10 Reasons to Be Thankful Living with Cancer.

Well, lifter-uppers, I'm Deb Krier. I am the co-host of Cancer and Comedy, where our mission is to heal cancer-impacted people through hope and humor, something we like to call turning the grim into a grin. Well, today, on this day before Thanksgiving on Cancer and Comedy, we are going to talk about how to be grateful even as you live with cancer. Now, here is the host of the Cancer and Comedy podcast, Dr. Brad Miller.

Hey! Thank you, Deb. What an honor and privilege to be with you. And I'm really thankful to be with you and our lifter-uppers here today on this live version of our podcast, as we come to people on YouTube and LinkedIn, and we're glad that people have joined us.

This is the podcast where we look to offer a perspective on cancer that brings together a sense of having hope with an element of humor. And so, that's why we call it Cancer and Comedy. Cancer indicates that, you know, bad things have happened to you, and we kind of focus here on the actual people impacted by cancer. But it could be anything where, really, people have been devastated by some factor in life, some adversity.

Then we'd like to call it "cope with hope." We'd like to have coping strategies and ways for people to cope with hope and humor—turning the grim of cancer into the grin of a fulfilled, happy life.

We're developing a community here of like-minded people. We just know that no matter what the circumstances are, we're not done yet. We're going to keep going, and we're going to be vibrant, alive people, no matter the circumstances.

We are making that a part of our community effort. So, if you'd like to be a part of our community here at Cancer and Comedy, just go to our website, cancerandcomedy.com/follow.

We like to have some fun here today before Thanksgiving. So, Deb, how about a couple of really bad dad jokes regarding Thanksgiving?

Thanksgiving, huh? And I'm assuming they're gonna be Thanksgiving-related?

Oh, of course. Well, why did the cranberry blush?

I don't know.

It saw the turkey dressing!

Cute!

Oh boy. What's blue and covered with feathers?

I don't know.

A turkey holding its breath.

Cute, cute, cute. I love it.

And how do you fix a broken pumpkin?

I don't know.

You gotta have a pumpkin patch.

Oh, cute, yeah. Gotta have that pumpkin patch. I love it. So much fun.

Well, you know, as we mentioned, we would love for you to be part of our Cancer and Comedy community, where together we crush cancer with a message of how to cope with hope and humor. Please follow Cancer and Comedy at cancerandcomedy.com/follow.

Now, on today’s livestream, as I mentioned, and as we know, it is the day before Thanksgiving. So, Brad and I wanted to each share five things that we are thankful for. And even in some cases, you know, things that have come about because we are impacted by cancer.

So, my number five reason is—I feel like we need a drum roll, right?

Oh, wait, wait. I might have something here that we can do here. How’s that? You didn’t even know I could do that, did you?

I know! I love it. I love it. Well, you know, I am so grateful for my community and the support networks that I have built because of this. It’s been so interesting to see the people who have gone out of my life, but more importantly, the people who have come into my life.

And I never would have gotten to know them if I hadn’t been diagnosed with cancer. So, it’s kind of weird to be thankful for that, but I am thankful for that.

Well, that is awesome, and that’ll be a little bit later on in my list. But I just want to second that—the community, the people. You’ve developed a kind of a new community, as it were. You interact with people who you more than likely would not have interacted with before, and that’s a good thing. So, I just certainly second that.

My number five reason for being hopeful and thankful and having an attitude of gratitude here this Thanksgiving season is medicine—medical advances. You know, I think if you and I were going to have an honest conversation, if we were having this conversation about cancer in, say, 2004 or 1994 instead of 2024, both of our prognoses might not have been so good.

You know, right? I know you had very serious cancer treatments—stage three and four—and situations that I won’t go into detail about. If you choose to, you can. But they were very serious prognoses. Mine was prostate cancer, and just about two years ago, when I got the diagnosis, it was basically, “Hey, if you don’t do anything about this, you’re going to be pretty sick within a year or two, and you’re not going to be here within two or three years.” And here we are, two years later, and I’m doing pretty good.

