Oct 19, 2001 (The Spokesman Review) - Heard the one about the mom
with breast cancer?
She stopped crying, beat the disease and now makes a living
laughing about it.
At first blush, Christine Clifford saw nothing funny about cancer.
She sobbed for three days and envisioned sinking into a deep
depression during which her husband would leave her. That's what
happened when her mom was diagnosed with breast cancer at 42.
Then one day Clifford laughed, and it felt good.
Teary-eyed friends laughed with her, nervously at first, then
started sending funny cards instead of sappy ones.
And Clifford, a senior vice president of a Minneapolis marketing
firm who was stressed out even before the disease, made a midlife,
midcancer career change. It started the night she got out of bed and
sketched a series of cartoons based on her family's experiences since
her diagnosis.
In one, her young son opens the door to a deliveryman and shouts,
"Mom . . . more flowers for your breast!"
In another cartoon, she greets a well-wisher bearing a casserole
dish while the family dog thinks: "Not lasagna again!"
A third cartoon depicts a party where an unsuspecting man offers
Clifford a cigarette. "Gee, no thanks," she answers. "I already have
cancer."
Clifford will talk about her transition from shock to humor at a
luncheon at Holy Family Health Education Center on Oct. 23. She'll
tell about her lumpectomy in 1994 at age 40, after she found a small,
suspicious lump during a self-examination.
Doctors assured her it was nothing to worry about, but a biopsy
proved otherwise. Surgery was scheduled for New Year's Eve.
The day before, she slowly put on the red, low-cut party dress
she'd bought for the holiday, looked in the mirror, and wept in her
husband's arms.
It was during long months of chemotherapy and radiation that
Clifford discovered strength in humor. Laughing about her predicament
took some effort, but it improved both her outlook and health, says
Clifford, who lives in Edina, Minn.
"When friends and family found out I had a diagnosis of cancer,
they didn't know what to say to me. They didn't want to say the wrong
thing, so oftentimes they said nothing, which made me feel more
isolated and alone.
"I quickly grasped onto humor and found humor to be a great
connector of people."
She learned that studies show laughter can boost the immune
system, and she believes it worked for her.
"I noticed that I just felt better. I felt like my treatments were
not nearly as harsh. I slept better. I wanted to exercise."
Gradually, she began working her cartoon ideas into books such as
"Not Now ... I'm Having a No Hair Day" and "Our Family Has Cancer,
Too," published by Pfeifer-Hamilton Publishers in Minnesota. The
published cartoons are drawn by illustrator Jack Lindstrom and
feature Clifford; her husband, John; and her sons, 17-year-old Tim
and 15-year-old Brooks.
Clifford also found a niche as a motivational speaker and founded
The Cancer Club (www.cancerclub.com), which sells gifts with upbeat
messages for people with cancer.
It's not what Clifford first envisioned when she fell to the floor
upon hearing her diagnosis. But it's true, she says: "Cancer brought
humor back into my life, which was something I realized was missing
before."
Her good humor was put to the ultimate test at a professional golf
tournament in Scottsdale, Ariz., back when she was still bald from
chemotherapy. A gust of wind blew her hat and wig off her head and
onto the fairway as the crowd gasped.
"I could've just burst into tears and been very humiliated, which
I was," says Clifford. Instead, she ducked beneath the ropes, ran
onto the fairway and rescued her hair.
"Gentlemen," she told the astonished golf pros, "the wind is
blowing left to right."
