I know that diseases and disorders are no laughing matter, but sometimes you just have to choose to see the black humor in certain situations. You can either laugh or cry, so you might as well own the issue and laugh instead of letting it get you down even more (see here for a post with an example and links to others from this blog, this one is my personal favorite).
Example: My very dear grandmother is losing more and more of her memory. They've ruled out Alzheimer's with various scans and tests, but that leaves the big D word, dementia, dangling over everyone's heads. Still, if that's in the future it is still not a huge issue yet; she does really well relative to lots of other 78 year olds, but she is just getting forgetful more and more often.
Last week, a few days before I got to my grandparent's house, my grandmother listed what she was making for dinner and asked my mom if I would eat that. My mom said it sounded fine, but I wouldn't be there til the weekend. Grandma said oh, okay, she would save it for then. The next day, she did the same thing, and mom told her no, Cammy wouldn't be there for another 3 days. And then they were at the grocery store, and Grandma made 3 passes through the bread aisle and put a new loaf of the same bread in her basket each time, because she knew it was my favorite but didn't remember picking it up a few minutes before. And then they repeated the "Will Cammy eat this?"...."Yes but Cammy isn't coming tonight, she's coming on Saturday" exchange again that night.
My mom told me all of this on the phone, and the first thing that came into my head to reply with was "So Grandma can't remember what day of the week it is or what she just put in her shopping cart, but apparently the fact that Cammy is a bitch about food is ingrained forever!" There was a pause, and then we both cracked up, because she couldn't honestly tell me it wasn't true. LMAO.
Anyway, I don't think either dementia or anorexia are funny and her condition concerns me greatly, but honestly sometimes you have to give the tears a break and just choose to be in control enough to see the humor.
Any examples from your own lives?
7 comments:
No specific examples, but dark humor is my favorite and probably is what gets me through each day!
I agree...you have to laugh. In my family? My eating issues are good joke material (when it is appropriate -- not when I am crying or something).
There are so much black humor patient-situations! Recently I have had a patient with mild dementia (it's now inapropriate to say it in hospitslised patients in my country so: cognitive deficite) who is Prof of some classical studies lifelong smoker with chronic lung disease. I asked him about smoking and he told me that he couldn't help himself smoke in front of grandchildren, students, in campus, but now he's make a 'discovery' that an appletree in his garden is dying because of his smoking, so he has stopped. Just from day to day. I've asked nurses if it is true and they told me he has really stopped and he''s talking about the appletree constantly. It is really interesting how our brain works and what can be an object of motivation. I wish he had found his appletree earlier!
And there are way too much tragicomic anorexia situations- but I think it's better to live throug them than just being silent. One for all- i was in hospital in some metabolic department when I was 15 and next to me was a box with diabetes. My sisters thought it would be a great idea to put a sugar to my regular joghurt so that I eat more calories without fear (she was 12). the detail she didn't know that I was giving my food to my friend from next bed. It is bit semestr, because now I know that I may have cause not very good things to his body or at least I prolonged his stay a bit... :/ however we are still friends, he is now economist:)
Rantrantrant.
Laughing is good, but it is also very common strategy to avoid some responsibility (lot of patients are joking about their smoking or weight or alcohol or drugs problems). And i don't mean you're avoiding something, just ramble. xx Ola
It makes me sad that I can't think of any specific examples, because I know that black humour features a lot in my life! I think it is entirely necessary sometimes, because if you didn't laugh occasionally it would just be too much.
I read through the old entries and loved them... sometimes you just really do have to laugh. We used to have huge bowls of Jolly Ranchers in the first treatment place I went to's lobby.
I believe my whole blog is an example, what with my "senior friends" and the fact that no one remembers anything other than the fact that I'm skinny, most likely a result of physical evidence ;)
Even when my grandma wasn't slipping so bad, she still couldn't understand my "issues" or why I didn't eat meat. Every Sunday she would still harp on me to eat kielbasa, saying I could eat some damn rabbit food on the side if it was so important to me.
She also tells me the reason I'm single is because I have no hips, no ass and no boobs. Gotta laugh, and I do often ;)
Hey Cammy,
That's actually really funny. Nothing comes to mind when I think about my own food issues.
My grandmother is also possibly experiencing a bout of dementia. She's 86 and headstrong. I think she's quite a character. She never seems to forget that I'm the heathen granddaughter and she always manages to slip it into the conversation when I forget to call her. It makes me smile. Even if she forgets some things or mixes up time periods in her life, she certainly knows who I am!
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