Cancer survivors prescribe humor

By | Sunday, May 4, 2008

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FREDERICK, Md. (AP) — Admit it, cancer patients, you have at least toyed with the idea of playing the cancer card. You know, the one that gets you special treatment because you have a deadly disease?

Well, make room in your wallet, because three sisters of a cancer-stricken family have printed up Cancer Cards to promote their self-published humor book about the painful absurdities of dealing with the disease.

"This card is good for getting you out of anything you really don't feel like doing," reads the bright blue card. The legend is surrounded by a colorful assortment of half-grinning, half-frowning smiley faces — the logo of the sisters' graphic novel, "Smilies are Naturally Bald."

Irena Monticelli, diagnosed with lymphoma in 2006, created the book with sisters Rachel and Felicia, who has lung cancer, to offer some comic relief from the frustrating and sometimes embarrassing realities of treatment.

Cancer isn't fun but "you can't live in that dark place," Irena told the Frederick News-Post. "You have to have a little fun with it. Otherwise you'll be living in darkest despair."

The book follows Joe, a cancer-stricken laboratory rat, through chemotherapy and radiation. In Joe's world, a CAT scan involves a cat. Joe's hair falls out so fast he wakes up with hairballs in his mouth. And disorientation from "chemo brain" causes him to put hemorrhoid cream on his toothbrush — something one of the Monticelli sisters actually did, though she stopped before brushing.

"You have to laugh once in a while because it's so crazy," said Irena, 28, of Green Valley, Ariz. "There are things they don't tell you that happen," like red urine caused by a cancer drug, and "chemo B.O.," from the chemicals leaching out of your pores.

Every page of the book features a different smiley face. There's Chemoed Smiley, green and zonked out in an easy chair; Nasal Drip Smiley, because once your nasal hair falls out "your nose will run at the most inconvenient times;" and Good-Bye Life Savings Smiley, plastered with overdue bills.

"I just kind of drew a smiley one day and noticed it didn't have any hair," Irena said. "I was bald and it just connected,"

She said she chose the lab rat character because her treatment made her feel like one.

Irena wrote the book. Felicia, 38, of Frederick, Md., edited it, and Rachel, 36, of Oak Park, Ill., did the final layout and graphics.

After treatment, Irena no longer shows evidence of lymphoma. She was diagnosed one year after Felicia learned she had Stage IV lung cancer, meaning the disease had spread to another organ — in her case, her bones.

Felicia said that after hearing her younger sister's diagnosis, "I told her if we survive this, we need to do the things we want to do."

A sculptor, collage maker and former manager of Frederick Community College's writing center, Felicia brought marketing experience to the project. Beside placing copies of the $23 paperback in the college bookstore and local hospital gift shop, she got a blurb onto the American Cancer Society's Cancer Survivor Network Web site.

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