Cancer and Comedy Livestream: Healing Cancer with Hope and Humor with Dr. Brad Miller and Deb Krier

Cancer got you down? Pretty grim, huh? How about a show that turns the grim into a grin way to go? You've made it here to the Cancer and Comedy podcast, the show to lift you up with hope and humor that heals.

Hey there, lifter uppers. I'm Deb Krier, 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 Cancer and Comedy, we're going to do a live stream, as you see, for the first time to share the story, vision, and purpose of Cancer and Comedy. Now, here's the host of Cancer and Comedy, Dr. Brad Miller

Thank you, Deb. And here we are. We’ve gone live. We had a few little hiccups here already, but we are having some fun together here on Cancer and Comedy. We have a couple of things that we like to do. We like to share that there is hope for people who deal with cancer and that your life's not over yet if you have cancer, and that you can approach it and cope with cancer or things like that with hope and humor. And we like to say that's turning the grim of cancer into the grin of a fulfilled and happy life. And so that's what Deb and I are looking to do by this. We've been doing the Cancer and Comedy podcast on audio for about a year or so now. We decided to give it a shot here on live stream, and one of those reasons is because of my wonderful co-host here, Deb. She has the website and the Facebook presence of the page "Try Not to Die Without Live." We got to know each other at a podcast conference a year and a half or a couple of years ago now, and she has an infectious laugh and a way about her that really speaks to people who deal with some profound effects of cancer and things like that. So, love to be with you, Deb. We’ve had a lot of fun together so far with what we've done audio-wise on Cancer and Comedy, have we not?

We definitely have. You have had some absolutely phenomenal guests who have made us laugh, maybe cry, but definitely made us think. So I encourage anybody who is watching this to go to the website and check out our prior episodes.

Yeah, well, Deb, one of the things we like to do on almost every episode we have is I like to tell a dumb dad joke or two. So, are you ready for a couple?

Oh well, that's—I've been wearing my "Dad Jokes Are How I Roll" T-shirt here today, and that's just part of what we do. So, what happens to a frog when its car breaks down?

I don't know.

It gets towed. It gets towed. Okay? I got so bored the other day, Deb, that I made a belt out of my watches. It was just a “waist” of time.

Cute. See, folks, this is why you need to listen to our podcast.

Yeah, well, you get real gems like that. But one of the gems I always enjoy getting out of our conversations is hearing about the stories that we have on our podcast. But I think it's important here on this live stream for Deb and me to tell our story. We got together at a podcast conference because we both had some similar stories that we both were dealing with cancer on some level or another, and we both had an approach that included a touch of humor and even some laughter and a kind of positive approach to deal with this. Some people call it therapeutic humor, but we have taken that approach. I loved Deb's approach. She has the website "Try Not to Die Dot Live." There's a whole story behind that, and there's a whole story about what she's about. So, Deb, why don't you just take a moment here and share with the folks your story of how that came about and your approach to this whole "Try Not to Die Dot Live"?

Perfect. Well, thank you so much. And again, thank you for having me as the co-host of your program. I tell people I'm Ed McMahon to your Johnny Carson, and so it's so much fun. But my story started back in 2015. I went and had my annual physical, you know, good little person that I was, and they discovered that I had what they said was stage zero breast cancer. I had microcalcifications. I didn't have a lump, a bump, or anything like that—nothing to get overly concerned about. So, I kind of went for several weeks without much concern. I have a background in this. Years ago, I worked for the American Cancer Society and for an oncologist, so I know just enough to be dangerous, right? And so, I had several follow-up tests, and those all showed no reason to worry. Then we finally did pull some lymph nodes, and eight of 12 lymph nodes were positive for cancer. So, that meant that not only did I have cancer, it had spread. So, at that point, I had decided to do the very traditional approach. You know, I know that each person needs to select what works for them, but I was going to do chemo, surgery, and radiation. So, finally met with an oncologist several months into this process, right? And she agreed that, yeah, that would be what we would do. So, I had a very massive dose of chemo, and actually, it was eight different drugs. I was fine for a couple of days, and then my world crashed. I developed a complication that, at that point, I was the only person in the world who had ever survived it. And luckily, my doctor knew what it was. I was able to get emergency surgery, but I did go into septic shock, which is very hard on the body. I believe the stat is around 75% of people who go into septic shock do not survive because it is a massive infection that attacks your organs. So, I was in the hospital for about seven weeks, in and out of ICU, lots of other surgeries—it was just really a lot of fun. But I really did have fun with it. I mean, you know, it was as much as I could. We tried to joke and laugh. But then I had surgery. I had a double mastectomy. Had a complication from it that my surgeon had never seen. If you haven't figured it out, I do things differently. I have to be special.

