Prostate Cancer: What's So Funny About That?

Hello, hello, everyone. Well, it is always fun to join everybody live. I am 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 we're gonna be talking just with each other. That's always fun to kind of have a chat. And I'm gonna be talking to Brad about some recent things that he has been working on, and we're gonna have a great discussion. So please join me in welcoming the host of our cancer and comedy podcast. Dr Brad Miller.

Hey, Deb, it's great to be with you with our lifter uppers. Here, we are going live today, and we'll be sharing this and all the regular podcast outlets as well, but to we let to go live once in a while, just to connect up with our lifter uppers and with one another and to share a little bit of what's going on with us. And you know, we're all about helping people to cope with cancer and other bad things in life with hope and glad to call it, turning the grim of life into the grin, which is a fulfilled life and where you're not done living yet, and no matter what the situation is and and we just like, like to do that, to offer a little different perspective on things. You know, sometimes I like to use the Bible verse from Proverbs 17, it says that a cheerful heart is good medicine. And I just think it's what we like to try to offer people who are going through some tough times. It's a cheerful approach to things. And so our website is cancerandcomedy.com. We'd love for people to go there and follow us and be part of the community they were building here. And certainly go to your website, try not to die. Dot live and to be a part of that as well, because I've certainly have enjoyed our time together, you and I, and with our lifter uppers and all the people we've been able to have on our podcast the year and a half or so, we've been doing this to just learn, learn a lot, but also laugh a little bit, cry once in a while, and do but to do Something important to help people to cope with hope.

I love it. I love it. Well, you know, as as we know, the podcast is called cancer and comedy. And what many people who are our lifter uppers don't know is that Dr Brad is a budding comedian. Actually, he is a comedian. He has performed several times, and one of the places he has performed twice at is Podfest. That's where we initially met. Several years ago, I was not a and they have a time where people can go and do an open mic. And this year, I was not able to attend, and so I missed his appearance on stage, so I just wanted to hear him tell us a little bit more about that and maybe tell us, you know, give us a recap of his performance.

Well, I appreciate you asking about that. You know, it's kind of funny when we started even talking about this, you and I, by doing the idea of cancer and comedy, there was a lot of dichotomy in that, you know, kind of thinking, Okay, do you really want to have that word comedy in there with cancer? Because it's such a serious topic in so many ways. But I thought about, you know, what was my experience? What was my experience in dealing with people in my ministry and things of that nature who really seem to cope well with bad things like cancer, and they almost invariably, were people with a good sense of humor about what they were all about. And I found that being my own cases, I was dealing my own prostrate cancer that, you know, I kind of had to laugh to keep him crying. I just decided just to try to take a little positive approach to it. And then I've always been a bit of a fan of comedy and things like that. And Steve Martin's one of my favorite comedians, and I even took an online course with him about how to do comedy and things of things of that, how to do comedy writing things of that nature. And and I just got me a little more interested in what that was really all about, it was kind of the one of those bucket list things I've when I retired a few years ago from active ministry, I thought, you know, something I might like to try someday is stand up comedy. And so the opportunity came when I reached out to some comedians to do when we started putting together our podcast here, I started connecting with some comedians and some people in the comedy world, and that got me interested to learn more on that and and we had a fellow by name of Rick Roberts, a comedian, come to my my own community and helping me do a cancer benefit. And he's a prostrate cancer survivor like I am, and he had some great job. Folks and some fun things to share about his experiences that way, and able to be helpful to people. So I said, Well, may this, if opportunity comes, maybe I'm already give this gives us a shot. So, opportunity did come. And then I took a bit of a kind of a workshop, a class at Pod Fest, the event we you and I have talked about a couple times. It was all about how to do three minutes of comedy by professional comedians, to Los Angeles based comedians. And so I took a little class, and it's led me a couple of opportunities in to do a three-minute stand-up routine for people, and they were pretty well, well received. And I decided to, instead of trying to avoid the thing that's kind of right before me, the cancer and that kind of thing, in particular, my case, prostate cancer, I decided to lean into that, into the little comedy routine that I I did, the three minute routine that I did, and they just had some fun with it, and kind of leaned into some of the scary parts and the ugly and the kind of the little bit ugly parts about having prostate cancer, and kind of lean in into that, because what? And so that's what we did. It was a lot of fun, and I was able to get to do my three minutes' worth, and it led to some other opportunities. Some of those comedians have reached out to me and said, Well, this is my something you might want to try. And then I'm thinking about doing more hosting of comedy shows in my local community and things of that nature, because I just think humor helps. And then it also, and it led to a speaking opportunity I have at a big conference called the A, th, which is association of applied and therapeutic humor, and I'll be so it's led me to prepare, then a presentation, an hour long presentation, basically what my three minute comedy routine was about, about prostrate cancer. So now I'm doing an hour-long presentation about this, and that's also led me to start writing a book about all this. So I've got, oh, you know, I've ended up about halfway through a manuscript on Friday, a book about this, all these experiences of having prostate cancer, and what is some of the the kind of, the good, the bad, the ugly of it, you know, kind of and how you can make some light of it. So that's what I've been trying to do.

