We Laugh

It all started with a mammogram and then lunch. Francyne and I had been critique partners for over ten years. Nita belonged to our chapter and was helping with the chapter’s writing contest so we asked her to join us for lunch for a couple of weeks to discuss contest business. We laughed, we talked business, laughed, critiqued a bit, and laughed. We ate, oh, and then we laughed. Laughing was big on our lunches.

On this day, Nita told us she had just gotten a call that the doctor wanted her to have a biopsy on a rash that had been noted on her report by her x-ray technician during her mammogram. A silly little rash around her left nipple. I mean, who’d ever heard of a nipple rash. We laughed and teased her that it was just a hickey.

The next week, when Nita met us, she dropped the bomb. It wasn’t just a rash or a hickey. She’d been diagnosed with Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC)—one of the hardest breast cancers to survive. The odds were not in her favor. We were stunned. And of course the first thing out of Francyne’s and my mouth were, “What can we do?”

Nita didn’t hesitate, “Let me meet with you every week. I need . . . to laugh.”

I swallowed a bit of fear down my throat, the seriousness of the mood weighed on my chest. But I’d learned at an early age about the power of laughter. So I looked at Francyne, then back at Nita. “Man, I knew people wanted to join our critique group, but I didn’t know they’d go so far as to get cancer just to get in.”

We all laughed.

That started our weekly laughing-through-cancer lunches. We laughed through Chemo, more biopsies, and we laughed through hair loss.

“I’m sorry, guys.” Nita tossed off her hat during one of our lunches. “I can’t stand to wear a wig . . . or a hat.” We inspected her shiny, bald head. She had a perfect shaped head, and more courage than any woman I’d ever met.

“No problem,” I told her. “Just wear big earrings so people won’t think we’re having lunch with Mr. Clean.”

We laughed.

We arranged our meeting days so it didn’t hit on throw-up days. Nothing ruins a good lunch like that.

The extreme Chemo caused numbness in her hands and feet. During one weekly lunch, Nita kept dropping her food, when about the sixth piece of shrimp hit her blouse she threw down her fork with a clatter.

You would know that at that moment the restaurant went silent. Every eye in the room shifted to Nita, the bald lady with big earrings, having a well-deserved mini meltdown. I saw frustration in her eyes as she bellowed, “Look at me! I’m a mess. I can hardly walk. I’m wearing my lunch. I can’t even feed myself!”

And in the silent restaurant, I bellowed back, “Don’t forget you’re bald, too!”

Nita’s frustration dissolved to laugher. Even several of the restaurant patrons joined in laughing.

Weeks later, the treatment and cancer were taking its toll. Nita, wanting to have her ducks in row, started planning her funeral. She was searching for someone to give her eulogy and getting frustrated because she couldn’t find anyone she liked. During lunch, after hearing her fret, I’d had enough, “Quit this,” I snapped. “If you die, I’ll give your damn eulogy.”

Her eyes widened. “Christie, that’s a wonderful idea. Will you really?”

My throat tightened. Jeepers, what had I gotten myself into, but I couldn’t tell her no. “I’ll tell the mattress story and have everyone laughing,” I said. “Now quit worrying. You’re not gonna die.”

After Nita’s mastectomy, Francyne and I went with her to a specialty store to pick out her fake boob. We all piled into the tiny dressing room and started checking out shapes and sizes for Nita’s boob. Some were too pointed, some were too round, some too perky, some not perky enough. Francyne and I were checking out our own shapes. It was a real boob-analyzing party. And in that tiny dressing room, three friends, one still facing the fight of her life, we did what we did best . . . we laughed.

We laughed so hard that the sales clerk came back to check on us. “I’ve never heard anyone laughing in here like that,” she said.

Nita, wearing the too-perky boob, poked her head out of the curtain. “That’s what we do,” she said. “We laugh.”

That was nine years ago. Today, while you read this, I have an appointment to keep. It’s a celebration of a life. While we still meet once a week, today is special, it’s Nita’s birthday. I’ll tell her what I tell her every year since she’s been cancer free. “You know, the only reason we let you join us was because we thought you were dying.”

And she’ll tell me just like she always does, “Tough titty.” In truth, Nita is an amazing woman, her courage--her non-whining attitude--is an inspiration to us all.

The mammogram where the rash on Nita’s breast was noticed is what saved her life. I just went last week for my annual smooshing-of-the-boobs celebration. Have you had your mammogram this year? If not, go do it. And tell a friend to have hers. Oh, and if someone you know gets a bad diagnosis, remember to laugh. Laugher really is the best medicine.

Happy Birthday, Nita!

Now, here’s what I want from you guys. Tell me about an amazing woman/friend in your life. Hey…us girls gotta stick together.

Crime Scene Christie