Having Cancer, and Finding a Personality

[groovedaddy]

They say cancer changes you. They may be right. When I found out I had breast cancer 12 years ago, I became a comedian.

Not the kind anyone paid to see. Just the kind who lurked around hospital corridors and examination rooms offering offbeat opinions, wiseacre remarks, outrageous commentary.

To my oncologist — a short, brisk woman who informed me my tumor had been “fairly aggressive” — I complained about the title of the pamphlet she had given me, “Chemotherapy and You.” I said I’d prefer it if the title were “Chemotherapy and Somebody Else.”

I complained, too, about the little marketing-friendly write-up that listed her family and her hobbies. The family was fine. But hobbies? I didn’t want a doctor who had time for hobbies. I wanted her to spend all her waking hours focusing on curing cancer, particularly the type indicated on my own nasty little pathology report.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/health/12case.html?th&emc=th

[emilyg]

1. During my treatments I made

everybody laugh. Then I would go home and cry.