Well, you know, and we've talked about this several times, about appropriate humor, right, you know, and, and, and also, you know, it, it's okay for us to poke fun at ourselves, but if somebody pokes fun at somebody else, you know, like a comedian Who is saying, well, that person is so fat, it doesn't always go over well, right? And so it's, it's very interesting that, you know, it's okay to poke fun at ourselves and you and I have both had, you know, some things you know, between, you know, prostate cancer for you and breast cancer for me. You know, in a lot of cases, sometimes those are taboo subjects. And, you know, I think what it does is it allows people to talk about it in a more comfortable way.

Well, I'll give you an example that, you know. I think it can break down a few barriers in there for, you know, just, you'll just be frank about it. When you're talking about prostate cancer, you're talking about some things that are really intimate. You're talking about incontinence and impotence, and you're talking about other things of that nature, which are pretty difficult. So one of the you know things, if I poke it up myself, then maybe help people can get through to them, you know, I said, you know, what are the, what are the three scariest words that are known to about every man, and they are digital rectal exam, which is what you gotta.

Yeah.

which is what you gotta have when you're dealing with prostrate cancer. And so that may not be the most uncomfortable test you can have, but it's right up there. So, you know. So these are some of the things I dealt with a little bit the idea about that, and we talked about the ways that, where you think about humor? Deb, some of the areas that are most prevalent in humor, kind of types of humor are, you know, the things I'm dealing with are bathroom humor, incontinence, you know. And you know, impotence has a lot to do with sexuality. So sex is often a, you know, topic of humor you also deal with, I believe you also deal with, and I think this is a common thing with all types of cancer. I call it insolence, which is where I got kind of mad about the deal. And, you know, one area of humor is just kind of being, you know, diffusing anger. You know, diffusing being mad. And I think those are some areas that had come into play here, you know, just like I talked about, in my little routine, about how the you know that I got won the prize of and or, you know, the when you get diagnosed with cancer, you get the prize, in this case of an early excruciating death, or you get radiation in your gonads, or you get they get to cut out a walnut. Safe Wallet sized tumor from, you know, from, from your testicles. And that's there, which, you know. So it's like, you're the big, you're the big winner, you know. And-

Ding, ding, ding, yeah.

So that's kind of, you know, there are some things that talked about in there, about, and I talked about, I suddenly became the prostate cancer poster boy, which is no big deal, because really, all these bunch of old, old guys sit around and make a yell at the make a wish kids to get off our lawn, you know, so we're just so. So these are some of the things I talked about in my little river routine there, but it led me to really kind of discern it, and think of it. Think it through here a little bit and what it really means to do this. And I came down to four things that I think, I call them the four eyes that I think were meaningful to me and that I think were meaningful to people, and even though I kind of couch it in the framework for prostate cancer, I think it's applicable to anybody with any kind of a cancer, any other bad thing happened to you. And I'll just lay them out there for you because what it's kind of funny how, you know, the comedy thing led to a program, the program's leading to a book. And I'm really thinking it through here about how I can help people to and they're so-called the four eyes because they focus on me, the first, the first i. And this whole thing is insanity. It's kind of like when you first get diagnosed with cancer or anything like that. You're it's confusing, you know, I was like Cleopatra, the queen of denial, you know, because I was, you know, unable to deal with this confusing. It was a state of dizziness. And there's a feeling there that I think made me feel a little bit insane, you know, like I was losing my mind here, right? And so how do you how do you deal with that confusion? I don't know if you feel that's the case for people deal with or not, but that, I call it the insane stage, and then another so. But again, the insane all these deal with, I mean, you point it back towards myself rather than, rather than others and so. And this is just the second eye. And that was this thing that happens to people with prostate cancer and lots of other types of cancers, which is incontinence. And, you know, nobody likes the feeling of not being able to control their bladder or their bowels.

when you sneeze or when you cough? Is there going to be a problem?

