Let’s talk a little bit about what cancer is. It’s hard, terrifying, exhausting, complicated, lifelong, and basically gets terrible reviews from anyone who’s had it. What it isn’t often associated with is humour. As author, Ileana Von Hirsch says in her intro to this darkly funny book, an angry German lady made it clear that cancer is no laughing matter. The lady in question had also had cancer and she was completely right – at its most basic level it is flat out vile.
Thing is, for many people, coping with cancer demands humour. It demands that you laugh at the absurdity of the diagnosis, the shuffling waiting, the endless lying on comfortable couches, the litany of loss – friends, careers, figures, looks, and lives. Which is precisely how Ileana felt when she wrote a diary about her cancer journey. A diary that became a book that wasn’t like so many other cancer books which are dark and miserable, and make you want to curl up in a ball and cry.
What this book does, in a warm and gentle way, is smooth over the road of cancer. It builds a pretty pathway through the spiked and jagged rocks that you feel you may be navigating in bare feet. It says, “Yes, this is scary, but also look how weirdly comical this is. Look how darkly funny that is. Look at how you’re surviving each day with a small smile in the corner of your mouth”.
For anyone going through cancer, this is the antidote to all the fear. This is the book that will give you bite-sized chunks of laughter or a smile when things feel hard or simply a way of giving your brain a break when you’re too overwhelmed to breathe.
For example, when she tells the story of her radiologist who went from bored out of his mind doing his daily scans to leaping bolt upright and saying, “It’s either nothing or a very rare cancer and you have one to two years to live. Do let me know how you get on, I don’t often ask patients, but this is exciting!”
Considering how blunt and socially clumsy many doctors can be, finding out about cancer this way isn’t as unusual as you may think. Finding out that you’re not alone when it comes to staring at a doctor in horror is a massive relief. Giving yourself permission to laugh about it is an even bigger relief.
This is a book you should give to a friend about to start climbing the mountain called cancer. This is the book you should buy for yourself if you’ve been diagnosed with cancer (and if you’re in remission) if nobody has bought it for you. This is the laugh, snort, cry, the ‘Oh, thank the great sock of happiness I am not alone’ book that will provide a balm to your battered soul and your worn cancer feet because you’ll remember to laugh at the pain.
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