The power of...humor
I seem to be resorting to cliched expressions more and more frequently so here's another for your reading amusement: "If you don't laugh, you'll cry." I've found that since I've been diagnosed, I've been treating this entire situation with humor more than anything else. Yes, I've cried. And spent entirely too many nights lying wide awake and wondering just what on earth was happening to me. But for the most part, It seems my funny bone is taking charge.
It doesn't help that humor is also how my dad and brothers are handling the situation. In fact, my younger brother, always searching for the quickest way to make a buck, decided that we should put up a jar at our local grocery store with a perfectly pathetic picture of me pasted to the front (oh, look at that alliteration) to collect money for me. (He has a very dark, twisted sense of humor.) Actually, the gravity of the situation didn't hit him until he was telling one of his friends. According to him, the whole scenario played out something like this:
Brother: (smirk on his face) So get this, my older sister has a brain tumor. Friend: (absolutely horrified) What?!?
Brother: (chuckling to himself) Yeah. Isn't that crazy? (another chuckle)
Friend: (eyes bulging out of his head) Oh my gosh!! A brain tumor? That's so awful! Is she going to live?
Brother: (dying laughter) Oh....yeah. I guess that is kind of not a good thing, huh?
Yeah. You can see where this exceedingly lighthearted approach comes from. It must be genetic. It has been just what I've needed these last few weeks, though. There's something about being able to make light of the situation that loosens it's strangling hold on you. Who knew humor was so empowering?
Sadly, acoustic neuroma jokes are few and far between as fellow AN patient Jon Kelly pointed out on his blog, www.20six.co.uk/headcase. But I did rather like this one that he posted, a variation on an old cancer joke: "How many brain tumor patients does it take to change a light bulb? Just one - but he needs a support group to cheer him on, and there's a lot of grieving afterwards." Well, it made me smile anyway.
It doesn't help that humor is also how my dad and brothers are handling the situation. In fact, my younger brother, always searching for the quickest way to make a buck, decided that we should put up a jar at our local grocery store with a perfectly pathetic picture of me pasted to the front (oh, look at that alliteration) to collect money for me. (He has a very dark, twisted sense of humor.) Actually, the gravity of the situation didn't hit him until he was telling one of his friends. According to him, the whole scenario played out something like this:
Brother: (smirk on his face) So get this, my older sister has a brain tumor. Friend: (absolutely horrified) What?!?
Brother: (chuckling to himself) Yeah. Isn't that crazy? (another chuckle)
Friend: (eyes bulging out of his head) Oh my gosh!! A brain tumor? That's so awful! Is she going to live?
Brother: (dying laughter) Oh....yeah. I guess that is kind of not a good thing, huh?
Yeah. You can see where this exceedingly lighthearted approach comes from. It must be genetic. It has been just what I've needed these last few weeks, though. There's something about being able to make light of the situation that loosens it's strangling hold on you. Who knew humor was so empowering?
Sadly, acoustic neuroma jokes are few and far between as fellow AN patient Jon Kelly pointed out on his blog, www.20six.co.uk/headcase. But I did rather like this one that he posted, a variation on an old cancer joke: "How many brain tumor patients does it take to change a light bulb? Just one - but he needs a support group to cheer him on, and there's a lot of grieving afterwards." Well, it made me smile anyway.
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