Yeah, it's just not the best feeling in the world. And I remember, you know, suddenly that is a kind of a lack of control. And when you lose control, it's a little bit depressing, you know, when all of a sudden, in my case, you know, the for me, the funny thing was, it's kind of not a funny, haha, but it was a funny, weird. The ironic thing is, about the time my of A, now a four year old granddaughter, when it was she was about two or year and a half, two years old when I was going through my cancer treatments. And all of a sudden, I got a diaper bag, and my two-year-olds got a diaper bag. So it's got grandpa's diaper bag and, you know, my granddaughter's diaper bag. And so we would compare notes a little bit on our potty training kind of a thing, as it were. And so I thought, Man, this is really reverting back to my childhood, and, you know, it was just, but I didn't like it, you know, I didn't like it, right? I tried to make fun of it and have some fun with it, but I didn't really like incontinence. So I think that incontinent feeling kind of with the example of actual physical incontinence is the thing a lot of people have when they feel like they lose control. Do you agree with that? They feel like they're kind of.

I do, I do, you know, and, and I think that's probably one of the biggest things with cancer, is we feel that we are out of control, right? You know, whatever it is in this whole thing. And, you know. And then when there are things that other people just take for granted and we have no control over it, it's, you know, it's, it's not fun, and it's, you know, we're gonna get angry, we're gonna be embarrassed all of these various things. And, you know, but, but it is, it's that you're not in control of this situation that is so hard to deal with.

Yeah, and that's what I found here for us. As I got it that I mentioned that I had a was able to put together a comedy show benefit for cancer, no, six months or so after I had my cancer surgery, and as I'm getting ready, just a 20 minutes before I was getting ready to go introduce this comedian, speaker and all that kind of stuff. All of a sudden, a big, a big wet spot on my jeans. There it was, and I had to go change my pants and all that kind of stuff. And just like, okay, this is not what I signed up for here, this kind of thing.

And it was before the show. Oh, so it was Shane.

Yeah, but yeah, just like, just that out-of-control feeling. Then kind of, I think a lot of people have that. But again, that's another I word. So it kind of points back to me. It's about me, about me losing control, that kind of thing. And so the third eye that I talk about in my presentation, that I'm doing in my book. And kind of, what the comedy thing led me to think about is his impotence. And no guy likes to really talk about impotence too, right? Because it is, but it goes to power. You know, it's not only a sexual power thing. It is about your manhood, if you will, all that kind of thing, your ego. I guess I would put it, and everybody has that to some degree. You know, your ego or your self-esteem is somewhat, you know, I know whenever in for men, it's prostate cancer. For some women, when they have, you know, whatever, hysterectomy, or any number of things that can happen there. Some women have these types of feelings as well regarding that, those type of things and so, and I had to deal with that. I really did, and had to deal, you know, and we can joke, you know, about sex and all that kind of stuff to to a degree, but it is about power. You lose power and use, you know, virility is another word that we use there. But what it means is you start to feel useless. That's what the feeling I had was, to feel powerless. Impotence means that you are no longer potent. And so those and so this has to do with, you know, all the things that you were able to to do before you can't do now, right? Am I going too far? Is it that I've got, have I gone too masculine? Sure. Is this a no-actor?

Yeah? Because, you know, it's certainly, you know, there are a lot of the same things that happen to women and, you know, and, and I think then we also realize that we're affecting our partner, right? And, and, so that's always a challenge, you know, is, you know, how do we, excuse me, work around these intimacy issues? And, of course, the biggest thing is, we've got to communicate, you know, and, and, but it's, it's really scary, I mean, you know, and especially for men, because starting in about all 14, right, maybe even a little younger, your world revolves around this. That's right, absolutely, um, you know, I remember years ago when I worked for the American Cancer Society, I was interviewing people for our newsletter, and was interviewing, you know, during Prostate Cancer Awareness Month, you know, that was was, you know. And so I'm sitting in a restaurant with this gentleman, and he very proudly and very loudly proclaimed that he was not impotent, yeah, you know. And of course, everybody in the restaurant looked around at us, and it was just like, okay, he's proud, and I'm gonna crawl under the table. But, you know, it was, it really is something. And I think more than anything, what you're doing is showing that it's okay to talk about this, and that's the big thing.

