I believe there can be humor in any situation, even in your lowest moments. It's one of the most cliché sayings around, that "laughter is the best medicine" and maybe it's more of a coping mechanism than anything but I found comedy to be strangely therapeutic when it comes to living with Cystic Fibrosis and diabetes.

For example, day one of my 2017 hospital sentence my nurse ended up being someone who I had gone to school with since kindergarten which really wasn't too bad until I was informed I'd have to tell her, in detail, every time I went to the bathroom, specifically number two. 

You can imagine my excitement when I realized someone I could possibly see at a ten year high school reunion would have such classified information on me.

When the time came I was very conflicted as to whether I should hit the nurse call button on my remote to inform her that the deed had been done or if I should just tweet a cute little poop emoji at her since she did follow me on twitter at the time.

That poop story doesn’t even scratch the surface when it comes to embarrassing or weird hospital stories, it's just the most recent. I could be mortified and just try to forget every awkward encounter I've ever had in the hospital or I could embrace it, write it down and tell my stories to a bunch of strangers at comedy clubs and that's exactly what I do!

Nothing humbles you faster than being hospitalized. The loss of independence, privacy and normalcy can take its toll. For a lot of CFers, hospital and clinic visits become second nature. Some weeks you spend more time with medical staff than friends or family. It’s not uncommon to feel overwhelmed or unhappy. 

I know some people have success talking to a professional, family members or a friend. I on the other hand have recently discovered that stand up comedy is the way to go for me!

I started doing stand up comedy in my college town, Mankato, MN. It was something I always thought about doing but just never had the guts to do until last year. I've entered a few comedy contests. I've won one and I've lost plenty. I often joke about CF and diabetes. I like the idea that I get to trash talk my disease in a clever way that also makes others laugh. Without sounding too cheesy, it’s a very powerful feeling, that ownership of a bad experience being turned around and making someone laugh.

I'll never forget the time a man came up to me after a showcase and told me he had recently been diagnosed with diabetes. He said my diabetes jokes made him laugh about stuff he was crying about a year ago. I can't explain what that comment meant to me but I think it's the perfect example of what comedy can do for people and what it has done for me.

I've been extremely lucky when it comes to having great friends and I'm very thankful for them all. But my friends have jobs, schoolwork, and lives to live, they can't be there for me 24/7, especially when I’m wide awake at three in the morning due to an IV antibiotic or sudden cough attack. So when I'm sick, on my own or plans fall through, I turn to comedy and I have for some time now.

Middle school is when my attendance record really started suffering. I wasn’t open about CF and diabetes and besides for a few close neighborhood friends, I did everything in my power to keep my illness hidden. Surprisingly, It’s really hard to keep a low profile when you sporadically miss 80 some days in a single school year.

I vividly remember being home and watching TV during one of those 80 days. I came across Jimmy Fallon on The View. He performed a song called "Car Wash for Peace" (a song that for some reason I still know by heart to this day) Fallon also did a handful of impressions and told a few funny stories. His segment on The View completely took my mind off things.

 I wasn’t beating myself up over being sick or worrying about missing school or hockey practice. This was the game changer in the CF treatment plan.

After that day, I spent most of my sick days avoiding my makeup homework to YouTube anything and everything that had to do with comedy, to the point where it easily could've been considered an obsession. Watching SNL skits, Comedy Central Roasts, and HBO specials became part of my daily routine. Middle school also happened to be the time when I realized I wasn’t ever going to “fit in” and be like everyone else. Before I was considered funny, I was just plain weird to people. Nobody warned me that wearing a Weird Al shirt that said “White and Nerdy” would go unappreciated. But it was okay because the comedians I looked up to also didn’t fit in at that age and that gave me confidence and motivated me to stand out even more.

Unlike my other hobbies, I never had to take a break from comedy. There are countless times I’ve had to hang up the hockey skates early in the season due to a lung infection or IV but with comedy, the season never has to end.  

This past winter when I was dealing with a bad lung infection I kept busy by writing jokes for a comedy roast for one of my best friends. His birthday was coming up and he asked me to be the roast master of his comedy roast. It was honestly the best thing that could’ve happened to me. It kept my spirits up and my mind away from negative thoughts. Whenever I needed a break from all the medical hoopla, I would brainstorm a joke or two. 

I had five weeks of down time to write a killer set about all my college friends, it was perfect! After those five weeks, I ended up getting my PICC line pulled on a Monday and roasting the squad five days later.

Sometimes I feel like I spent more time studying comedians than anything else in college. I believe you can tell a lot about a person based on what makes them laugh. As for me, I gravitate more towards dark humor over easy cookie cutter jokes and I know CF is to blame for that. There's something so great about laughing at things you aren't supposed to that I just love so much. 

One thing that saves me during long hospital stays is joking around with the nurses. You never know how they’re going to react to things, some nurses are troopers, some give you a hard time back and some just aren’t having it and may even request to be taken off your service.

Usually when I am hospitalized I am given an antibiotic that could potentially cause hearing loss. Every morning a nurse would come into my room to ask a series of routine questions that I have been asked over and over again since I was 10 years old. Nothing they ask is new or unexpected. So when they nicely ask me, "have you noticed any changes in your hearing?" I can’t help but reply by screaming, "WHAT?!" Not going to lie, that joke doesn't sit well with every nurse but that's what makes it even funnier. It’s my tester joke, to see exactly who I’m dealing with and where I should go from there.

Cystic Fibrosis is not my identity. There’s more to me than this illness and by saying that, there is also more to my stand up than CF and diabetes jokes. I have no intentions on becoming “The CF comedian” but as strange as it might be to admit, I believe CF drove me to get on stage or at least gave me the courage. I like to think that if you can deal with CF, you can deal with anything.

Lorne Michaels once told Jerry Seinfeld "there's something about the joy, the sheer fooling around. It's something comedians do. You can't tell when they're working." I enjoy making fake MTV Cribs episodes from my hospital room. I think that teasing nurses is good for the soul and that getting paged to return to your hospital room when you runaway to pet a therapy dog is hilarious. I know I may come off as always goofing off to some people but there’s a reason behind it all. I do it for myself, my friends and my family. Finding the humor in a bad situation is more than just a pastime. It makes life more enjoyable and distracts you from the worry.

A few years ago when giving his farewell speech on The Tonight Show, Conan O’Brien said something that to this day always stayed with me. He said, “Please do not be cynical. I hate cynicism – it's my least favorite quality, and it doesn't lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen.” You can complain about having CF and the life you’ve been given but I think it’s better worth your time if you just laugh instead, plus it’s better for the lungs. 

 

 

Martha is currently 24 years old and was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis at birth. She is an outdoor recreation educator by day and an aspiring stand-up comedian at night. Martha maintains an active lifestyle by snowboarding, mountain biking, hiking and paddling on the beautiful lakes of Minnesota. She is also a former CFLF Recreation Grant Recipient. Follow her adventure on Instagram at @marthagarvey

 

 

 

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***Views expressed in the CFLF Blog are those of the bloggers themselves and not necessarily of the Cystic Fibrosis Lifestyle Foundation*** 

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