Right? You gotta just push limits, don't you?

I just have to really challenge them. But then things kind of straightened out. I went through radiation with absolutely no issues. We had decided that chemotherapy was clearly not going to work, and so I do a different type of treatment that I actually still do. I get an infusion every 21 days, and we'll just keep doing that for as long as my body says, "Okey dokey." But, you know, several other things along the way, because septic shock does cause many long-term complications. But several years ago, I was talking with my business coach, and she said, "You didn't go through everything you have gone through without using it to help others." And I said, "Yeah, but I don't want to be Cancer Girl." But I knew that she was right, and in any way that I could help others on this journey, I would do that. So, that was when I started "Try Not to Die Dot Live." The story behind the name is, you know, when my mother was here—she came out, obviously, when I was very critically ill—and one of the times when a medical person left—came and did something and then left my room—I got the disapproving mother...

...face, okay.

...and she said, "You did not say thank you." And I said, "Oh, for heaven's sakes, Mom, I'm trying to not die here." And then later on, when I was thinking about it, I thought, "You know, that really is the case. We get so caught up in trying to not die that we forget that we have to live." And so, that was why the website is "Try Not to Die Dot Live." That is where we've gone with everything with it, and it is about helping anyone who is on a journey with cancer, whether they have cancer themselves or if they are supporting someone who has cancer. We have a very active Facebook group, but it's about how can we help each other through this challenge.

