Cancer Jokes Archive Four

Please Note: These jokes are reprinted with permission from the CancerOnline.org website that is no longer active. If you haven't yet read Lots of Cancer Jokes or Does Cancer Have a Sense of Humor, please do so first. Macabre jokes are not to everyone's taste.

Baseball Forever

Two old baseball buddies with lung cancer were chatting on a park bench. Paul says, "I hope they have a baseball team in heaven."

"Me too", says Jack.

"Tell you what", says Paul, "If I die first, I'll give you a message about whether there is baseball in Heaven. If you die first, you can do the same for me."

A year later, Paul is dead and Jack is sitting on the park bench when he hears: "Jack, it's me, Paul. I have great news! Guess what. There really is a baseball team in heaven."

"Thank God", sighs Jack, "Now I can die in peace."

"I'm glad you feel that way," says Paul, "because you're pitching tomorrow."

Idea contributed by Sid Nadler, Lung cancer patient

How to Make Time Pass Slowly

Garrison Keillor's "Prairie Home Companion" radio show has a yearly joke night. Lots of the jokes are oldies—but goodies—and in 1999 they told one Arlene Harder always liked. She's changed it slightly and at the end encourages you to change it to fit your idea of boredom.

Doctor to patient: I'm sorry to have to tell you, but you have a very rare cancer for which there are no treatments and I'm afraid that you only have six months to live.

Patient: What do you suggest I do?

Doctor: Move to Iowa and live with an economist.

Patient: And how will that make me live longer?

Doctor: It won't. Six months will just seem longer.

Before Iowans and economists send us e-mail telling us how wonderfully exciting they are, we want you to know that Arlene has relatives in Iowa (very nice people) and there are surely some non-boring economists around somewhere. But that's what Garrison Keillor's show identifies as boring.

The truth is that all of us have places where we would be bored out of our skulls (didn't a song claim the most exciting thing in Toledo, Ohio, was watching the grass grow?). Also, we all know jobs that seem to attract, or create, the kinds of people in whom we have absolutely no interest. A combination of the two would surely make days drag on endlessly. What places and occupations do you consider boring?

A Colonectomy Has at Least One Benefit

After having surgery for colorectal cancer in May 1997, I returned to work in the meat packing house. It was a job in a small plant, and we were all very close like family. A lot of delicate subjects had been discussed over the years and I wasn't at all shy about sharing my experience with my new colostomy. One day while we were cutting meat, I told my boss, "You know what, Marv, I think you should be paying me higher wages than anyone else in here."

He said, "Why is that?" My response was, "Well, I don't spend twenty minutes a day on the toilet anymore like everyone else!!

Submitted by Ric Beals to CancerOnline.org, which is no longer active

Time to Party

Doctor: "I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, but this is your last day to live.

Cancer patient: "Then I'll ask my friends to come here for a final party. We'll have a gourmet dinner, champagne and dancing girls! We'll party 'till dawn. Come and join us doc."

Doctor: "That's easy for you to say. You don't have to get up in the morning."

Idea contributed by Gay Irons, counselor to cancer survivors

Noticing Cows

A city woman with lung cancer goes for a drive in the country. Like many cancer patients, she is keenly aware of her mortality. She notices trivia she never paid attention to before. She notices the cut hay in the fields. She notices the green pastures. She notices the cows.

Tears run down her cheek and she sobs, "Will I ever see cows again?"

Later, while composing herself to sleep, she thinks, "Whoa! There must be something in my life that's more important than cows!"

"It's being alive!"

Contributed by Nora Gordon, Lung Cancer patient