I believe in irreverence. I find the notion that certain things are off-limits to joke about distasteful and potentially harmful. I believe that when Mel Brooks makes fun of Adolf Hitler, it robs Hitler’s memory and history of its power. When I make jokes about having Cancer, it is with these things in mind. I think there is strength in owning my reality, and declaring that I have Cancer. My wife would disagree with most of what I’ve just written. "Mel Brooks - To be or not to be" by Jacob Whittaker is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Rather than owning my reality as a means to marshaling power over it, Shawnna believes that declarative ownership of my disease has manifesting power. I think she would say that my notion of ‘owning through declaration’ is more akin to ‘creating through declaration.’ Every stage along this Chemo journey brings a new step for which I am unprepared, and to which there will be unknown reactions. Shawnna is right, in that I am spending a great deal ...