"Sheesh! They need to lighten up - its just cancer."

This was a line from a magazine column.  The lady writing the column is sharing her journey through cancer treatment, surgery, chemo, external beam radiation and all of the emotional ups and down that that entails.

My friend was really upset about the line.  She was offended and felt it was insensitive.

I read the same article and didn't even blink at the line, to such an extent that I wasn't sure if I had actually read that weeks column.  I had to go back and find the magazine to re-read it to realize I had.

The following was my reply to my friend:

I sympathise with your reaction to the line you quoted, but I also think I understand where the author is coming from as well.

Sometimes when people are going through them, they make light even of serious things. If you don't laugh you have to cry and laughing is more comfortable.

I was at a consult with a surgeon who wanted to do less of a surgery than the first two surgeons I had consulted with. I asked him why, and he said "I am not going to answer that since you won't understand anyway." My reply to that was to laugh. I am an intelligent and informed patient, so his answer seemed absurd to me. His response to my laughter was "this isn't funny, it is cancer!" and that had me laughing so hard I had tears running down my face.

To this day, whenever things get too much, all anyone has to say is "this isn't funny, it is cancer!" to start the laughter flowing.

Mind you, the doctor was wrong, he would have been leaving behind cancerous nodes with his abbreviated surgery. B"H I didn't go with him!

I lost my father to cancer when I was 15. I have had cancer. My brother had cancer. My grandmother had cancer. My MIL has had two kinds of cancer, one of them two times.

I take cancer seriously, but it is only cancer. It isn't my emunah (faith) or my kesher with HKBH (relationship with God). It isn't even my ability to laugh or smile. It is a nisayon (challenge), and not a pretty one, but if I had a choice I would take it over severe mental illness chv"sh (God forbid) or brain injury.

I am not downplaying cancer chv"sh, but if it is the nisayon I am given, I will try to get through it with a positive attitude, even if that makes it seem that I am not taking it as seriously as people on the outside would like.

 Cancer is serious.  It is messy.  It is horrible.  I hate cancer.  But it is also me.  It isn't something I can leave behind because it has changed me and how I must live my life.  It has robbed me of my father.  But I can't let it steal my sense of humor, my ability to laugh or my smile.  It has also been the reason I met some wonderful people and given me perspective on life that I wouldn't have had without it.