Yes, you can laugh at prostate cancer, BPH, etc.
Join our prostate humor contest, help put the Glee in Gleason
By Howard Wolinsky
When George Burns played God Almighty in “Oh,God!,” the 1977 movie, he was asked what mistakes he had made.
He listed ostriches, tobacco, giraffes, avocados (“Did you see the size of the pits?), and, finally, as the story goes, the prostate.
(The prostate gland was a big mistake—”God.”)
Yeah, any ailment is serious. But we’re aiming to find the lighter side.
Following is a news release:
The Active Surveillor newsletter and friends are announcing the Gleason Awards: Putting the Glee in Gleason, the first humor awards for prostate cancer and other prostate conditions.
“Going Back to the Book of Proverbs and Reader’s Digest, it has been said ‘Laughter is the best medicine!’” notes Howard Wolinsky, editor of The Active Surveillor newsletter and a Gleason 6 patient, who has been on Active Surveillance for 13 years. “It can’t hurt to laugh at our cancer diagnoses. Maybe it can even help.”
On the surface, the two “C-words”--comedy and cancer--don’t seem to fit together. But it’s very human to make fun of what scares us, says Jim-Bob Williams, a Gleason 6 patient and a therapeutic humorist from St. Albans, West Virginia.
With this humor contest, we also are aiming to increase awareness about Active Surveillance, close monitoring of cancers, as well as other prostate conditions, including high-risk and intermediate-risk prostate cancer, enlarged prostates and prostatitis, he added.
Wolinsky has referred in print to Gleason 6 diagnoses as “the Rodney Dangerfield of prostate cancers” because it so long was ignored and not taken seriously by research groups that typically focus on treatments for advanced cancers.
Wolinsky said, “The doctors can’t even decide whether patients like Jim-Bob and me have enough cancer to be considered cancer patients. I’m telling you. We get no respect.”
(Comedian Rodney Dangerfield got no respect either.)
A reader of The Active Surveillor recently proposed that the newsletter hold a humor contest. Wolinsky immediately thought of involving Williams, one of the funniest Gleason 6 patients he knows.
Wolinsky and Williams decided to call the awards the Gleasons: Putting the Glee into Gleason.
Why a Gleason--or Gleasie- award?
Two of the “Great Ones” were Gleasons: (1) Dr. Donald Gleason, the pathologist who developed the Gleason score for prostate cancer more than 50 years ago, and (2) comedian and actor Jackie Gleason.
(Dr. Donald Gleason, developer of the Gleason score.)
In part, we aim to parody the Gleason score used to measure the aggressiveness of prostate cancer based on a pathology image of the patient’s prostate. Gleason 6 is the diagnosis of the least aggressive form of prostate cancer.
“The Gleason reference pokes fun at the first piece of bad news we get as prostate cancer patients,” said Williams.
(Funnyman Jackie Gleason died from colon cancer that spread to his liver.)
Williams said the entrants to the awards can submit any form of joke or humor that they want on anything relating to the prostate gland, including digital rectal exams, incontinence and impotence.
For example, it could be a classic premise like “a Gleason 6 patient, his significant other, and his urologist walked into a bar …” (Fill in the punchline.) Or, “A pathologist, a medical oncologist and urologist, walked into a bar …” (Fill in the punchline)
Other possibilities:
--Puns and Dad Jokes
--Limericks and Poems
--Cartoons
--Parodies (Song)
--Blue jokes. That’s almost too easy, right?
Let your imagination run amok.
If we have enough entries, we’ll have separate categories for patients and physicians. We suspect docs have a treasure trove of prostate jokes. They don’t like DRE’s either.
Send your jokes--and any questions—to the Gleasons at howard.wolinsky@gmail.com
Videos of you delivering a joke, drawings, and print formats will be accepted.
We will accept jokes through Sept. 1, 2023.
We plan to hold the first annual Gleason Humor Awards Hour in late September (details to be announced), honoring Prostate Cancer Awareness Month.
A “distinguished panel of judges”—yet to be named— will determine the winners, which will be announced in September, Prostate Cancer Awareness Month.
Sponsors of the competition include The Active Surveillor newsletter, ASPI (Active Surveillance Patients International), AnCan Foundation Virtual Support Group for Active Surveillance, Prostate Cancer Support Canada, and the Walnut Foundation.
Disclaimer: The information and opinions expressed in this newsletter are not intended as recommendation for any medical treatment, product, or course of action. You should always consult a doctor about your specific situation before pursuing any health program or treatment.
Join Dr. Laurence Klotz in a webinar on focal therapy on Aug. 31
Dr. Laurence Klotz, of the University of Toronto, is known as the father of active surveillance. But he has been involved in other advances in prostate care since the mid-1990s, including focal therapy. He is holding a free webinar at 8-9:30 p.m. August 31 entitled, "Is focal therapy right for your prostate cancer?" Register at: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1495697985984134744
Focal therapy offers a middle-ground therapy for men with localized prostate cancer. It uses ablation, or tissue destruction, to target the area that contains the index lesion. Men who have focal therapy will continue to be monitored after treatment.
This program is aimed at the newly diagnosed who are considering options and those who are considering leaving Active Surveillance.
The following is an actual question given on a university-left unnamed-chemistry mid-term. The answer by one student was so "profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues via the Internet, which is, of course, why we now have the pleasure of enjoying it as well.
Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?
Most students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it's compressed or some variant One student however wrote the following:
First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are leaving. As for how many are entering, let's look at the different religions that exist in the world today.
Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell. Since there is more than one of theses religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we project that all souls go to Hell. With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law state that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.
This gives two possibilities:
1. Hell expanding at a rate slower than the rate at which souls are entering Hell, thus temperature and pressure increase until "all Hell" breaks loose.
2. Hell is expanding at rate faster than increase of souls in Hell, thus temperature and pressure drop until Hell freezes over.
So which is it?
If we accept the postulate given me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, "It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you", and take into account the fact I slept with her last night, then number 2 must be true, thus I am sure Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct............leaving only Heaven, thus proving existence of a divine being. Which explains why last night Teresa kept shouting, "Oh my God!"
Sent you this one did I not:
Just in case you had, or are at this moment having a bad day, a stress management technique.
1. Picture yourself near a stream.
2. Birds are softly chirping in the cool mountain air.
3. No one knows but you of this secret place.
4. You are in total seclusion from the hectic place called "The World."
5, The soothing sound of a gentle waterfall fills the air with a cascade of serenity.
6, The water is crystal clear.
7. You can easily make out the face of the person you are holding underwater.
8. See, you are smiling!