and it needs to be talked about. It needs to be talked about in a way that is funny but serious at the same time, you know, like an impotence. You know, there are things that they can do for it now, but they are extraordinary measures compared to what you used to be able to do. And I won't get into great Dorothy details, but some of them involve literal injections. You know, lots of commercials on late night TV, yeah, and not just the pills now, but I'm talking about literal, you know, stick a needle in your penis is what it's about, and that's no fun. Or they talk about the pump things. I would make jokes about balloon animals and things like that, but, you know, but you know you could, but you know, they have all kinds of options out there, but they still are not what you want, right? They're not what you want out of life there. And so the idea is, you feel kind of useless and kind of, you know, no longer a deal. And I just think a lot people deal with this, but again, it's another eye thing, you know; it's all about me instead of somebody else. So that the fourth eye that I, I'm talking about here is, I call it insolence, which is just kind of being mad at the world. That that's the mean old. That's the grumpy old man. That was the grumpy old man that in me, that would come out and too often take it out my wife, or, you know, you know, be upset with any number of things make me upset, because it's just kind of, and I, I kind of take it back to this that becomes selfish, you kind of become mean. You kind of lose your mind. The first, you kind of lose your mind in the, in the sense of the decisions that you make. In this case, you know, the first i being insanity is just, you're confused this with the insolence part is when you are just kind of mad about, you know, it's a pity party about me and you. Yeah, the thing was, Deb, I didn't, you know, when I started looking at my life here these four eyes, I didn't want to be any of those things, you know, I didn't want to be confused. But with insanity, I didn't want to be out of control. With the incontinence thing, I didn't want to be powerless like the impetus thing. Then I certainly didn't want to be a mean old man, you know, a grumpy old man. That's not what I really wanted to be. So what you gonna do about it? And I think that's where humor comes into play. You know, we can do one of the things. We can look at some of these things that happen to us kind of ironically, but then what do we do about them in a positive way? And that's what we and I, you and I, like to talk about so much, and you do such a great job of this, of helping turn things around. You know, many times you've talked about how, you know, you just have a great attitude. I mean, you've dealt with, you know, really Pro I I've been very fortunate. I had serious, life-threatening cancer, but it was mostly cared for, and I didn't have I was sick, but I didn't have massive equipment. I was really sick. I was in the hospital for a few days. You were in for weeks and weeks and on several different occasions. And I've been around people like that, and, boy, you got to make some decisions about that, and I admire you so much for that. But what I'm about here, then I think about all these things, okay, if I don't want to be these things, how can I turn around for myself? And how can I offer something to other people? And that's why I'm writing this book here now and doing these presentations. And they came under that comedy routine, believe it or not, about what are you going to do about it? How can you turn or turn it around? And so I just decided to do two things, a few things, to kind of respond to those, those four eyes, which are kind of devoted towards me, and how can I turn around something I can do that's really outward looking, no longer, you know, eye centered, but outward looking. And so what I did, and what I kind of did for myself, and really us, doing the cancer and comedy podcast, and getting together you and I to do this and share with our lifter uppers, is a big part of this is to I call it the AX pact, A, C, T, S pact. And it's an acronym, the word, the letter A in in this is to take action. So I felt like taking action was kind of a response to the whole insanity thing, you know, you just got to do, you got to take some you got to get out of bed. You got to get, you got to do whatever it is. You got to take one foot in front of the other, or do something action to respond to. Then this is kind of a physical thing. I think, me, people need to physically get, you know, get off the rear end and start doing because what do you do if you're out of balance? You do not want to stay, and maybe you've seen this and around people in your life. A person who's out of balance, you do not want them to be standing still, because they will wobble. They why you need the one of the best things you can do if you're starting to lose your balance is to balance is to keep moving. It's like a bicycle. You can't balance a bicycle if it's, you know, on its own; you got to be moving. And so if you want the insanity, me, if your life's kind of out of whack, out of balance, and you got to get you got to get get going. And so that's the action part of doing some action in your life, and many times it's going to be outwardly focused towards doing something that interacts with other people. It might mean you and your wife just take a drive out in the country, or you go out and right, and you go to go to church, or you go visit the grandkids, or any number of things where you can start to get out of your funk. You know, we can, all right, get through. Do you think that speaks to you? Because of a valid point?