So, I’m thankful for medical advances and those prognoses, and kind of the things that go along with that—the doctors and nurses and technicians and all the people in that world who are trained up and applying their skills not only to my situation and yours, but to so many people—giving them an opportunity to have some hope because of the medical advances.

And then I kind of put into that some of the things that you and I have learned as well in the course of doing our Cancer and Comedy podcast, and that’s things like the actual therapeutic impact of humor and things of that nature. It’s not just telling jokes for a good time or having a laugh; there is a therapeutic impact to those types of things. So, I went with the whole world of medicine and therapy and the advances in this area as my number five.

Right. You know, and I would say my number four is very similar to that, and it is more people-oriented.

I mean, you know, my care team that I have had through this whole journey is incredible. You know, there have been some that I kind of said, “No, no. Don’t really want you as part of my circle.” But those that I have in my inner circle are just such a blessing.

Anytime I go into my oncologist’s office—and I’m there every three weeks—I make sure that I go past her, my oncologist’s, actual office. Now, I have to walk past it, you know, to go down the hall, but I always make sure that I put my head in and say, “How you doing?”

And, more importantly, I also speak with her nurse and the nurse practitioners, and we always say, “I love you.” I mean, you know. Which sounds kind of funny, right? Because they’re my doctors. But I do—I really do care about them.

I discovered that my nurse’s mother passed away not long ago, and, you know, the next time I go in, I want to make sure that I stop in and say just how sorry I was to hear.

But yeah, I always say our medical care team are superheroes, right? And they often have very challenging and very sad jobs, especially in this area, right? But anything I can do to maybe help bring a little smile to their day, I do, because they are definitely something I am so incredibly grateful for.

And why not just use that phrase, “I love you”? It doesn’t mean we’re going off to, you know, vacation together or anything like that. It just means that we can express an emotional connection there and just have a moment that is loving and share that good word. That’s awesome. And wouldn’t you rather have a good relationship with the people who are dealing with your health and your body than to kind of have you mad at them? Yeah, that’s right.

That’s why I always ask, when somebody’s going to draw blood or give me a shot or anything like that, I always ask their name. Or even blood pressure, what have you. I always ask their name because I really want to know the name of someone who’s sticking a sharp object into me. I want to know that! Well, that’s a good one for yours.

My number four is similar to what we’ve talked about here—it’s basically support systems and support people. It’s this community that I want to talk to you about. It’s people in my life who I can share with, laugh with, cry with.

You kind of used the term “heroes.” And sometimes the people in my life are, you know, the unsung heroes of this journey. They’re my family, my friends, the people in my life. It’s you, our Cancer and Comedy community as well. Finding myself connected to other communities online and otherwise—your Try Not to Die.Live community.

It’s interpersonal; it’s those personal relationships, and it’s also virtual in a way as well. But it is that. I’m just thankful to have these new relationships and how they have been impactful in my life.

And one of the things I think it does for me, at least, is that there’s a sense of loneliness. There can be a sense of loneliness and a sense of kind of, you know, gloom that comes when you just feel like you’re facing something alone. And when you develop the community, you don’t have to do that alone.

You don’t have to. And hopefully, what we’re doing here at the Cancer and Comedy podcast is helping people to have at least some outreach and connection to develop that community. So, that’s mine.

I love it, you know? And, yeah, it is about those communities, right? Because we wouldn’t be here, literally, without them.

Yep, right.

So, my third—and this sounds a little bit strange—but I’m very grateful for the opportunity that I have to make change and to help people.

You know, it sounds a little self-serving, but it really has been so gratifying to know that I have the ability to maybe help make change in someone’s life—even if it’s just to remind them, “Hey, ask your doctor such-and-such,” or “Here’s a great resource,” or, you know, all of those things.

