Cancer is...funny?

The word "cancer" has touched my life early and often. Too often. It took my mother, my grandmother, and my great aunt. All different kinds, but cancer nonetheless. Do I worry about getting it myself? Of course. But I have decided not to go through my life waiting for the other shoe to drop. I try to really live. I love my family with reckless abandon, I try not to waste much of my time, and I make it a point to do the things that I want to do, for myself and with my girls. I try to enjoy my kids, each and every day, and if I want a deadgum cupcake, I have one. Or two. Maybe that's why my butt is so much wider than it used to be. My sweet husband reminds me that men love curves, but I think he's just being nice. Either that or he wants to sleep with me. Whatever. After ten years, butter me up if you want. I'm pretty easy to please. Mae West once said that you only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. So here's to trying to do it right! 
Not too long ago, cancer touched my life again in the form of my friend, Beth. In my opinion, she's the most awesome kind of friend, with or without cancer. She's tougher than anyone I know. She's noble and strong, and all that other crap people say about people who are sick, but she's also FUNNY. Really, really, laugh out loud funny. I mean, she gave my kids a book called "The Adventures of Captain Underpants" that I am now forced to read aloud to them. She makes me laugh when she's not even here.
I make it a point to go and visit her now, which I should have done before she got sick, so shame on me. But I tell people that I go by to check on her and see how she's feeling, when in reality I go see her because she makes me laugh. EVERY time. Side-splitting, tears rolling down my face laughter.
I also get the chance to discuss things with her that I never talked about with my mom. All of the details about her diagnosis and treatment were considered too much information for me, so as a child I was often left to sit alone and wonder what the heck was going on. I hope that by sharing my recollections about that time with Beth's daughters, they won't feel the way I did. I also get to do the things that my 18 year old self was too stupid to realize I needed to do for my own mother. Boring things, like cooking dinner so that her family won't have to go out and she won't have to smell it cooking. Cancer patients get extremely nauseated. I do remember that about my mother's illness.
I hope that Beth gets something out of being friends with me, but I think it's pretty clear that I get so much more out of being friends with her. I've never been around someone who could look at something as ugly as cancer and find the humor in it. I mean, really who makes jokes about something so serious? I had never heard someone use the expression "play the C card" until I started hanging out with Beth. She is the most awesome example of  "do what you want to" ever. When I asked how she was one day, she looked at me and said, "Well, lying around, sleeping all day, lots of good meds for pain...it's a pretty awesome gig if you can get it." When my kids ask her (again) why she has no hair, she smiles at them and says, "I just got so tired of brushing it, and washing it, and putting bows in it. So I cut it all off. Want me to do yours?"
She has good days and bad days; I've caught her on both. Some days we talk about positive things and positive thinking, and some days we talk about how bad the whole thing sucks and how unfair it is. All the stuff I never really did with my mom, because I didn't have the chance. I assumed I would have more time to do all that, and we all know what assuming does! Mostly I sit there and think that this woman should write a book. I can't think of another group who needs to laugh worse than cancer patients and their caregivers. And who better to write it than someone on the inside? Beth, if you're reading this, you should write a book!  
My favorite "Beth" story ever has to be the one she told me the other day. I had made it a point not to ask too many questions about her situation. I figured if she wanted me to know something, she would tell me. Therefore, I didn't know that she was the lucky recipient of a double mastectomy. I'd never asked; she'd never told. I didn't feel like it was any of my business. So the following story took me by surprise, and it left me laughing until my sides hurt.
Beth: So I was having my treatment the other day, and I usually wear a stretchy tank top so that they can access my indwelling port without me having to take my shirt off. As the nurse was working on me, she lifted my shirt up a little and I noticed the guy sitting in the chair next to me looking at me. I mean, really looking at me, like he was trying to see something. (I guess even men who are cancer patients still want to see something naked.) So I looked over at him and said, "Hey, Dude, there's nothing to see here."
He smiled, and his face turned a little pink. Then in a minute, I saw him looking again! So I said, "No, really, Dude, there's NOTHING to see here." And I lifted my shirt up over my head! Yep, flashed the whole room. I mean, there's nothing there. I didn't think that was lewd or anything, do you? Bet that dude thinks twice before he does that again!
So after I picked myself up off the floor and was able to talk again, I agreed that he would probably be scarred for life. But she gave the nurses a good giggle, and I bet those are hard to come by in an oncologist's office. I for one am hoping that she keeps me laughing for a VERY long time to come. Carpe diem!