Yeah. Because I think what you want to do is you want to curl up and just, you know, be in that little fetal position and not deal with the world. And, you know, that's normal. And I think people need to recognize that and give themselves the time to do that, you know, and, and, but then, you know, get out of that pity party. And what, I think it comes back to that control thing, right? Whatever we can do to make ourselves feel normal again, or that life is normal again, and we need to get out and do that. And maybe that's going to the grocery store. I mean, all of those things that you listed, just get out and do. Or, you know, maybe you're not able to get out and do okay, you know, get on a phone call with somebody, test them, do whatever so that you can kind of get out of that funk. Because I think when we're alone and trying to deal with it. That's when those little Gremlins are going in our heads.

Absolutely and that so that that kind of led me to the next step in the Acts, process X pack, the C stands for connection. And I believe there's kind of two levels of connection in my in mind; whatever, for me, one of them is connecting to something greater than self, which is a. Is a spiritual element or an emotional element of this type of thing, and another part of the connection is connected with other people. And so that is connecting with like-minded people. It might be family or friends, it might be a support group, it might be a devotee being part of our cancer and comedy community. But when you get connected with others, I believe you also get connected with a higher power. That's when I started to get more back into Bible study and things of that nature, for me, which are helpful to me, and spiritual practices, things like that, whether it be journaling or prayer or whatever it would be. But that's a connecting and that to me, kind of responds to that whole thing about incontinence, which is kind of, you know, losing control. And so that connecting thing was a response to that. It is taking some control of my life and the things that I have some control over. I can reach out to people, let them respond to me and develop friendships or relationships. You and I kind of started that way. We started by reaching out to one another and said, There's some like-mindedness here that can be helpful to others. How important do you think A, C, and the Connect are?

Definitely. You know, I talk about the fact that we have to have our tribe around us, and, you know, it's, it's so important that we're out there and we're talking with people, and it might be people that we never really connected with before. You know, I think it is important not to get in the Oh, pity me. Oh, woe is me, groups, you know, and just spiral down that way, right? But, you know, and we all have friends like that, right? Or the people who, you know, they're gonna, well, you know, I know, so and so had that type of cancer, and, oh, they died. And it's like, okay, that was not helpful. But yeah, how can we connect with people and, you know, we're gonna connect with them in, you know, that's the nice thing about technology, right? I mean, you're in Indianapolis, I'm in Atlanta, and we connect with people around the world, yeah. So, you know, how can we do that? And, you know, I think the other thing is, when we connect with them and we share what's going on, they might have some pretty good suggestions about things that we could be, you know, doing differently. You know, the Hey, have you tried this type of thing might or might not work. But I always think people mean well, you know, some of their suggestions, I think, are a little different, but I always know that they mean well, and so I thank them for that. But yeah, it's about making those connections and getting that support from people.

And I think it's so important you got to be you got to that helps you build some energy back up, too. And I just think that's important to to do that. Then that's taking control. Those are things that are uncontrollable. So the T, in my word, acts as A, C, T, S; the T is to think strategically. And they use your mind. This is the cognitive piece of it, and the strategic thinking has to do with how you kind of reclaim your power. You know, this goes kind of as a response to the impotence thing, right? If you claim whatever power that is now, that might mean medical stuff, so you make sure you follow up on your medical thing. Or it might mean creating some new pathway for yourself, like we have here with the cancer and comedy podcast and, you know, or some way to make your make your life of value moving forward, whether your life has, you know, one day or 1000 days, you know, left in it to think strategically and be useful. God, when you're thinking impotence and you think you're useless, you can make yourself useful. And that's a response to that impotence thing. So respond with me on that one there. What are some things that either you do or that we think can be helpful? Do you think this is a valid point to think I'll use your mind and do it?

Definitely is, you know. I think a lot of times we defer to our medical team, you know, because they're the people who are really, really smart, right? They've, they've gone to many, many years worth of school, but we need to educate ourselves. Now that's tricky because, you know, you type any type of cancer into Google, and it almost, you know, blows up because there's so much information out there. But it is about educating ourselves and educating those around us. You know, I had people who absolutely could not understand why I decided to go the traditional route and have chemotherapy. And, you know, because they were much more they wanted to, you know, their thought was to do things differently. And I said, you know, that's great for you, but for me, this is what I need to do, you know, and, and, but I also educated myself about it, and I continue to. Because things change. You never know what's what's, you know, coming down the pike. And so it's very important to educate ourselves, but also be, as you said, you know, be thinking about, what is the future going to hold? You know what do I want? What do I want my legacy to be?