It’s funny. I had someone who said, “You know, I couldn’t have gotten through this without you.” Could they have? Sure, they would have. But it’s just that opportunity to help people get through this.

You know, I started Try Not to Die.Live because my business coach, the fabulous Kathleen Caldwell, told me, “You didn’t go through everything you went through without using it to help others.”

And we all know that we want to be of service to others. And in a weird way, I’m very grateful that I have this opportunity to be in service to others through my message.

That’s awesome. That’s awesome.

Well, yes, and I just want to kind of affirm that—to say, when bad things happen to you, do not waste that opportunity you have in order to transform it to serve the greater good, to serve others. Because otherwise, it’s kind of, in a way, selfish, if we just kind of keep it to ourselves.

And so, I think that kind of goes to my number three, which was an enhancement of my own personal strength—of my own personal possibilities. And I include in that spiritual growth, as well as emotional resilience, in this area that I’m thankful for.

Because when I was diagnosed with cancer, I was at a bit of a transition point. I had just literally retired from 43 years of ministry the month before my blood test flagged me, and my PSA count was up. And away we go with all that good stuff.

And I was feeling just a little bit lost and a little bit unsure and uneasy about what is next for me. And although there’s a lot of stuff to this, this whole experience has given me a new sense of purpose and strength that I didn’t really know I even had.

Because, you know, I dealt with cancer and other bad things in life with other people—family members and other people in my churches—but this was me now. And I had to find some inner strength.

That goes to the spiritual life, which I got. I found myself a little more involved with the prayer life and spiritual life and Bible reading and things like that. And of course, that’s where we often use the biblical verse, A cheerful heart is good medicine. But the other part of that verse is, But a crushed spirit dries up the bones.

And that perspective gave me a sense of, okay, I don’t want to be the crushed spirit guy. I would rather be the cheerful heart guy. But in order to do that, I had to have something—this experience, this wilderness experience. I had to go through that, and it made me a little bit of a stronger person. So, personal strength and spiritual depth is kind of my third one there.

You read my list! Oh my goodness. Why we get along! Because my number two is the personal growth and the resilience. You really don’t know what you can survive until you have to survive it, right?

And I have been definitely on a journey. You know, what do I want to do with my life? How do I want to live my life? Who do I want to be in my life? I think that’s one of the interesting things—deciding, okay, this person might be just a little too negative, so I don’t want them there. But wow, these people are fabulous, and I want to make sure that I have them as part of my life.

We definitely learn a lot about ourselves when we have to go through something like this. You know, it’s a journey that we wish we never had to go on, right? Nobody says, “Of course, I want to get cancer so I can grow.” But it is amazing because, for some people, it sends them down a very dark path. And I feel so bad when that happens.

You know, you and I were talking about somebody that I came across just yesterday who didn’t like that I focus so much on the positive. She liked to focus on the negative. And the funny thing is, she actually called that focusing on the truth.

Hmm, interesting.

Yeah, you know, focusing on the positive is also the truth. It is the truth for me. And we hear about the fact that what you believe is what’s going to happen. And I believe that things will come out the way they’re supposed to come out.

You know, my expiration date might be a little bit shorter than it was 5–10 years ago, but yeah, I choose to believe in the positive that is coming out of this as opposed to just focusing on the negative.

I love that. Well, focusing on the positive over the negative kind of really leads right into what’s next on my list, which is perspective.

The aspect of cancer has given me perspective on the relationships in my life in relation to the broader context of the whole world, for one thing, but particularly my own family and the people that I have some connection with.

And therefore, it has kind of transformed my own personal perspective from being a little bit self-centered, kind of "poor me" or "whatever is going on with me," to how it relates to other people.

And I credit my wife Debbie a lot for this one. So, I lift her up. Her name is Debbie—she goes by Deb a lot, and you’re a Deb, so I’ve got two incredible Debs in my life.

Two wonderful Debs. Yep!

But part of what I love about her—and about you as well—is the sense of accountability and kind of reflection on what is really, truly important.

