December 06, 2006

Laugh, think, cry

While channel surfing last night I flipped over to ESPN (it's what guys do, I'm sure it's hereditary). During halftime of the game between Oklahoma State and Syracuse (The Jimmy V Classic) they played a speech he made at the 1993 ESPY awards. I remember seeing it in the past, not sure when but based on how it mesmerized me, it had to be before I was diagnosed. In the speech he talked about his philosophy of life while he was fighting cancer. It basically came down to three things that we must do everyday: we must 1) laugh 2) think deeply about something and 3) get emotional about something.

As you can imagine, his second and third are easy for me, finding something to laugh about can be a struggle! I try. I'm not a real uptight person anyway but finding something to laugh about can be hard at times. As I've repeated many, many times here I don't get too high from the highs or too low from the lows.

Brad and I have been laughing a lot together lately. We watch a lot of HGTV at night, there's just no good family shows on TV, a bunch of filth, but I digress. He and I like to make fun of some of the shows, the ones where they take what amounts to junk and "spruce it up and give it some pop"! The discussion usually involves me, in my best British accent: "We'll I found this tree branch down at the curb, I glued some lovely artificial leaves to it to hide the wire. Then I painted it black and I found this lovely lamp shade up in the attic, and now we have a beautiful lamp for above the fireplace"! Do they ever think the lamp shade is in the attic for a reason and the junk is by the curb becasue it's garbage?
-You probably have to be there, it's not that funny but to see him laugh, one of those gut-busting-trying to catch his breath laughs, well it is just priceless. That is what life is all about; to see your child laugh and laugh so hard it almost makes him cry.....it brings a tear to my eye.

Just by writing this I have completed Jimmy V's three tasks!

Here is more information on the foundation: http://jimmyv.org/
One of the most incredible things about this group is this:

The V Foundation for Cancer Research officially announced that effective with its new fiscal year October 1, 2006, 100 percent of all new direct cash donations and net proceeds of events contributed to The V Foundation will be used to fund cancer research and related programs.

What this means is in just 13 years the endowment of the foundation is now covering 100% of the overhead and administrative costs of the foundation. Very impressive!

Thanks for the prompt John, I was struggling to find a topic, this was perfect.
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All is well with me. My monthly doctor appointment, blood test and Zometa treatment are Monday the 11th.

5 comments:

Linky Love said...

I agree: not enough laughter to go by and not enough people understanding that a laugh brings joy. The few people visiting me all have a grim on their face as if life for them is worse than for me. And it's rreally no fun always repeating the same story what cancer, how cancer, what pain...

I am always happy when my youngest comes along, for sure he brings in a joke, even if it is about me not being able to come out of bed... Yet it's funny, and; if he brings my favorite treat, I double smile :-)

David, I never took chemo, which is another story, therfore if you would like to exchange links so our readers can opt for your lively story or read about my last days (which we will all go through, yet thats not funny :-) )
Please leave a comment on my site at http://www.metastaticlivercancer.org

A very big hug!

SK
How the pain was getting too much at:
Metastatic Liver Cancer

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Anonymous said...

David,

What a great story about how you can make Brad laugh so hard. I do the same with my children and I always enjoy it. For me and the kids it become contagious. They start to laugh which makes me laugh which makes them laugh even harder which makes me laugh even harder......For those of us with children we should take the time and make it a priority to laugh with them at least once everyday and I don't mean a chuckle I mean a gut-busting laugh. Thanks for sharing and God bless.

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