Black humour
There's a program about the benefits of black humour on the radio as I sat down to write . My mind was suddenly abuzz with incidents of black humour from my life. They had people calling in, but I restrained myself, or I would have taken over the whole program and still not told all.
One of my favourites has to do with my mother. About a year after we got to London, we were sharing the upstairs of an East London row house with her cousin Anna, who was the same age as my brother. (I guess that would make her 30+ years younger than Mum -she was about 24.) One Saturday, Anna built a huge bonfire in the back yard. The smell was getting really pungent by the time Mum noticed it. She cupped her hands around her mouth as she leant out of the window and screamed down: "What are you doing, Anna?" "I am burning my poverty!" - Anna screamed back, to which Mom let out a big repost: "Burn mine too!"
And sure enough, Anna's fortunes improved and she had a very nice career for a long time. Mom was still treading water many years later, when they recalled the incident and Mum looked at Anna with an accusatory look: "You sure burned your poverty, but you forgot to burn mine."
And the two of them collapsed into heaps of laughter.
I love that story. I was there both times, it's true.
Anyway, I could tell you some black jokes about my current predicament........... Yesterday I went for treatment early, because I wanted to catch the doctor. For the first time I had a terrible sleepless night the night before and my feet were as painful as during the chemotherapy. I actually took a painkiller! Another complaint was the peeling skin on my right foot and left forefinger.
"That," said the doctor with a twinkle in her eye, "is Martin's fault," meaning the Professor who pumped me full of the chemo poison. Well, today I am feeling fatigued and nauseated from the radiation, so I guess they are equally guilty! (laughter please!)
Actually, this fatigue is very strange. It comes and goes, so you can do things quite normally for a while, but then suddenly you are out of puff and just have to lie down. And when things are fine, there is interest in the outside world, but it shuts down as soon as the fatigue sets in. I don't have patience to read, watch TV or anything, except mindlessly doing a really complex solitaire on my Palm that I am addicted to.
One good news is that I no longer feel I need the counselor. Maybe that will change, but at the moment I am fixated on the fact that I have only three more weeks to go before this phase ends, and I'll be out of the tunnel.
At this point that is quite enough to lift the spirit. I can't look very much further. Oh dear, I just remembered, I have to do my US tax returns. Well, that's no big deal. I hardly made any money last year. The cancer took care of that! (is that black humour? )
One of my favourites has to do with my mother. About a year after we got to London, we were sharing the upstairs of an East London row house with her cousin Anna, who was the same age as my brother. (I guess that would make her 30+ years younger than Mum -she was about 24.) One Saturday, Anna built a huge bonfire in the back yard. The smell was getting really pungent by the time Mum noticed it. She cupped her hands around her mouth as she leant out of the window and screamed down: "What are you doing, Anna?" "I am burning my poverty!" - Anna screamed back, to which Mom let out a big repost: "Burn mine too!"
And sure enough, Anna's fortunes improved and she had a very nice career for a long time. Mom was still treading water many years later, when they recalled the incident and Mum looked at Anna with an accusatory look: "You sure burned your poverty, but you forgot to burn mine."
And the two of them collapsed into heaps of laughter.
I love that story. I was there both times, it's true.
Anyway, I could tell you some black jokes about my current predicament........... Yesterday I went for treatment early, because I wanted to catch the doctor. For the first time I had a terrible sleepless night the night before and my feet were as painful as during the chemotherapy. I actually took a painkiller! Another complaint was the peeling skin on my right foot and left forefinger.
"That," said the doctor with a twinkle in her eye, "is Martin's fault," meaning the Professor who pumped me full of the chemo poison. Well, today I am feeling fatigued and nauseated from the radiation, so I guess they are equally guilty! (laughter please!)
Actually, this fatigue is very strange. It comes and goes, so you can do things quite normally for a while, but then suddenly you are out of puff and just have to lie down. And when things are fine, there is interest in the outside world, but it shuts down as soon as the fatigue sets in. I don't have patience to read, watch TV or anything, except mindlessly doing a really complex solitaire on my Palm that I am addicted to.
One good news is that I no longer feel I need the counselor. Maybe that will change, but at the moment I am fixated on the fact that I have only three more weeks to go before this phase ends, and I'll be out of the tunnel.
At this point that is quite enough to lift the spirit. I can't look very much further. Oh dear, I just remembered, I have to do my US tax returns. Well, that's no big deal. I hardly made any money last year. The cancer took care of that! (is that black humour? )
Labels: breast cancer
posted by Unknown at 2:58 AM
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