"Cancer and Laughter"By Christine Clifford, CSP Cancer and laughter go hand-in-hand. I wouldn't recommend trying to deal with the disease without this vital resource! Three days after undergoing breast cancer surgery in December, ‘94, I heard the doorbell ring downstairs from my place of rest in my bedroom. “Mom!” screamed my second-grader Brooks, “More flowers for your breast!” I soon realized that cancer and laughter do go together. It was a turning point for me, his innocent In the months that followed my mother’s radical mastectomy, I, along with my brothers and sister, watched in horror as she sank into a deep, clinical depression. She stopped caring for her personal hygiene--stopped washing her hair, shaving her legs, brushing her teeth. Eventually my father, a physician, unable to deal with my mother’s depression, left my mother. She died in my arms at the age of 42. I was nineteen years old. I made a pivotal decision that day as I lay in bed, that no matter how many weeks, months, or years I had left on this planet, that I would celebrate every day as a gift. I decided no matter what happened to me, I would not allow my family members to live in the fear I had as a child, that every day might be my last. I realized that humor would be the compelling force to pull me through. I made a decision to begin pairing cancer and laughter. Once I started searching for signs of humor, I found it all around me. One day I was sitting on our deck reading the paper, my bald head gleaming in the morning sunrise. Brooks, along with several neighborhood children, had pitched a tent in the backyard and spent the night outside. In their innocence and ignorance, as the kids woke up one by one, they started their morning conversation. Of course, since I couldn’t see them in the tent, they assumed I couldn’t hear them either. “Brooks,” began Rishi, our neighbor from India, peering from the mesh windows of the tent, “What’s the matter with your mom again?” “She has cancer,” Brooks responded. “Is she going to die?” I heard him inquire. “No…I don’t think so,” said Brooks. “You know, Brooks, her head looks like a baseball. Do you think she’d let us autograph it?” Families can be a great source of comfort and humor in tough times. Unfortunately, what often happens when we hear a loved one has been diagnosed with cancer is that we don’t know what to say, or we don’t want to say the wrong thing. So, often times, we don’t say anything and pull away from the patient who so desperately needs our attention. Humor is a great connector of people. I know I needed people, especially family members, around me as I faced my journey with cancer. My family members were an incredible help during my struggle with cancer and laughter is how I taught them to quickly connect with me. Therefore, it is often the patients themselves who need to “set the tone” and let family members know the timing is right to bring laughter back into their life. We need to show our family that cancer and laughter are an essential pair. How can we accomplish this? It’s simple: there comes a point in the life of most patients when they realize that they can’t change their situation, but they can change their attitude. They want their life to get back to normal, and humor is an important ingredient in the recovery process.
Cancer and laughter really do go together. Take time, make the time every day to love, learn, explore, care and live with your family members. And, by the way, don’t forget to laugh! TM
Read Dr. Cliff Kuhn's article about alternative cancer care on this website.
Christine K. Clifford, CSP is CEO/President of The Cancer Club, a company that markets humorous and helpful products for people with cancer (www.cancerclub.com). She is the author of four books including Not Now…I’m Having a No Hair Day!, Our Family Has Cancer, Too! and her
newest book, Cancer Has Its Privileges: Stories of Hope & Laughter. (800)586-9062. Don’t forget to laugh! TM
|
