Finding Your Funny Bone

Last Christmas, my 92-year-old father was stuck in the hospital wing of Waverly Heights, his Philadelphia-area retirement village, with a broken collarbone. When my 23-year-old son, husband and I traveled to see him, we named the trip "Operation Waverly." At the end of each day, as we fled to our hotel, we'd tick off, army-style, our progress: "Mission One—accomplished.  Mission Two—commencing at o-nine hundred hours." The silly military language kept us laughing despite what was tough detail: watching my dad in pain. Instead of focusing on what we couldn't change, we laughed at our military construct. We were brave soldiers, going in no matter what.

For family caregivers, close by or miles away, facing reality day in and out is hard duty, so hard that without a sense of humor, you'd go nuts. But how do you maintain yours when you're seeing someone you love through difficult times—and you're dog tired yourself?  Here are a few pointers for staying in touch with your lighter side.

Go with the flow. Beverly Hanson's 94-year-old mother moved in with Hanson in Ormond Beach, Fla., when declining mental health made it impossible for her to remain in her retirement center. When her mother would knock on Hanson's door too early in the morning asking for coffee, Hanson, 70, would answer, "The kitchen's not open yet, Mother," an answer that fit her mother's notion of where she was: the Center. When her mother couldn't find her room, Hanson put her mother's name and a number on her door. By accepting her mother's reality, Hanson made her job both simpler and more humorous.

Define your job. "Everyone has a sense of humor, but it can't come out if there's anxiety on top," says Dr. Cheryl Woodson, gerontologist and director of the Woodson Center for Adult Healthcare in Chicago. Ask your loved one's doctor what's wrong, what's fixable and what you can do. "You have to find out what you should be worried about before you can laugh," says Woodson, author of To Survive Caregiving: A Daughter's Experience, a Doctor's Advice on Finding Hope, Help and Health. For example, one client fought with her mother who had Alzheimer's because she liked to sleep on the floor.  Woodson said to the client, "Just cover your mother up. She can't fall when she's on the floor." The client's job was to keep her mom warm and safe, not decide where she slept. Once she understood that, she could chill out.

See comedy everywhere. Brian Olson, 59, of Denver, doesn't have much to laugh about, but he looks for hilarity everywhere. His wife, Ronda, 54, has been fighting two types of cancer for two years. "Tough doesn't come close to describing the impact of chemo, the stress on the patient," says her husband of 33 years.  But every morning when his wife asks him if the hat she's chosen to cover her bald head matches her outfit, he laughs. "Part of our morning routine has always been whether her top matched the skirt.  Now it's the hat. OK, it's not Leno material, but it helps us both cope."  At night, instead of talking about what to eat as they used to before chemo soured her tastebuds, he asks her, "What tastes like food to you tonight?" Says Olson: "At our house, humor whenever you can find it is a good thing."

Break away. Take what Woodson calls a "strategic retreat." "The only way you can get some distance is to just not be there several times a week. Get respite through your state's Department of Aging, hire someone, or use adult day care to buy as little as one hour away," she says. "The only way to keep humor and perspective is to know that there is more to life than caretaking."

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