Woman writes book about laughing through cancer

CEDAR RAPIDS: Kathy Lariviere always has found life funny. Finding a lump in her breast in 2012 was anything but. Yet over the next 15 months of diagnosis with breast cancer, surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation, she managed to keep laughing.

She wrote her struggles and her jokes down on a blog, “Laugh With Kathy.” In October, Lariviere, 56, of Urbana, published a book of the same name, with the subtitle, “Finding Humor in the Journey Through Breast Cancer.” She had looked on Amazon for a humorous breast cancer book but couldn’t find one. On its face, its not a humorous topic, but she said there were so many times she couldn’t help but laugh. “When my doctor is talking to me seriously about nipple tattoos, my mind is going somewhere else,” she said.

She used humor to get her through the awkward and absurd moments she saw all around, from the fire safety guide inside a hyperbaric chamber to the sheer number of people she had to show her bare chest to. She would stand with her hands on her hips and pretend she was Super Woman, looking over the doctor’s and nurse’s shoulders as they examined her. “I always decided I had the power of flight,” she said.

Didn’t come easy

Laughing didn’t always come easily. “One day I was so mad I wanted to break something,” she said. She spent the day painting eggs with the targets of her ire - syringes, breasts. She went outside and heaved an egg as hard as she could at a tree. “I missed, and I was so mad I started laughing,” she said. That led to blowing up pumpkins, which became a ritual for she and her husband after treatment milestones. They set them up in the woods behind their house, surrounded with explosive Tannerite, and shot them with rifles. “I thought, if I can laugh at this, I can make it through this,” she said.

Her treatment was long, 14 months. She saw other patients come and go. Not all survived. On the treatment floor at the Hall-Perrine Cancer Center in Cedar Rapids, she could talk with other patients about their struggles in a way that was hard in the outside world. “A friend told me he wasn’t going to survive. We could talk about it calmly,” she said. The blog struck a nerve for a lot of other patients, as well as their friends and family, nurses and doctors. People all over the world started sharing her posts and started writing her emails. Eventually the blog had over 5,000 followers.

“I felt like whether I survived or not, I’d given people hope,” she said. She said looking for the funny moments helped her cope, but every one has to face their diagnosis in their own way. “I think every cancer patient is entitled to get through it however they need to,” she said. “If you want sympathy, if you want to be surrounded by friends, if you want to hide in the house, if you want to laugh at the world, you get to do whatever you need.”

She started the blog initially to keep family and friends informed about her treatment. A professional website designer, Lariviere always has enjoyed writing, and the blog also became a way to process what was happening. Not everything made it online. Some things are private, and she didn’t always share the daily pain and struggles of treatment.

“I think you don’t get a lot of choices when you’re diagnosed with cancer. The only choice I had left was how I let friends and family see me go through it,” she said. “I wanted to do it with grace and humor and compassion.” — AP