Well, I did what I mentioned. I put your website, "Try Not to Die Dot Live," in the description here on the YouTube event and in the other places that we have this land here as well. And I really commend people to go there. Lots of great resources you’ve put together on your website and on your Facebook group—quite active there. And, you know, I love that energy about you. Because what you said there was really part of my story and part of the vision of why we do this podcast, right? You know, which has to do with, you know, let’s live and not focus on the dying. You know, we’re all kind of under a death sentence in a way, you know? From the day we’re born, there is a finite end to this life. So, let’s enjoy that. And whatever circumstances come around, be they cancer or something else, it doesn’t have to be the end of the story. It can be a new story set in a different way, with different angles and different purposes. In my case, I’m a retired pastor. I went through a lot of great things in 43 years as a church pastor, including a lot of time dealing with folks with cancer and other bad diseases. And I noticed during those years, and in those times with people, there were two or three groups of people. There were the stoic people who just got through it, the people who really fought it and were crazy angry and mad, and then others who, in a way, took it in stride. "This is a part of my life." Oftentimes, they would tell great stories. Many times, the stories had a bit of humor—they were family stuff, those kinds of things. And I always saw the ones who were having the most fun, even in the most dire circumstances, were the ones who were like... as the biblical saying goes, “A cheerful heart is good medicine.” So, to have a cheerful heart. And I saw that in my ministry. Then, just as fate would have it, I retired a couple of years ago, and just a month or so after I retired, I went to see my doctor. It is almost exactly two years ago now. I saw my doc, and the blood test came back. “Hey, Brad, we gotta check this out. You’ve got some elevated PSA levels going on here.” That led to a whole battery of tests that indicated I had prostate cancer. That got my attention—got my attention. So, I got the final diagnosis of prostate cancer just a couple of days after Christmas. And I just remember getting that phone call, and my initial reaction to the phone call was kind of just a chuckle. It was kind of like, you know, "Really?" Yeah, just kind of... and it was an attitude of, I kind of had to laugh to keep from crying. I handed the phone to my wife, and we had to deal with that reality. That image went through my head—I had to laugh to keep from crying because it was such serious news to deal with, especially at Christmas time. It kind of exacerbated it. So, I gave this little funk, you know, this “why me?” kind of thing. You know, Christmas and all this stuff... I had just retired. My wife and I had big plans for traveling and so on. You know, all that seemed to go into a foggy place for me. But as fate would have it, a day or two later, my wife and I were scheduled to spend some time with our two granddaughters, who were about two and four at that time—just delightful little girls. We went out and did the arcade and the bowling thing, and just spent our day with them. We ended up at a McDonald’s restaurant just to have Happy Meals and stuff. We don’t do that too often anymore, but the girls wanted to, so we did that—Happy Meals and little toys and everything. These two little girls were squealing, delighting, and having a great time. I mean, they’re two and four years old—giggly little girls. They had no idea what my wife and I were going through. They were just having a great time with their grandma and grandpa. So, we were having a great time with them. And what I had right then was a bit of a vision—seeing those two little girls. They were two and four years old. I thought, "I really want to see these little girls when they’re young women—like 22 and 20 or something like that." Whatever was going on in their life, right now, my prognosis was not that good. So, I needed to do whatever I could in every area of life—that included the physical health aspects, my connection with God, and my strategic thinking in terms of what to do. And then, I thought about how I could make something good out of this. For whatever reason, that kind of went back to the image of laughing to keep from crying. I thought about why I really, you know... I just made a commitment right then. Whatever time I had left—my prognosis at that time wasn’t the best. If I didn’t do anything about my cancer, they said two to five years. And that didn’t sound too good to me. So, I said, "Well, what do I need to do to live a fulfilled life, no matter what?" And that led me to think, okay, here I could take my years of ministry experience—43 years—and talked a little bit about that a minute ago. I could also take the fact that I had earned a doctoral degree in transformational leadership, which is all about how to think strategically about how you can transform yourself and others to be effective and add value to your life, your organization, or the greater good. So, I got a doctoral degree in this area. Then, I realized that a lesson I learned from some of the people I had been with is if you have an attitude with a bit of humor in it, it helps. It helps. And I began to study this thing called therapeutic humor a little bit, which is about how you can apply a hopeful, grateful attitude with a little humor and laughter in it. It does help—it helps you cope. We like to say, cope with hope. Not too long after that, I met you, and we put our heads together and said, “Hey, why don’t we do a podcast to focus on this area?” We decided to call it Cancer and Comedy—not to be disrespectful or to dissuade the seriousness of having cancer. It’s not a "haha" comedic thing all the time, but it’s how you can use comedy to help you cope with the drama. We like to see it as the two sides of the Shakespearean mask—you’ve got the tragedy over here and the comedy over there. Two sides of life. So, we put our heads together and decided to do this together. We launched it just about a year ago—recording this in August of 2024. We launched it in August of 2023. We’ve done a year’s worth of podcast episodes, and we’ve had a lot of fun doing it with this whole image of what we can do—you and I together, and with our guests—to offer what we like to call hope and humor. How can we speak to our audience of cancer-impacted people, or people impacted by something profound—be it cancer, another health-related issue, or something else? How can we help them cope with it, using two elements we call hope and humor—visions of hope and humor to help them have some healing? That’s what we’re all about. We love to tell stories. You’ve already told a great story, I’ve told a story, and we’ve had other great stories too. So, what do you think we’ve learned a little bit? What’s your idea of the vision we’ve put together here? And who are we trying to talk to—who are we trying to be helpful to?

You know, anybody can benefit from what we’re talking about. Obviously, it is for those who are impacted by cancer—whether it’s them, a loved one, a friend, a coworker, whoever. But how can we bring a little bit of levity? Because it is a very serious subject. When someone is told, "You have cancer," probably the first thing that goes through most people’s minds is, "I’m dead," right? So, how can we help them through that? There are many, many studies that show the benefits of laughing. It raises your endorphins, helps your blood pressure, decreases pain—all of these various things.

What happened here?

