People often assume serious illness is serious all the time.
Honestly?
Sometimes it’s ridiculous.
There were moments during my brain tumour journey filled with fear, uncertainty, exhaustion and grief. Moments where life felt unbearably heavy and completely unfamiliar.
But alongside all of that, there was also humour.
There was dark humour.
Awkward humour.
And the kind of ridiculous situations that leave you laughing simply because the alternative is crying.
Before my brain surgery, I never imagined that humour would become one of the biggest emotional survival tools I had.
But looking back now, 18 years later, I honestly believe laughter helped carry me through some of the hardest moments of recovery.
Because surviving a brain tumour changes more than your health.
“A brain tumour changes more than your health.”
It changes
- your confidence
- your identity
- your relationships
- your sense of safety in your own body
And when everything suddenly feels frightening or uncertain, humour can become a way of briefly reclaiming control again.
Some of the funniest moments came from situations that felt mortifying at the time.
Embarrassing moments.
Travel disasters.
Awkward medical situations.
Moments where my body or brain simply refused to cooperate in ways I expected.
At the time, those moments felt overwhelming.
Years later, some of them became stories.
Stories that reminded me I was still human underneath all the fear and recovery.
That balance between heartbreak and humour eventually became the foundation of my memoir, A Brain Tumour’s Travel Tale: Cards on the Table, I Pooed Myself.
Because recovery isn’t always inspirational quotes and brave smiles.
Sometimes recovery felt lonely.
Other days, it felt emotionally exhausting.
At times, it even felt endless.
And honestly, I think we need to talk about that more.
One of the biggest things I’ve learnt after brain surgery is that humour doesn’t mean you aren’t struggling.
Sometimes humour is
Sometimes humour is the struggle.
Sometimes laughter is survival.
And sometimes finding one ridiculous moment inside an impossibly difficult day is enough to help you keep going.
Because recovery isn’t always brave smiles and inspirational quotes.
Sometimes it’s messy.
Sometimes awkward.
Sometimes deeply human.
Tomorrow I’ll be sharing another lesson from the last 18 years of surviving, recovering and rebuilding life after a brain tumour.