So, in terms of perspective and personal transformation, I’m hopeful that I can be good to two people who have been really important to me: my two granddaughters, who are now seven and five—or seven and four. And so, I really want to see them grow up.

And so, they gave me a perspective, okay, that it wasn’t just about the momentary experience of experiencing my granddaughters as they were small children. But it’s also a perspective of trying to see them and do what I need to do in my life—not just to be alive, but to be an impact in their lives. Hopefully, to see them graduate high school, get on with their lives, and things of that nature.

And then, the major little bit about perspective and transformation comes into play. Not to be so much of a whiner and complainer, but to be more present, to be more authentic, to be intentional, and to live vibrantly and love deeply.

These are the things that I just need to do—to really celebrate that. To celebrate the laughter of my granddaughters, to celebrate my wife and my three adult children, and new friendships I make with people like you and other people in our Cancer and Comedy community. To celebrate that and just not get so caught up in whatever meaningless, grim stuff happens.

Because, hey, you know, you can go down that path. I tend to sometimes want to go down that pathway. Sometimes it’s about my health, and sometimes it’s about politics or something else. But I can go down some grim pathway, and I just don’t want to stay there.

Because that’s a bitter place, and I don’t want to be bitter. I want to be better.

And so, a little bit of what cancer has given me is the choice about being better over bitter. And that’s the perspective shift. I know I’ve kind of gone off on my little long-winded preacher rant here a little bit, but that’s the perspective I’ve seen in my sense. So, I’m kind of thankful that I’ve had this experience of cancer to help me gain some perspective.

Right. Yeah, it’s so important because I think we, in many cases, take a lot of things for granted, right? You know, and especially the people in our lives. Yeah, we just figure they’ll always be there. They’ll always, you know, whatever. Or we can always do whatever later.

I tell people, you know, get your bucket list out and do it now. Why are you saying, “Hey, I’m going to do it in 20 years?” Sure, do whatever it is now. But that does lead me to my thing that I am most grateful for, and it is, as always, my loved ones and my tribe members.

You know, we joke about the fact that I always say that I’m a cancer warrior, but no warrior stands alone. We have to have our tribe around us. And, you know, I am so incredibly grateful for you being part of that tribe. You know, and there have been other people who came into my life, and it was a totally different relationship than if we had just been friends, right?

But when they came into my life as part of this journey, it’s a very different relationship, and it has just been so fulfilling. And it truly has been a blessing. What I do is I hope that I can be a blessing to others. You know, the people who have served me—hopefully I don’t need to pay it back to them, because that might mean that they’ve got this going on too.

But, you know, it’s the pay-it-forward. How can I pay it to someone else? But yeah, I would not be here without my husband, my mom—she passed away earlier in March, but she was a big part of my care—and, you know, just all of those things. We’re just very grateful for the people in our lives who have helped us along this journey.

Well, I just want to second that, affirm that as a happy member of your tribe. And as we develop our own tribe together here at the Cancer and Comedy community, it just—it is good to go through this together, to be part of a family-type atmosphere. And it really leads me to my number one, which is: I’m thankful for the cancer experience for giving me—and this will sound a little bit weird, because cancer is kind of known as, used to be known as, kind of a death sentence-type of thing—but cancer, for me, has given me an illumination of a hope of a brighter future. I’ll just put it that way.

We like to talk about hope here quite a bit on our podcast in terms of how we can cope with the present situation—with hope and humor. And so, that’s what this has given me: a hope. That no matter what my circumstances are, I can be of value. I can be a contributor, in whatever the situation. And so, I am hopeful more than dreadful about a lot of things. You know, people can dread a lot of things, but I am more hopeful. And this has basically given me that because I had to process this whole deal.

You know, I teach my ACTS process: A, C, T, S.

You’ve got the A, which is to take action.

The C, to connect with a higher power.

The T, to be thankful and to think strategically.

And the S, to serve others with love.

