ICDIWABH: Healing with Humor

My sons anthem is “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart” by Taylor Swift. He instantly would settle when it played no matter what was going on. It is fitting, and being able to laugh about the irony of it helped.

Perspective is everything. As my sister and I walked laps around the pediatric cardiology inpatient floor with my nosy 4 week old, we got comments on how he looked like a grumpy old man… which he did. My sister laughed and replied “Yeah, apparently in his past life a heart issue took him out, so in this life he opted to come in with one!” Some people might have been horrified by this, but we couldn’t stop giggling. The nurses quickly learned that we could take a joke.

C had to warn the nurses that Auntie was ‘A little crazy, and probably will ask something insane. Just go with it.’ Sure enough she sure did, asking the nurses if he was a medical marvel and if its a miracle he was alive. It was never that serious ma’am, but the nurses laughed and entertained the crazy comments.

When we were at Chaos’ 12 month pediatrician appointment, his doctor walked out of the exam room semi-suddenly and I turned and looked at C and said “Thats it, they’re shipping us out, he’s calling the ambulance…” and C rolled his eyes at me, knowing that was definitely not the case. Turns out his pediatrician a question about whether he could get certain pokes while taking asprin — because sometimes asprin has a reaction with live viruses. He was having people look up the CDC guidelines while we talked. I told the doc what I had said, and he laughed out loud and said “That’s dark, I like it!” and recounted the day a year prior, when Chaos did get shipped out of the office via ambulance.

During some of the darkest moments of my life, humor and laughter has healed me. At our moms funeral, people behind my sister and I saw us shaking and assumed it was tears — making them cry harder. Nope… we were trying desperately to contain our laughter sitting in the front pew of church.

Theres something healing about laughter. But it has to be the real kind, not a little chuckle. My kid showed up to his surgery pre-op day in a skeleton onesie with a heart on it, every single person who saw his outfit gave C and I a double take, we smirked and shrugged, and got an inevitable laugh.

Life is too short to not have a little fun, especially when circumstances might make you want to cry.