Last week my Huffington Post editor sent me an email asking if I was planning to see the movie 50/50.
The What? Did the show 20/20 morph into a movie? Fortunately, she couldn’t see my look of confusion through email.
Uh, after I figure out what it is, then sure…definitely I planned on watching it, I told her.
I quickly Google’d 50/50 to find out what the heck I was going to go see. Lo and behold, it is a film about cancer. Really? Because between myself and my friends diagnosed with it, I’ve kind of had my fill this year.
My editor told me that she was writing a story about this film and the incorporation of humor in cancer treatment. She asked whether I had any humorous stories from my treatment. Ahem, YES…where to begin?
After she went to print on the Huffington Post (click on the green to read the article), I promptly took myself to the film. (Silver Lining: I went to a matinee, by MYSELF.)
I was pretty stunned by how often I laughed out loud and by how much I saw myself in the film. There were direct parallels, from being diagnosed as a health conscious “young” person to being totally clueless about medical marijuana (& when I say totally clueless, I mean TOTALLY)!
50/50 is a courageous, warts-and-all approach to presenting a cancer diagnosis and treatment. It aptly illuminates the balance between the pain and humor of treatment. It brilliantly finds ways to be impeccably honest about something awful and yet appealing and watchable.
I’d love to tell you all about the film, but I wouldn’t know when to stop and would therefore spoil it for you.
Suffice it to say that with the exception of a few circumstances (I’m a nurse and social worker, after all!), this film is as real as it gets. 50/50 is a movie that provides a serious, emotional look not only at cancer, but at friendship, family and the other bonds we rely on in life to get by, whether it is surviving the bad times or the good….which is the ultimate Silver Lining, right?
It is under the greatest adversity that there exists the greatest potential for doing good, both for oneself and others.
– Dalai Lama
I can absolutely attest to the fact that you have found a lot of humor throughout this ordeal from chicken legs to lymphedema to assedema to that gorgeous bald head, there have been some very funny moments! Your love of life and of laughter is contagious and brings out the best in everyone around you!