We went black. I think I can just keep talking. It improves your immune system—all sorts of things. So, it is important to include humor. Sometimes it’s kind of dark humor. Several of the guests you’ve had on have had some dark humor-type things. Others have just been funny. You’ve had several comedians on. But I think it’s something where we can show that it’s okay to feel bad, mad, angry, sad—all of those things. But then we need to laugh about it too. You know, I have a fake name.

Okay, yeah, you’ve got to tell this story because it’s a great story.

I know, I know. I only use it with people who know me because it gets the poor medical people very concerned if you give them the wrong name. But, you know, they ask, "What is your name and date of birth?" And I look at them and smile sweetly and say, "Anastasia Beaverhausen." I have no idea where that came from. It’s not original—I stole it from somebody. But in the infusion room where I go for treatment, they’ve decided that it’s "Princess Anastasia Beaverhausen." And, of course, you must do the Queen wave, right? But it is about how can we lighten the burden, maybe? We’ve had some very serious topics, too. We’ve talked about mental health issues—some things that are very serious. One of the things I love is that you bring your faith in as part of it. We have a very important "Faith It and Break It" session every time, and I think that’s something that helps people. How can we help others?

Yeah, well, that hopeful piece has different aspects to it. We want to offer hope that maybe has humor infused into it. But sometimes it has to do with education, and sometimes it’s how we relate to one another. First, we’ve talked about how we relate to friends or relatives when we deal with a cancer diagnosis or bedside manner of doctors—things of this nature. We’ve talked to comedians and others in the medical and mental health communities who help us navigate those things as well. We had a guy named Rick Robertson, early on, who dealt with prostate cancer like I do, and he talked about how there were some dark times in that process. We had a guy named Frank King, another comedian, on recently who puts a humorous slant on even suicide ideation, which is pretty serious to deal with. I remember we had Tonya on from the Other Side podcast, who talks about how there’s a whole process to get from the point where you have cancer to the other side, and how there are processes there. So, those guests we’ve had on have been helpful. But I know you and I have had a lot of interchange about our own experiences and our own journey, medically and otherwise. You know, I think that’s helpful as well. One of the things I’m really hopeful we can do moving forward, Deb, is to have even more interaction with our—what we call—our "lifter uppers," our audience, right? We’ve had a fair amount of that, but I’d like to do even more. I just want to encourage people—even here on the chat, if you want to check out the chat—we’re doing these live streams. The plan right now is every fourth Wednesday of each month to have at least one live stream a month, and maybe add more as we go. That’s one place you can go. You can check out the YouTube stream and, hopefully, soon, on Facebook. You can find that at youtube.com/cancerandcomedy. You can always go to our website, cancerandcomedy.com, to find us as well. We have links there. You can also leave us a voice message. We would love to hear from people at cancerandcomedy.com/voicemessage. I’ll put notes about all those things in the description here of our episode today. We love to hear from folks, don’t we?

We do, we do. I think one of the things that is so important about this is just talking about it, right? People think, "Oh, we don’t want to talk about it, we don’t want them to feel bad," or "We don’t want to make them feel bad." Especially when you’re talking about something like prostate cancer, breast cancer—all of those things that might be a little embarrassing on occasion. But, of course, it happens, right? So, it’s important to realize it’s so important to talk about it. One of the things people always tell me is, "My sister, my coworker, my friend was just diagnosed, and I don’t know what to do." Because they don’t want to upset them, they don’t want to make them feel bad—all those things. Or they just don’t know what to say, so they don’t do anything. And then, of course, we—the people who are on this journey—think that they don’t care, that they don’t love us. I tell people one of the things you can say... Well, I always say, "You know, Hallmark has cards."

But I also, at the same time, Deb, we’ve offered practical advice to people—out of our own experience, and the experience of our guests—on how you can try to handle those situations. Like you just said, "Hallmark has cards."

Yeah, you know... I tell people it is perfectly fine to say, "I’m so sorry you’re going through this." But then don’t say, "Just tell me if there’s anything you need," because we can’t get our heads around that. We have so many other things we’re dealing with. But be specific, right? "Can we bring you dinner on Friday? Can we do this? Can we take your kids to a movie?" Because then our little cancer-battled brains can grasp onto that and go, "Okay, that works."