And that goes into the hope here. I see the possibilities that are really before me. I see possibilities before me, and I see them before you, too. And that has to do with building this community together here at the Cancer and Comedy podcast, working with other communities like Try Not to Die.Live and others that we have been connecting with.

I can see not only the expansion and impact of what we do here on the Cancer and Comedy podcast—to reach more and more people with this message of, you know, a cheerful heart is good medicine—but also to cope with hope and humor and to see those possibilities.

All these other things we’ve mentioned here—the medical advancements, the support systems, the family, the spiritual aspects, personal development, and so on—they give me a little purpose in life. It’s related to how I can be a voice, and we can be a voice, to help people who are impacted by cancer.

Because here’s what we do know for sure: we know a lot of people are lonely, upset, and in dark places. We know that from our experiences—that they are there. Maybe we can do something about it.

So, one of the things when I developed my own personal mission statement—this kind of goes to my number one—was about cancer. But it also relates to life. Let me read my personal mission statement for you.

Oh! You’ve never read it to me. This is fascinating. I love this.

Well, I call it my Cancer Coping Credo, and I keep it by my desk and read it every day.

It says: "I will not let cancer define me. I will leverage cancer to refine my life—to the better in my relationships, and to drive me forward in my remaining days to fulfill the mission of sharing a message of healing through hope and humor and teaching the biblical message that a cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones."

And so, I don’t know—that came to me. I worked through a process here that I like to teach people. But I think that’s what cancer has given me—this new sense of being refined. And I think whatever people go through, it may or may not be cancer, but it may be cancer-like. It may be mental health, depression. It might be another type of illness, going through a divorce, a devastating financial reversal, or maybe the death of a loved one, grief, and so on.

These can be things that devastate people. But if we choose to then work through those with hope and humor, I think that’s a good thing. So, I think we’re helping. I just want to say also a word of thanks in our time here together, Deb, for all the people who participate. We’ve been doing the Cancer and Comedy podcast for over a year now.

Fabulous.

We’ve had some guests that were just tremendous as well. You know, I think about not too long ago we had Katie B with us, who travels the country in a van, offering cheer to people in Walmart parking lots, for instance.

There was Marlo, a breast cancer survivor who now does stand-up comedy as a way to share her story in her local community. And then there’s Frank King, another guest who takes a really tough subject like suicide prevention and puts a bit of a comedic spin on it.

I know I’m putting you on the spot a little bit here, but any guests that come to mind that made an impact on you?

You know, I’m not going to remember them all by name, but yeah—they’ve all had such wonderful messages. Some of them haven’t been talking directly about cancer, but others have. And I think the overall theme is, you know, bad things happen. What are we going to do? How are we going to get through it?

And, you know, I would encourage folks to go back and listen to the archives, watch the archives, because the guests have been fantastic and have provided such great inspiration. And sometimes they’re just flat-out funny. I mean, you know, Fred, who talks about the fact that his heart literally just stops, and he falls over and clunks his head repeatedly. And I believe he called himself “Never-Dead Fred,” right? Or “Always-Dead Fred.”

And I mean, how many people would look at that and go, “I can make this funny,” or “I can make this tragic.” It’s kind of the comedy and tragedy masks, right? And we’re not ignoring the negatives. Those are there.

Absolutely.

How can we turn the grim into a grin?

I think that’s important. As we talk about our lifter-uppers—we like to call the followers of our podcast lifter-uppers—you’ve got something to be thankful for, too. We’ve made our list—Deb and I made our list here—but I would encourage you to think about what you are thankful for.

What are you grateful for, even in the midst of whatever you’re facing—whether it’s cancer or some other bad thing in life? What do you have going for you instead of against you? And that’s that change of perspective that I would encourage people to embrace.

In that light, I just want to invite people again to connect with our community. I’ll make this personal promise moving forward, as we look to expand what we do here at Cancer and Comedy—to do other events, more live streams like we’re doing here, and other things to develop the community.

