It Only Hurts When I Don't Laugh

Karen R and I have exchanged a few e-mails about how humor gets you through the hard times. I must interact on a regular basis with a woman who constantly plays life as a drama instead of a comedy. She’s tiresome and frustrating! Besides, if I wanted to vie with her for the title of Drama Queen - drama for trauma- I would leave her behind eating my dust.

A good sense of humor lets you get outside yourself and view circumstances from a different perspective. It lets you take a situation that isn’t fun and make it funny. For example, I had radiation therapy for a gynological cancer. I’ve never felt so vulnerable in all my life – having strange doctors examine and prod my most private parts while I was in a most undignified position, being isolated and radiated. Fortunately, my oncologist’s nurse, Debbie, was a young earth angel. She did her best to make me feel comfortable physically and mentally. Before the radiation treatments began, she asked me how I reacted to being nervous to see if I felt I needed any sedation. I connected with the sparkle in her eyes so I knew she would appreciate my tale about my nervousness during my teenage dating years. Once my stomach churned so furiously while on a date with an extremely handsome young man that I threw up when he kissed me. Debbie and I laughed until we cried over that one.

In the pre-therapy instructional appointment, I asked Debbie to show me a probe like the one that would be inserted into my vagina for my therapy. She showed me a small Lexan cylinder about the size of a tampon. Whew…what a relief – having that inserted would be “no sweat.” When I actually got “fitted” for my probe, the doctors were very careful to make sure I didn’t see the probe. I had a feeling that it was quite a bit larger than I had been led to believe. After my first radiation session, I told Debbie that she’d better level with me because I felt like the probe was actually the size of the business end of a baseball bat. She said she usually refuses show anyone their actual probe until they were finished with all their radiation sessions, but she thought she could trust me not to freak out. It WAS really big. It was so big that it looked ridiculous and we laughed. Who in the world would get that ultra small size? It was just for demonstration purposes. I oughta sue for misrepresentation!

Then, there was the tight spandex panties with the split crotch and wide Velcro strap designed to keep the probe in place during the radiation session. Debbie said the panties were covered by my insurance and that I could keep them. Woo-hoo!! We referred to them as my Frederick’s of Hollywood panties. I showed them to my husband. He wasn’t excited.

See….radiation therapy is a hoot! My friend Danna has a monolog about going to the sleep lab for sleep apnea that will have you in stitches. Laughter not only boosts the feel-good brain chemical Serotonin and releases tension, but it liberates us. The ordinary is made extraordinary, the real becomes surreal.