Laughing My Way Back To Wellness

I know...it's a cliche...but it's true anyway...Laughter is the best medicine. Before this past year came about, I was very prone to "blue" periods in my life. Big, unexplained bouts of melancholy. Okay...depression. Nothing so obvious that those who didn't know me would notice, but my friends would. It's weird though...when I got diagnosed with cancer last year, I was really afraid that I would fall in the pit again, but amazingly enough, I didn't. I certainly don't think bravery, inner strength, or even being on an anti-depressant had much to do with it. I think that by the time they gave me the "official" diagnosis, I already knew, deep down, that I had cancer and that I already had made up my mind to fight and just deal with it. And trying to find humor, even gallows humor, in every event throughout my year-long journey certainly helped. While I'm not going to claim that laughter cured my cancer, (It didn't; a double mastectomy & chemotherapy did that.) it certainly helped me through my recovery and all the bumps in the road that I encountered...and there were many. I have found that I tend to laugh and smile more since finding out about my cancer....weird, huh? But I guess that it put is all in perspective for me and reminded me that there are a lot of people out there that have it much worse than me. I live in the good. old USA where I have access to the best health care options in the world and I'm proud to be an American and better yet, and American cancer survivor. During my year of surgeries, chemotherapy, wound care treatments, reconstructive surgeries, etc...I found myself reading more humorous books, searching for shows that would make me laugh...just searching for more laughter in general. I think I blew my budget one week on new comedy albums for my iPod. On that note, I have to thank Bill Engvall, Henry Cho, Jeff Foxworthy, Chris Rock, Carlos Mencia, George Lopez, Wanda Sykes, Lisa Lampinelli and many more comedians for all the great work that they put out there. They should put them on the plan of care for cancer patients because they really helped me through those days that even smiling was an effort. I also went to a few comedy shows during the year; local talent was good for some chuckles. I also indulged myself by going to see Chris Isaak & Silvertone twice...for a damn fine musician, he's a damn fine comedian! His drummer, Kenney Dale Johnson writes a blog here on blogger.com that not only provides a perspective of each city they tour through, but is terrifically amusing to boot. Anyway...enough of my blathering. I'm going to go listen to Bill Engvall's 15 Degrees Off Cool and smile myself to sleep.