That is awesome advice right there. And that’s one of the things we really want to do. I know it’s one of our values we’ve talked about. This isn’t to be some exercise in medical jargon or anything like that. This is to be practical and pragmatic—to help people cope with the situation. We offer this as directions—not medical advice. I have a doctoral degree, but it’s not in medicine. I have a Doctor of Ministry, just to be clear. But we want to offer people a sense of how to navigate all this stuff because when you jump into it... I know you’ve had really long hospitalizations and serious matters, as I have as well, but some of the people we’ve talked to have had some serious matters too. You’re thrown into just a whole different world, and it can throw you off completely. Not only for us, who have been impacted by cancer itself, but for family, friends, and others in our lives. If we can offer just some direction to be helpful to people... we do that. You do it on "Try Not to Die Dot Live." We also offer a free short-term audio course, where we teach the ACTS plan: A is for taking action, C is to connect with a higher power—a spiritual aspect, T is to think through the process, and S is to serve others with love. We offer that to people. You can always go to cancerandcomedy.com/free to get that little course. We offer these practical ways to cope with hope and a touch of humor, right?

Yeah, yeah. And it’s okay, as we were saying, to feel bad. But then, what can we do to get out of that funk?

That is awesome. What kind of encouragement do we want to leave our listeners with today, Deb, before we say goodbye in this first live stream we’ve ever done? What kind of good word do you want to leave with our folks today?

I want to say, you are not alone. Yes, ask for help. Turn to others and know that there is help out there and there is support for you.

I just want to be clear that there’s support out there in your family, your local community, to be sure. But one of the important things we want to do here at Cancer and Comedy is to be a part of your community as well. We are here for you. Even personally, you can reach out through the website, cancerandcomedy.com. Leave a comment, or reach out to us at cancerandcomedy.com/follow—that’s one good way of doing that. You can reach out to us. We are looking to form a community. We see the live stream as a way of forming this community even deeper and further because we basically have a vision, don’t we, Deb? We envision a place where people can find that coping is okay. The way I like to see it is that we are really targeting people who know that we’re just not done yet. No matter what has gone on in our life, we’ve got a cancer diagnosis, but we’re not done yet. We’re going to live life to the fullest until we’re not here anymore. One of the ways you and I have chosen to do that is through the Cancer and Comedy podcast at cancerandcomedy.com. We’re involved in other things as well. I’m in Indianapolis; I do things in my local community. You’re in Atlanta; you do things in your local community and with family and friends. We’re also involved in other activities. I know sometime we’ll talk all about your world of showing dogs—you know, we’ll talk about that. I know it’s a bizarre world, but we’ll talk about it on a live stream. But all these things are part of this deal. We are here for you, lifter-uppers, our friends, to be helpful to you. And we want to do just that, right?

Yeah. We call people "lifter-uppers" because we’re lifting each other up.

We like to say, you know, we like to take people from the grim of cancer to the grin of an uplifted life—to lift people up because cancer can get you down. And we’re here to lift you up, right? Are we? Are we? Thank you for being with us, and I just want to say a big thank you to you, Deb, for being a great partner in this endeavor. I look forward to more good things to come, and we’re going to be sharing a lot and offering a lot to our lifter-uppers here on the Cancer and Comedy live stream, right?

I love it, I love it. And as Dr. Brad said, this brings us to the close of our live stream of the Cancer and Comedy podcast. 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. As we’ve said, you can join those of us who are turning their grim into grins by telling us your uplifting story. Just go to cancerandcomedy.com/voicemessage. Well, that’s all for now. Please join us next time on Cancer and Comedy. If you like what you hear, please pass the 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 you that a cheerful heart is good medicine.

Hey, thanks for joining us on the Cancer and Comedy podcast with Dr. Brad Miller. Make sure you visit our website, cancerandcomedy.com, where you can follow the show and get our newsletter. Like what you hear? Then tell a friend about Cancer and Comedy—the show that lifts your spirits with hope and humor that heals. Until next time, keep turning the grim into a grin.