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Top 10 Reasons I Can't Be Sick Anymore

By Betty Cea, a woman with a sense of humor who just happens to also have lymphoma

This is a good illustration of how some cancer patients use humor to relieve tension and shine a bit of light into the dark corners of their world. As she wrote in the e-mail giving us permission to use her name, "My hair left, my dysfunctional family whom I love very much stayed, and the cancer has come back. I might as well laugh while I fight . . . cancer hates a sense of humor . . ."

Especially if you are not married and if you also have a dysfunctional family that you nevertheless love very much, you are likely to enjoy her commentary on living with a recurrence of cancer under those conditions.

10. My cat and I have gotten too familiar. She has started using the toilet and I have started meowing.

9. Did you know when you are home all the time you can see pieces of dirt no one else can see?

8. Every bodily function you have chooses to dysfunction, but only when you are in public.

7. Your entire family becomes hyper-dysfunctional. Therefore, you must take care of them as well as yourself. I wonder if the psycho ward down the road has group rates

6. If you get sick, be prepared to give up your bed, as whoever comes to take care of you will find an immediate reason they cannot use your fold out couch, i.e. I can't get out of the bed, I am afraid of the cat, I am allergic to the cat, I am allergic to the material of the couch. In short, your couch has cooties.

5. Did you know that your fully functional kitchen now becomes totally ill equipped? Never mind that you are the one making the meals. My God, how did you live this long without knowing this?

4. True, your medicine says you shouldn't drive. But don't worry. You can be the designated driver and be on chemo too . . . your caretaker can wake you up . . . no problem. In the event you have a caretaker that will drive and has their own car, they will insist on driving yours just so you will never get your seats and mirrors back to the right place.

3. Be prepared for your caretaker to take over the television and the remote and sit on your bed (which is the sofa) until 3 in the morning. Your couch doesn't have cooties when they are watching TV. It's a miracle.

2. You know that book you bought to keep yourself busy so everyone else can watch television? Guess what, they need that too, to entertain themselves. Remember, you are sick, so you are entitled to no creature pleasures.

And the top reason you can't be sick . . .

1. YOU NEED TO GET LAID AFTER ALL THIS!!!!!

© Copyright 2000, Betty Cea