Yeah, and I think it's something; there's something we said with just, you know, doing something productive with your life, you know, just doing something, where you do something that adds value to other people and right? And you do that, and that kind of leads me to my last point, the s, the word acts, is to serve others with love. And this kind of goes the emotional things, and it also goes, it also is a response to that excellence thing I spoke of earlier. You know, if you're in, so let's means you kind of turn mean, be the grumpy old man, whatever. And you know, poor me, all that kind of stuff, Misery loves company, that kind of thing. But you know, if you serve others with love, then you're thinking about, how can I take this experience and serve other people, right? You know, how can I take what is going on with me and give back as a man or woman with some gratitude for what I have right now and respond accordingly? And I certainly, I just spoke this morning to a young man who will probably be a future guest on our podcast, just was diagnosed with esophageal cancer list past fall, in October, his prognosis is only to have less than a year to live, and it's not good. And he's in his 30s. His wife's in his 30s. She has cancer, too, and kids involved. It's a bad idea, but he had a very positive attitude. Now I'm gonna take the last year of my life, and I'm getting back. So he's getting on all the podcasts he can. He's doing all the writing he's on. He's just saying, I am not going to, you know, I'm going to give back to the very end. And I just was, so I just said that was so very much in the wheelhouse of what we're about here. And it becomes an emotional thing. It is a connection that would be very vital, and if you can't, you know, if you can't go through your days having, you know, people to love and who love you and you give back to them, you know that's, that's what life is all about. To me and respond to me on this one here, I know especially you have some people in your in your Facebook group as someone who have shared about the emotional part of this, right?

You know, I think that's so important. And, you know, from a physical aspect, when we're thinking negative, when we're around negative people, all of those various things, it does have an a physical and emotional effect on our bodies and and obviously on our our souls and our, you know, mental health, all of those things. And so, yeah, we need to get out there. We need to help. It's, it's like I was saying earlier, just the fact that you are talking about this and kind of normalizing. It allows other men to think I can talk about this too, you know, because many times they won't even talk to their doctors about it, and so then, you know, then it becomes obviously a much bigger issue. But yeah, it, you know, we just need to say, Hey, it's okay. It's okay to talk about things like this and to be kind of that, that starter of, you know, making it a normal thing that people can talk about.

Yeah, I think in particular about, you know, kind of the prostate cancer thing, you know, we see, if you turn on the TV, you see all kinds of ads for Ed drugs and prostate meds and what have you. But not a lot of people are dealing with kind of the emotional and the mental health things and the relational things and that kind of, what I believe God's led me towards, speaking to those types of things, and try to do it on a in an honest, forthright way, with a little humor, with a, you know, humor. Because what we like to say here is, you know, we believe in healing with hope and humor, and I just want to make sure we keep those things in, you know, as a part of the whole picture. It's not making it's not no roads. It's not making fun of people who are, you know, dealing with this. It's about sharing some humorous situations here. I did, you know. I share some stories about some of the weird, stupid things that happened to me when I was, you know, had a catheter on and trying to be ambulatory around the house. Here with my surgery, my dog, who was also 18 years old and incontinent at the time, came up to me and got tangled up in my catheter hose and was literally taking me for a walk through the house in a very tender, in a very tender way. And so that's part of what, that's part of what I share my little, my little comedy routine here, along with the you know about the deal about my granddaughter in the diaper bag and all that kind of stuff about how, you know, just kind of like this is shows an old dog. An old man, and we're, you know, we're dealing with stuff here.

You're dealing with life. I mean, that's the thing, right? You're dealing with life,

Real life stuff, and in real life is kind of messy sometimes, you know? I mean, you've and you're, I know how we've shared in your cancer journey. You've certainly had some pretty, not only met some pretty kind of gory moments, haven't you? You know,

oh yeah, oh yeah. And, you know, and, and, yeah, you just you. But it's funny, every time I start thinking, Ah, then I will see someone who has something worse, yeah, you know. And, and, you know, I follow a gentleman on Facebook who is going through radiation treatment right now? And I did radiation, you do, you know, and for me, being still for that period of time was a challenge. I can't imagine. It was like five minutes, but of course, it seemed like a very long time, but his radiation, he has to have the cage around his head. And I couldn't do that. I mean, you'd have to sedate me every time. I mean, that would just not be, and so I think, okay, you know, yeah, it was hard for me to stay still for five minutes for 30 treatments. But oh my gosh, that man, you know, he is, he is a true warrior. And I think that comes back to exactly what we were saying before: we do what we have to do. And that's, you know, we one foot in front of each other, and when we go backwards, we pick ourselves up and we go forward again. And

