sickness

Our bodies are fragile.  They get injured, they get sick.  We like to think that we will have 80 or more years on Earth, but really, our lives could end at any moment.

And even if we reach those 80 years, the time will slip by at lighting speed, so it seems like only a few moments have passed.

Isn't that sort of funny?

Our bodies wear out over time.  Our faces wrinkle, our muscles sag, our penises no longer perform.

And the younger people insult us for it, call us "grandpa" and "geezer," shun us on social media sites, act as if getting older is our fault.

Isn't that sort of funny?

Jeremie Saunders has dedicated his life to finding the funny side to sickness and death.

He's a Canadian actor who starred in Artzooka (2010-12), a children's series about how to turn everyday objects into art.   He also had roles in the docudrama Storming Juno (2010), the horror movie V/H/S/2.   He teaches yoga on the side.

He has cystic fibrosis.  When he was a kid, his parents were told that he wouldn't see his 12th birthday.  He takes about 40 pills per day and spends 45 minutes, morning and evening, in an atomizer to keep his lungs working. But it's a losing battle.  Every day his lungs deteriorate a little more, and one day they will simply shut down.

One day soon.  Jeremie knows his expiration date.




People don't talk about serious illness.  It makes them uncomfortable.  Like the elderly, the chronically ill are treated as pariahs, as if they have committed some sort of crime.

So Jeremie and his friends, Taylor MacGillvray and Brian Stever, and his wife Bridie MacLean, teamed together to make a podcast making fun of our hangups about sickness and death. 

Over 100 episodes have been broadcast to date, covering everything from cancer to chronic depression.  A documentary, Sickboy, appeared in 2017.

By the way, Jeremie and Bridie have an open relationship.  She figures, he's not going to live long, so why not have sex with other people?

Other people?  Does that include men?