Health and Fitness : Laugh With Kathy - Blowing Up Pumpkins!

First pumpkin to blow up celebrating one chemo done. *In recognition of October being Breast Cancer Awareness month, Dean and Val have asked me to share some stories from my book Laugh With Kathy, Finding humor in the journey through breast cancer. Each week day during October, I will post an excerpt from my book on Vinton Today. Our hope it that these articles will give you a glimpse into what it takes to beat breast cancer. Proceeds from books sold in October on Amazon and from my website will benefit the Survivors of Benton County. Please note that I was diagnosed with breast cancer four years ago, had two years of treatment and I am now living cancer free. www.laughwithkathy.com Sunday, November 18, 2012: Blowing up a pumpkin is therapeutic"”I don't care who you are. It makes me laugh. While I find a year of chemo daunting, it does give me many opportunities to have some fun. Phase one of chemo, the super-sucky phase, requires some form of therapy to mark the passing of each of the four chemo sessions. So I have chosen to blow up pumpkins. Blowing up pumpkins is therapeutic! Since it gets dark about five o'clock in Iowa this time of year, it was too late on Wednesday to take care of the task. So we gathered our gear and headed down to the pond to take care of business this afternoon. It was a beautiful day. I fed the fish in the pond in hopes of pacifying them before the fireworks began. We placed the pumpkin on a tree stump, and we mixed the Tannerite. Tannerite tends to be a bit harder to blow up than the package states, but we were being cautious and following the rules. We set the target on the stem of the pumpkin, aimed, fired"¦and blew the target off the pumpkin and harmlessly into the water. The pumpkin continued to sit nicely on the stump without injury. It seems to me that blowing off steam is a lot harder in practice than in theory. Blowing up pumpkins to celebrate four years since my diagnosis. We continued to blow all kinds of holes in the pumpkin with no explosion, until Gene got just the right hit and POW! A big, orange ball of flame exploded the pumpkin. My mouth was a big O, and my eyes were huge, and then I doubled over laughing. But there was still some pumpkin left, so we added more targets and started shooting until the second explosion. A large cloud of smoke came our way, and I was laughing so hard that I was gasping. Pieces of pumpkin were flying into the pond, and I wondered what the fish were thinking. I also wondered what the neighbors were thinking. Yes, blowing up pumpkins is therapeutic"”I don't care who you are. www.laughwithkathy.com