I think that's a key point that you're making there because it kind of craves me down to where I want to, kind of bring this conversation around, to this. We do what we have to do. Well, we have to sometimes convince ourselves that we do have to do this. You know what I'm trying to say; it's a commitment we got to make to this. Because, you, the alternative to this is what giving up. It's right, the covers over our heads and saying, Well, that's it. That's all, folks. And there are people, I've seen them in my ministry, who do just that. Just say, Check out. And I've seen people who get a cancer diagnosis over the diagnosis, and they were gone within a very short amount of time because, in many cases, they gave up. And I've even had opportunities to chat with doctors and surgeons over the years, who would say there is a definite difference between a person who's a fighter who wants to live and someone who is, you know, has just given up. But that goes to commitment. And so I believe if you want to be a person who turns your grim into a grin, you have to commit to doing it. And so, how do you do that? I call it the AX plan. Here's why we just shared it here a minute ago. I also like to add it to the AX packed, P, A, C, T, which is like a compact or an agreement that you make with yourself, or a covenant that you're going to do this for a while. You know, you know, you don't get the cancer diagnosis usually, and it's just like, oh, we got the cancer diagnosis, and here's a pill, and boom, and it's over with. You're, you're, you're, you're healed, you're done, right? It's a process of healing. And so you got to commit to the long term. And I know you've had these long, you know, you right? I'm, I'm in, you know, almost 10 years of treatment. And so it's you don't you don't stop, do you? I mean, you keep, keep going, and you make a commitment to it. And so I call the acts pact, which is simply making an agreement with yourself to follow through on the action and the care, the connecting with others, and the thinking strategically and to serve others with love. And then so, but I like to do something tangible with that. And so I created for myself something I call the Creed, the Cancer Coping Creed. A creed is a statement of belief. You know, I believe this about myself, and I will do this. And, you know, I come from, I'm a pastor. Coming from this kind of background. Some people have heard of the Apostles' Creed and some things of that nature where you make a commitment, a statement of faith and belief. And so I wrote out a statement of belief in myself. I call it the Cancer Coping Creed, out of my own process then, and I look at it about every day, and then I'm hope people out of what I'm the book I'm writing, the idea will be to help people to come up with their own Cancer Coping creed. Let me just share with you. Can I do that? Oh, most definitely. Yeah, I just said, here's my cancer. I Brad. 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 of their cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. So that's what I wrote for myself. And I just think if people and I make a you know, I see that every day, every day, every day, and that helps me. Keep going, because I've had my share of bad days, and I know you have too, and sometimes we got to reconnect to something that is about, you know, right? Because we can easily fall into that eye syndrome. I call the eye syndrome all those things you know about incontinence and insolence and PNR eight, you can be there. Let's be about not I, as in me. Let's be about we, or how we can share with others. And that's what I like to do there, to Cancer Coping creed, and so that's what I'm working on. The presentation I've given in May at the a a t h will be basically what I just shared here. The book I'm writing would basically be shared here. The working title of my book. I don't go how go or not, but it's a, it's a hypotens incontinence and insolence of fun facts about coping with cancer, coping with prostate cancer, with hope and humor. So we'll see how that goes. But that's what I'm working on. My friend,

I love it, and I can't wait to read it. It's going to be very interesting.

Well, very good. Well, I appreciate you so much. And we're, you know, I think we just need to say this, we are here to serve our cancer and comedy comedy audience, because we know that there's people out there who need tools to help them to cope with cancer, and we hope that the interviews that we do here and everything we do here helps people to do just just that, and what I'm working on here the talk in the book, I hope will be helpful to people and as a tool to help them to cope with cancer with hope and humor.

I love it. I love it. Well, lifter uppers, and that's what we call you who are a member of our community. This brings us to the close of this live episode of cancer and comedy podcast with Dr Brad Miller, 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. You can join those of us who are turning your grim into a grin by telling us your uplifting stories. just go to cancer and comedy.com/voice message. 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. Well, for Dr Brad Miller, I'm Deb Krier, reminding you that a cheerful heart is good medicine.