"Laughing Through it All"

Laughing is good medicine (and much cheaper than prescriptions), so if you aren’t being strapped into an MRI machine, it is beneficial to enjoy a hearty chuckle.  Many events that I did not find humor in at the time, later struck me as funny. Having cancer creates many types of potentially uncomfortable situations during and after treatments, so there are bound to be reasons to find humor.

Early on in treatment, I had one simple problem: I lost my hair. Actually, that phrase is a euphemism, since my hair wasn’t “lost” as if an all-points bulletin could be put out for it. It was an unfortunately common outcome from chemo. I first began hiding the fact I was bald with colorful headscarves. (Muslim women nodded in greeting wherever I ventured.) I missed having hair though, so I decided on some wigs, imagining my hair gently blowing in a summer breeze. That was before I remembered Las Vegas seldom gets a breeze; it just gets summer for three seasons.

I’d never worn a wig before, since I had shoulder-length hair for decades. However, buying three wigs and counting seemed like the logical thing to do. Well, that was before sweat began coalescing around my face and head, thanks to the oven that is Las Vegas summer. Oven is only partly metaphorically since newscasters on slow days delight in reporting on how one really can fry an egg on the sidewalk.

Even though I felt weak from chemo, I decided I’d follow the adage of the old tune and “Take me out to the ball game.” My grandsons were playing ball in temperatures over what my humble thermometer could register. The manufacturer must be located in Minnesota because it topped out at 110 Fahrenheit.

Nevertheless, this brave grandma went to the game. I tried everything to get cooler as I sat on the scorching metal bleachers which brightly reflected the blazing sun. I attempted to get some shade with an umbrella fit for a three-ring circus. I purchased a personal fan, which only served to blow piping hot air, hair-dryer style, to my face. Personally, I found I am not a fan of personal fans.

If you, too, have ever had a near-death experience by heat stroke, you will understand that the only thing in life that matters is not being cool, but rather getting cool. I yanked the beautiful silver wig off my head and with one motion pitched it among the discarded sunflower seeds and candy wrappers. Then, I looked up to see the wide eyes and slack-jawed expressions on my three young granddaughters’ faces. The youngest, at the tender age of three, clung to her mom and in terror loudly reported: “Grandma took her hair off!”

She covered her own hair with her little hands in fear it may fly off next. Abundant explanations followed trying to explain what a wig was and to reassure her that no, she did not have a wig. Though the calm tones of her mom garnered a measure of success, she still eyed me warily. I think she worried that Grandma might next remove an arm or leg and pitch it down the field.

Fortunately, although I was also tempted to rip off my mastectomy bra with its very stifling and heavy prosthesis, I refrained. (Prosthesis is a medical term for a space-heater in the form of a weighted sponge.) After all, we were at a kids’ ballgame, so we can’t have boobs, real or synthetic, flying freely around.

It wasn’t long after that outing that I abandoned the prosthesis in lieu of stuffing my bra with random household items which I thought wouldn’t generate heat. One evening as my husband and I were getting dressed and ready to go out for dinner, I was busily wadding tissue into my bra. I said I felt like a teenager again, stuffing my bra! He retorted, “Then I guess you’ve come full circle, kiddo!”

My other major problems centered on those surgery drains, hanging like grenades off my chest. Others seem more proficient navigating through their complexity, at least according to stories I’ve been told about going out with friends days after surgery. However, I was mortified wearing them. Even if I could hide them effectively with an over-sized blouse, I knew they were there—bloody, watery bombs ready to snag loose or do whatever else they might do—I wasn’t familiar with their, let’s say, “explosive capabilities.”

Being tethered by surgical tubing had a subtle way of making me not want to leave the house for the five weeks I had to wear them! That was plenty of time to become jealous reading how others had to endure a trifling week or two. I strongly suspect my body wanted to be in the Guinness Book of Records for the longest-draining surgical wound.

I endured my new landscape of wigs, mastectomy bras, drains, and wraps. I didn’t like any of it at the time, but now when I reflect back with a bit of distance, I can only laugh. So, take that, cancer!  You, cancer, are gone, but I’m still here and laughing!

Reflection:

1. What events are humorous to you now that were not at the time?

2. What situations could you laugh at if you looked at them from a different perspective?