Tag: humour

Finding the funny when the diagnosis isn’t

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 16 Comments
by Carolyn Thomas  ♥

Today, out of left field and with the kind permission of Disruptive Women in Health Care – where it was originally published by Casey Quinlan on November 23, 2011 – I’m revisiting the classic post she called: “Finding the Funny When the Diagnosis Isn’t”. 

NOTE:   Sadly, “Mighty Casey” died on April 25, 2023 from a recurrence of metastatic breast cancer.  Her wonderful tribute published in the Journal of Participatory Medicine is a must-read. And here’s what she wrote about humor in “Finding the Funny When the Diagnosis Isn’t”: 

“It’s not easy hearing your name and [insert dread diagnosis here]. I know this only too well after having to find the funny in my own journey through cancer. Cancer is, however, most often a diagnosis that you fight to a defined end. What’s it like to find the funny in a chronic condition?

“I have a number of friends who are battling MS, one of whom, Amy Gurowitz, shared a link on Facebook the other day to Jim Sweeney’s online empire of improv humor and chronic disease. Jim’s MS journey started with vision problems in 1985, he was officially diagnosed in 1990, and has been dealing with the disease – finding the funny most of the time – ever since. Continue reading “Finding the funny when the diagnosis isn’t” →

A PhD from the U of Mom

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 12 Comments

Today, I’m happy to be sharing a guest post I think you’ll like a lot. It’s from Judith Westerfield, a delightful, art supply-toting, pacemaker-wearing, dog-loving psychotherapist.

In this post, Judy Judith, as she’s known, offers us the Cliff Notes version of this unique training led by our mothers – the U of Mom.

The U of Mom Curriculum

1. My mother taught me TO APPRECIATE A JOB WELL DONE.
“If you’re going to kill each other, do it outside. I just finished cleaning.”

2. My mother taught me RELIGION.
“You better pray that will come out of the carpet.”    Continue reading “A PhD from the U of Mom” →

Should you eat that bacon?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 15 Comments

Bacon has been called the “gateway drug” that can entice mostly-vegetarians like me over to the dark side of meat-eating. But can there be anything good at all about eating bacon? This useful flowchart will help you decide.

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Q:  Are you a bacon lover?

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“God punishes bad children!” – or, why you have heart disease

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 12 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

When I was a little girl growing up in a rabidly catholic family of seven, my mother had a standard response to anything bad that happened to her children (like even just stubbing a toe on the coffee table leg as we skipped across the living room floor):

“See? God punishes bad children!”

Under her tutelage, my siblings and I learned a couple of important life lessons:

1.  that we were basically bad children (this fits right in with the catholic church’s doctrine of original sin, so likely made perfect sense to us at the time), and

2. that God must be very, very busy keeping track of every opportunity to personally administer the punishment that my sibs and I so richly deserved.

When children like us grow up and get diagnosed with, oh, let’s say –  heart disease, it’s proof positive that we’re just getting what we had coming.   Continue reading ““God punishes bad children!” – or, why you have heart disease” →