If you reach out to me—and I’m sure Deb would concur—if you reach out to us through the website at cancerandcomedy.com/follow, there’s a place there, a form you can fill out, and it gets right to us. You can reach out to Deb or me, and we will respond to you. We want to develop this community. And I’m sure the same thing goes for your website and Facebook page, Try Not to Die.Live. You have a growing, vibrant community of people there as well. That’s a good thing.

And I want to offer a gift to folks as a thank you for joining us here on this year-plus journey we’ve had during the Cancer and Comedy podcast. That’s a little five-day course we put together a while back called the HHH course, which stands for Healing with Hope and Humor. It’s five audios—five days. You can do it five days in a row. Basically, it’s about how you can apply some of the things we’ve talked about here to your life in particular.

For example, if you want to come up with that Cancer Coping Credo like I shared earlier, it takes 10 minutes or so a day. Just go to cancerandcomedy.com/free, and that’s where you’ll find it. We’d like to offer that to folks who would like to be a part of that. And just a great big thanks to all. Thanks to all our lifter-uppers.

No, you know, I think always be looking for what to be grateful for. Sometimes it’s small, right? And sometimes it’s huge. But, you know, as we are going into this holiday season, really think about what we are grateful for.

And sometimes we laugh, right? I tell people, “I’m happy I’m not looking up at six feet of dirt.” But I’m also so grateful for everything that has happened. It sounds very strange, but I am grateful for it.

Awesome, awesome. Well, let me just say a word of thanks one more time, and then if you can close us out after that, it would be great. But just to say a word of thanks to all of our lifter-uppers—the folks who follow the Cancer and Comedy podcast.

I want to say a big word of thanks to my wife Debbie, my family, for putting up with me spending some long hours working on this. And a big thanks to Deb Krier with Try Not to Die.Live for helping this be a great and joyous experience for me.

We certainly wish and give our best to all of our lifter-uppers, and we’re thankful for you here at this holiday season. Thank you so much for joining us here on Cancer and Comedy, and we’ll be back with our regular edited podcast episodes. You can always find that at cancerandcomedy.com. And on a pretty regular basis, we do these live streams as well, right?

And we’d love for you to join us on the live streams. That’s always a fun thing. Well, you know, before we wrap up, I’m gonna put you on the spot here just a little bit. It is Thanksgiving. We are getting ready to have Thanksgiving tomorrow. Would you please give us a short blessing?

I would be honored. Thank you for that.

Gracious God, and we would share this in the spirit of however people experience a higher power—something greater than themselves—I’m just thankful for everybody who listens to these words or sees these images and help them to know that they are indeed blessed people, in whatever circumstances they find themselves—be it cancer or some other bad thing, some other adversity.

Let them know that they can get through this situation, to a better place, by having a shift of perspective that comes with seeing life with gratitude and thankfulness over doom and gloom. I ask that each person finds what they have to be thankful for and grateful for, and that they set aside for the moment anything grim in their life. Instead, turn to the grin—the sensibility of a life that is fulfilled and fulfilling to the end.

I ask your blessing and anointing be upon every person who hears my voice and Deb’s voice and has this sense of thankfulness in their life. Let us move forward and know that a cheerful heart is good medicine.

And the people said, Amen!

Well, lifter-uppers, this brings us to the close of this live-stream episode of the Cancer and Comedy podcast with Dr. Brad Miller. As we’ve said, Cancer and Comedy is all about telling uplifting stories of people like you who are kicking cancer’s butt with healing through hope and humor. We would love to hear your stories about how you have turned your grim into a grin. Just go to cancerandcomedy.com/voice-message and tell us your story.

Well, that’s it for now. Please join us next time on Cancer and Comedy. And if you like what you hear, please pass this podcast on to someone in your life who needs to turn their grim into a grin.

For Dr. Brad Miller, I’m Deb Krier, reminding everyone once again that a cheerful heart is good medicine.