Gildna Radner's greatness is reaffirmed each day with each cancer patient who refuses to be a victim; laugh, laugh and laugh some more

Before I came down with leukemia, I really could not understand how the late great comedian Gilda Radner could laugh at her cancer. She must be crazy, I thought.

Now after almost three years with my killer, I understand her wisdom so perfectly and why the Gilda's Club network around the world is so invaluable to the patient and their families.

Now this has to make you laugh about leukemia: Men have a third year that they remain at great risk despite being in remission. Do you know where the cancer is supposed to show up? In their brains or their testicles. Seems most appropriate, doesn't it. No Bill Clinton jokes, please.

So the spinal taps I still get are to send the chemo to my brain. And I guess the chemo I still take daily and intravenously monthly is headed in the opposite direction.

So I'm supposed to keep feeling down there for any lumps(and nothing else) and look out for any fevers and headaches like I used to have when I came down with leukemia and when I last visited my best friend, my late great mother. She decided to break my heart and go to heaven last June.

Yes, it would be funny except for all the children I've seen at Vanderbilt Medical Center and Children's Hospital on chemo, making their ways through the halls in red wagons. How do you explain to a 2-year-old why she has to have needles stuck into her back each week or month?

Yes, it would be funny except for all the older people I've seen in the chemo clinics, beset with this killer with little to no hope of survival. Thankfully, transplants by stem cell and bone marrow are becoming more frequent for older folks. And for children, they are even more common, and the cure rate is 90 percent.

That's just. People such as me have lived long enough and offended too many people. But children who have yet to go to their first prom or older people to their grandchildrens' weddings deserve another chance. I'm just very sad when it doesn't happen.

I was not able to get a match but not many Hispanics like African-Americans are on the bone marrow and stem cell donor lists. The explanation for that would require another post.

But I guess people with cancer -- without calling themselves victims -- are allowed to joke about the disease like African-Americans can use the N-word if they want. I don't know if any of this is all right in the greater picture. But for the moment, it is all right to laugh, because there often is plenty of time for tears later. Bitter ones.

So to the wonderful Gilda I turn my smile toward heaven and thank her ... and God. Yes, laugh all you want. Feel good while you can.