Morbid Sense of Humor

kitandkat

erolyn said:

RAI jokes
I had/have Thyroid also. My friends and family and I had tons of radioactivity jokes after/during my RAI. My personal favorite were the baby ones. My endo told me not to get pregnant for 9 months after treatment, to avoid exposing a fetus to radioactivity. I'm 21 and NOT planning on having a baby anytime soon, so I thought this was kind of funny, and starting discussing with my friends what would happen if I DID get pregnant and gave birth to children with superpowers.

Also my brother put biohazard signs on my bedroom and bathroom doors...that was pretty great.

RAI
LOL, I had tons of jokes about RAI. For some reason, I always seemed to see one of my friends right after the treatment, even though we didn't go to the same school. She would always pretend to be mad at me because I wasn't "glowing". The last time I had it, we found a glow-in-the-dark rubber bracelet at work that said "radioactive"... I wore it for at least a year before I got worried it was going to fall apart.

Oh and one of the only things I ate on the diet was coconut milk curry - which I now HATE because I ate so much of it. My first year of college my brother sent me this sign that said "COCONUT MILK" and I put it up on my wall all year... it was hilarious. I also ate a lot of moonpies, so my mom likes to send them to me as a joke. I tried to eat one of them last year and it was totally gross. My roommate didn't seem to get the "required cancer diet" thing no matter how many times I explained this to her and thought it was just something special my mom and I ate together... yeah, no, lol.

But yeah, I definitely have a morbid sense of humor... I always have. It's probably my parents' fault. I had to have a lot of blood tests as a kid and my parents would get me to stop crying by saying Elmo (my favorite stuffed animal) liked blood because it was red like him. I love blood, lol.

I have some friends like the friend above who are very comfortable joking with it and actually will joke about it more than I do. Others take awhile to come around to my sense of humor. I don't believe in censoring myself, but it can get awkward if people don't realize the context of the situation. For example, this one time a girl on my floor was complaining about how someone was laughing about epilepsy and I said I would probably laugh if I had epilepsy... I wasn't laughing at the person who had epilepsy but that I would just try to find something positive/funny about the situation if it happened to me. I had a hard time trying to get that point across to her though and I'm pretty sure she thought I was at the least very insensitive. So yeah, sometimes it takes people awhile to get my jokes, and I try to make sure people understand that, for example, I actually HAD cancer when I am joking about cancer, because otherwise it can seem really insensitive. And I tend to joke more about cancer/illness with the people who like to joke themselves because that's what our relationship tends towards, whereas with friends who are more serious we do less joking in general, if that makes sense.

I had a benign brain tumor removed this summer and the first thing one of my friends asked me was why I didn't ask for a Harry Potter scar... lol.

mh1229

carlysmami said:

Tumor Humor
I tend to have a morbid, dry sense of humor so I usually curb it until I feel the person I´m with is truly ready. What does it have to do with this discussion. Not much. I have a cancer-kid. I seriously used to call her my little tumor because she was so attached to me. Then I found out she has a wilms tumor. When I have tried to tell this very ironic little story to folks most don´t know how to respond because they don´t get it. I do not think its funny that my child has a tumor, AT ALL but I can find a little humor somewhere to help me survive the situation.

I had a surgery that left my
I had a surgery that left my outer genitals mutilated... what can you do but make fun of yourself? My close friends and I joke about my porn star name and the glowing and making fun of peoples akward attempts to talk to me since my diagnosis. We call it my "coochie cancer" and joke about how I should have played the lottery (its a rare cancer) with my kind of odds. When I wanted tickets to the world series I pulled the cancer card.... mu husbands response? "I'm not Make-A-Wish Foundation" We cracked up laughing! BTW- I got my tickets;-)
The list goes on and on and we poke fun at cancer every chance we get. You have to smile, and when your life is over ran with appointments and the harsh reality of life threatening illness... make a bad joke and laugh your a$$ off.

Edward W

Humor helps
yes Ross humor does help. I had a complete Esophagealectomy. To make a new one they rolled and attached my stomach to just where two clavical bones are. such a new procedure that some of the nurses at a different hospital had never seen or heard of and it required a bag attached to the incision opening because it blew out once and almost drown me. Well one day my wife was looking very down. This was after it had all healed... I grabbed my throat there and said "Oh I got a stomach ache". She knew what I was doing and I got a laugh.
And in the lingo of hot rodders, it's my "straight pipe" (straight to my stomach from my mouth)

Edward W

erolyn said:

This morning I had my RAI
This morning I had my RAI (chemo-ish) treatment, which involved meeting yet another specialist for the first time (I think this is the fourth now?). They all, of course, explain to me up front the basics of my cancer each time. The first thing this one said was: "Now I'm sure you know that you have thyroid cancer, right?" and so of course I replied,

"OH MY GOD!! Are you SERIOUS??"

and he laughed and went, "Oh good, those are my favorite responses."

Thought maybe you'd all appreciate that.

Good one Erolyn ! I love it
Good one Erolyn ! I love it (wish I had thought of something like that for my Esophagealectomy)