Out of Patients EP427: Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow: Jason Gilley
Jason Gilley was 19. Stage 3 testicular cancer. Lymph nodes. Lungs. First question after diagnosis: "Will I lose my hair?"
College pitcher. Threw heat. Got cut from middle school basketball. Then cancer cut him down at his peak. Now he's in my studio telling truths most survivors won't say out loud. The masculinity crisis no one talks about. Impotent for two years at 21. Banking sperm while puking through chemo. Panic attacks that made his legs disappear in a coffee shop. EMDR therapy to pull trauma out of his fists. His cancer buddy died of osteosarcoma last January. The only person who got it. Gone. Jason treated himself in a pediatric ward at 6'4". Rainbow wallpaper. Beeping machines. Watching toddlers die while fighting to live. They gave him carboplatin in a clinical trial because he was on the age cusp. Terms of service: Accept or die. Weed worked better than Zofran. The doctors knew. Nobody said shit. Georgia still pretends it's illegal while kids puke through treatment. He's studying industrial organizational psychology now. Wants to optimize workplaces after cancer optimized his mortality awareness. Still throws. Still dreams big. Hair grew back wavy instead of curly.
Listen to this episode. Then leave a review. Five stars helps us reach more young adults who think they're alone in this.
We don't sugarcoat survivorship here. We tell the truth.
Producer
Matthew Zachary invented healthcare podcasting before podcasting was a thing. In 2007, fresh off building Stupid Cancer, he grabbed a mic, launched The Stupid Cancer Show and started broadcasting patient stories on internet talk radio when everyone else was still writing blogs.
17 years and 400+ episodes later, Out of Patients is still the most unfiltered healthcare show anywhere.
Matthew doesn't do softball interviews. Brain cancer at 21 taught him that time is finite and bullshit is expensive. He gets guests to say things they'd never tell Congress. CEOs admit what's broken. Patients name what actually hurts. Scientists explain what industry doesn't want you to know. The conversations other shows won't touch because of sponsor concerns or political correctness.
What makes him different: He's been on both sides of the mic. Featured in documentaries, testified before Congress, keynoted hundreds of conferences.
But he's also been the guy puking from radiation, fighting insurance denials, and watching friends die from paperwork.
That dual perspective creates interviews you won't hear anywhere else. He knows which questions make power squirm because he's asked them from hospital beds and boardrooms both.
No pre-approved questions. No PR handlers. No seven-minute segments. Just real conversations with people brave enough to tell the truth about healthcare. After 17 years, Matthew's still the guy Mark Cuban reposts when he wants to understand what patients actually think. Read More
Out of Patients EP426: Otherwise Healthy with Scott Capozza
