Wow Laughter Is Medicine

My insurance, surprisingly, gave the full speed ahead, on a relatively new and definitely extraordinarily expensive treatment for guys with this crappy disease.  It has been proven effective.  I and many others for that matter look forward to its success but that doesn’t belay the trepidation I’m having toward tomorrow’s opening round.

Some demonic scheduler wants me, with my driver, at the main admitting desk tomorrow morning 6:00 A.M.  That’s cruelty of having to get up around 4:30 A.M.  I’m not sure that time is even on my alarm clock.  Tomorrow I’m being out fitted with a Hickman Trifusion Catheter.  Why this has to take place during the wee hours of the morning is beyond me but I digress and perhaps bitch too much.

This installation is the only part of the treatment that I have not done yet on this journey I’m on.  The other two processes involved are lengthy and boring.   But, I really shouldn’t have watched the You Tube installation training video.  I’ve been blessed with a vivid imagination that is at times a curse and this is the fuel for my trepidation.

Today, trepidation in hand, I walked into the house and my office only to find a very large box sitting in my office chair.  Surprised and unable to imagine what could possibly be in the box I read the shipping label;  Provenge Comfort Kit.  I still couldn’t imagine what was in the box.  I did think so this is why the treatment is so expensive the Pharma Company sends its clients gifts in large boxes.

I put the semi heavy box on the kitchen table and we tore into it like kids Christmas morning.  Inside was a letter suggesting for my comfort and care givers boredom to take this gift to pheresis and infusion appointments.  Underneath the letter was nice back pack with a pull out handle so you could let the pack tag along behind you like a puppy.  Stenciled across the back of the pack in the latest Pharma color, Tango Mango this year, was the Provenge logo.

I won’t go through the whole inventory of the pack but each pocket had some little “treasure” in it.  It was fun “discovering” what goodies they had packed each with the Provenge logo.  I laughed and said “Isn’t cancer fun?”

Cancer isn’t fun.  Not at all.  I’m also not naïve enough to not understand a marketing ploy if I’ve ever seen one.  But for ten or so minutes we didn’t think about our trepidation and we laughed like little kids.  Proving, what they say about laughter and all that is true. 

Perhaps even in the bleakest of circumstances there is something to laugh at and if there isn’t then perhaps we should find something to laugh at.  Hell, no matter the circumstance we should laugh every day.  I know that's my new goal.

Talk to you later