Once the initial shock of being diagnosed with cancer eroded away, I decided to approach the situation by finding humor where I could. Now as my wife will testify, that doesn't mean I've been a barrel of laughs for the last few months (quite the opposite at times, chemotherapy has caused me to have some really bizarre mood swings). But, finding times to laugh, at myself, at the situation, or simply in spite of everything has been therapeutic.
Having testicular cancer also gives me carte blanche for testicle jokes, and as the 12 year old boy inside of everyone knows, testicle jokes are funny (even if you feel a little juvenile making them).
My sister-in-law gifted me a stuffed testicle. It is giant, mostly anatomically correct, blue, and has a giant smile on its face. Once the "my sister-in-law gave me a blue ball" jokes subsided (who am I kidding, I think its still funny), I found joy in taking the testicle to places (chemotherapy in particular) and watching people react to a giant, blue, stuffed testicle that I use as a pillow. It made going into the sterile environment of the clinic a much more pleasant experience.
I've also been to my local hospital a lot more than I ever thought I would, mostly because of the cancer and related tests. It's not a place that I'd ever choose to go, if I wouldn't have felt like I needed to go or had to perform some test I would have gladly never have darkened the door. My favorite experience at the hospital was when I was getting my port placed for chemotherapy. It's a pretty basic outpatient procedure, in and out of the hospital in just a few hours. I got to replace my pair of hospital socks and finally figured out how to tie the hospital gown without getting stuck in it AND feeling as if my backside isn't hanging out for the world to see. As I was taken into the operating room the surgeon was playing some classic rock over the sound-system. I chatted with the doctor and nurses as they were prepping. The time finally comes to get the anesthesia. The song had changed. Led Zepplin's "Stairway to Heaven" would be the soundtrack to my port placement. That song could have been the last thing I heard, and how fitting it would have been.
Even today, finding humor in the situation has made it much easier to deal with. Today is my last long day of chemotherapy. The last day I should ever have to have Cisplatin and Epotoside pumped into my body. My heart rate, resting at 7:30AM was 144 beats per minute, I could have been running a marathon. Yes, I understand the seriousness of a resting heart rate of 144. If anything was going to happen to me, it was going to happen to me anyway, I might as well have gotten some jollies out of the situation. I made jokes with the nurses about how excited I was to see them, and that I just wanted to make my last long day of chemotherapy extra special (and 2 extra hours long!). One of my nurses remarked to me that I was handling my elevated heart rate remarkably well.
Finding a reason to laugh doesn't mean that the seriousness or the gravity of the situation isn't understood. For me, it meant not losing sight of the temporary nature of my situation. I'm not going to be in chemotherapy forever, I'm not going to have cancer forever, I will forever only have one testicle (free testicle jokes for life!). I might as well laugh at it while I get the chance.
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