I wasn’t sure I could watch 50/50, but I’m glad I did … just as I wasn’t sure I could watch The Big C, but I’m glad I get to see that, too.

I’ve merely had cancer lite (twice: prostate and thyroid). Not having had to go through the horrors most cancer patients endure — chemo and radiation and clocks with 30-minute hours — all I can really speak to is the realized fear of it. I’ve long dreaded cancer, then I met my dread. Even though I tell my own jokes about it (want a limp dick joke? or a throat-slitting gag? I gotta ton of them), I didn’t know that I’d find others’ humor in it.

But I did. Each in its own way, the movie and the show take the muffler off of cancer: the hushed tones, the embarrassed awkwardness, the unmentionableness of it. They don’t exploit their tumors for cheap laughs. They don’t find nobility in metastasis. They don’t jerk tears. They simply have the courage to treat cancer for what it is: just another fucking disease.

50/50 is just a bromance with not only bad girlfriends and crazy mothers but also tumors and rude doctors getting in the way of getting drunk and laid. The Big C is darker. Laura Linney’s family is a sitcom family bizarre enough for cable. If these were shitty shows, cancer wouldn’t rescue them. But they’re each good. Yes, all the characters end up learning more about the meaning of life. But they did that, too, on Leave it to Beaver. That’s the point. It’s just life. And death.

I’m either a two-time loser or a two-time winner, depending on how I fill my glass.

I have cancer again, this time in the thyroid (last time in the prostate). I had half of my thyroid taken out in 2002; it had no cancer. The second half was just excised (I’m running out of spare body parts). Just got the pathology report. Unfortunately, it did not include the most beautiful word in the English language: “benign.”

But it did include what may be the second-most comforting word: “contained.” My Sloan-Kettering surgeon said that because the tumor was small and contained, he’s not going to move to the next common step in treatment: radioactive iodine. He’ll watch it with sonograms and if something does grow back, I’ll be glowing in the dark. So now, every six months, we’ll track my two cancers, hoping for no reruns.

I debated whether to blog about this, just because at some point, you needn’t care about my ailments and I am wary of sounding like I live in the old folks’ home (you know the joke all your grandparents have told: time for the organ recital). I’m also quite aware — especially after seeing my fellow patients in the hospital — that I have cancer lite; beside my roommate, who had Steve Jobs’ reported first operation, the ominous Whipple procedure, I have a paper cut.

I believe in sharing if there’s something to be accomplished with it. So I come back to that word: “contained.” In both these cases, my cancer was contained because, thank goodness and modern medicine, it was caught early.

So that’s the moral to this story: Go see your damned doctor if you haven’t recently. My thyroid got swollen the first time around and that’s what led to surgery and then monitoring. My doctor testing my PSA caught my prostate cancer. I’m overdue with a colonoscopy — and sure as hell do not want a hat trick. But I will go as soon as I can. You should, too.

Before my thyroid surgery, I told you that there was a risk of damage to my voice. My foes will be sorry to know that I am still in full voice (and temper). The last time I had the operation — it’s rare that one can perform consumer comparisons — my throat hurt like hell for more than a week but this time not. There are two more splashes in the glass, over the half mark.

I’m blessed that the cancers were caught and contained. It’s creepy knowing that some leftover rogue cells could come back and wondering whether other brands of the disease are building elsewhere. Yesterday at a conference on privacy, someone used that word to describe online tracking and sharing: “creepy.” Ad targeting is not creepy. Cancer is. But I keep reminding myself where my glass is.

I’ll give you an update about my prostate another day.

I appreciate every time you, my friends, wish me well. But I’m not fishing for that so you needn’t. Instead, please go see your doc. It’s check-up time.