The Toronto Star by Diane Flacks : 'Stand-up becomes Inspirational'

Toronto Sun by Newstalk 1010's Ted Woloshyn 2012: 'Battling Cancer with Humour' re:Marla Lukofsky

Battling cancer with humour

By Ted Woloshyn ,Toronto Sun

First posted: Sunday, May 13, 2012 05:32 PM EDT

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The first time I saw Marla Lukofsky perform comedy, she had me howling out loud at a routine she did called, “The Wizard of Oz in Three Minutes.” It was silly, funny and very clever.
Thirty some years later, Marla was a guest on my radio show talking about her latest offering, “I’m Still Here … and So Is My Hair”, which chronicles her battle with breast cancer. Not so silly, but very funny and truly inspirational.
“I was living in L.A when I felt a lump on my breast. It was malignant and it had spread to my lymph node which had to be removed,” she said.
An oncologist advised her to begin radiation and chemo treatments, and then presented a list of their potential and guaranteed side effects.
“People ask me how do you find humour in cancer? I tell them about the list which included chemically-induced menopause, sterility, hair loss, mouth sores, leukemia, and weight gain. And I said ‘What? I’m going to gain weight?’ I thought it was funny that the only thing I was worried about was gaining weight,” she said.
Lukofsky endured a hellish half-year period of treatments. So was it her sense of humour that helped her through?
“No. I lost my job, my agent, and friends abandoned me. There were nights I didn’t think I WOULD get through it,” she said.
But the things she endured she turned into funny stories, like having to get a new bathing suit.
“I was now bald, bloated and 20 or 30 pounds heavier. I told my friend the bathing suit experience was more painful than battling cancer,” Marla said.
Following treatment, Marla sought to continue her career but there were no offers so she came home.
Things were not much better here on the career front and in 2004, her father died, then her mother a year-and-a-half later.
Six months after that, her dog and another one came running toward her, leapt up and broke her leg in four places. She spent six months in a cast at a time she was going to synagogue twice a day to say the Kaddish (a prayer for the departed).
It was there she met a new friend who encouraged her to turn the daily journal she had kept into a book. Another enrolled her in a speaker’s agency that got her a job in Saskatoon at a cancer conference.
“It was amazing. There were 600 people in attendance — some terminally ill. They laughed, cried and gave me a standing ovation, and I thought ‘Oh my God, this is more important than I realized.’ One gentleman told me he had six months to live but that what I said gave him comfort.”
Since then, she has had her work published in online medical journals and was asked by a doctor in India for a video, which he showed at a prestigious TEDx conference.
Marla has spoken at a women’s shelter and at high schools, making people laugh while touching and inspiring them with the message she learned from her mother, “You are stronger than you think.”
Seems like the Tin Man, Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion didn’t need to meet the Wizard of Oz after all. They just needed to meet Marla Lukofsky.
— Woloshyn hosts “Saturday with Ted” from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Newstalk 1010

'A Portrait of Grief' (published in Cell2Soul as 'About My Mother'

February 10, 2015

Yesterday was the anniversary of my mom's death.

On that day back in 2006, in the afternoon, my mom took her last breath, in her own bed, just as she had wanted, just as it should be. She was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia one year after my dad died. It was terminal.

I remember when I went to say the mourner's prayer, the Kaddish, twice a day for 11 months at synagogue. I met so many people in the same situation. They were of great comfort to me. This daily prayer and those people helped me get out of bed every morning. It was there that I met one of my now dearest friends,out of my tragedy.

Some people were there for the anniversary of their loved one's passing. One woman who was in her mid 60's said to me, "It's been 10 years now since my dad died and it still hurts. I feel like an orphan." I wondered then, will that be me as years go by. Now I know the answer. Yes, it still hurts.

It's still a surreal feeling/sensation that you are gone. I carry on in disbelief. I carry on with distractions, superficial as they may be. I carry on by hearing your words in my head. You said I am stronger than I think. I don't know about that.

Sometimes I think I see you at the supermarket, or the drug store. I want to run up and hug you and tell you I've missed you so. But it's not really you.

(And that strange woman keeps wondering why I'm staring at her.)

I think about you often. Maybe more than you thought I would. Maybe not. People say we were alike. I didn't see it. Certainly not physically. You were taller, thinner, blue eyed, fair skinned and had perfect posture and profile. A real beauty. I'm nothing like that. I used to think I was adopted because I didn't look like you. But I have my birth bracelet and certificate that you gave me and I know I came out of you. I even know the time. 6:05pm. Weighed in at 6 pounds even. Now even my big toe is heavier than 6 pounds.

I don't need a synagogue or a candle to commemorate your death, although I do it out of respect for you. I wonder if you can see me now. I wonder if you know that I'm singing again. You and Daddy thought I had a good voice and that I was a good writer. I write now too. Sometimes, I even write about you.

Love Marla, your baby

'No One's Priority' published in Cell2Soul

April 18, 2012  

It’s quite a unique feeling, being no one’s priority. It’s freeing in a way ­­—

an independence of sorts. Not necessarily one that you’d wish for but nevertheless

it’s there for the taking. And you’ve been assigned the task and title.
You are now crowned… ‘No one’s priority.’

Does this mean you are lonely?

Not necessarily.

Does this mean you might feel scared at times?

Occasionally.

Does this mean you don’t have anyone in your life?

Of course not.

You have friends, siblings, relatives and acquaintances but are you their priority?

Not if they have partners, parents or children. And if they have grandchildren,

you're dead in the water girlfriend.

Don’t get me wrong. They may be available to you if there’s an actual emergency,
especially if it's theirs,

but in the day-to-day scheme of things, the 9-5’s, the 7 days a week, 52 weekends

in the year, these peeps have someone else to think about, to run to, to share with,

to take care of and it ain’t you. It just ain't you. Don’t believe me? Think about this.

If you’re home-bound with a nasty head cold and need someone to pick you up some

chicken soup with matzo balls and a nose-spray chaser, do you really think

they're gonna drop what they’re doing, and put you before their own loved ones, their child,

their lustful lover or their beloved pet?

Nope!

Well, maybe if it’s a cat.

And, if you wake up in the middle of the night from a bad dream or feel like you’re

gonna hurl your cookies after eating some contaminated food, do you think

really think they're gonna leave the comfort of their own warm bed,

so they can place their cool hand on your forehead to soothe your aching soul and
tell you it's gonna be allll right now baby?

Nope!

But they'll definitely call you in the morning from their hopefully

hands-free cellphone while driving to work after getting their Starbucks coffee,
to 'check-in with you', for a bit.

And when it’s New Years Eve, or X-mas day, or a Sunday afternoon with perfect skies

and a moderate temperature, do you think it’s you they’ll be calling to share it with

no matter what, as if it’s a given, a guarantee?

Nope!

Or how about when you have to go downtown for yet another mammo, ultrasound and

MRI, to follow up on your, ‘now in remissioned’ cancer, and you have to go alone,

because the people in your life, have their own lives and their own priorities
and those priorities, just ain’t you. It just ain’t YOU!

And That reality keeps rearing it’s ugly head more often than you care for it to, and

no matter how much you try to convince yourself that it just ain’t so,

and no matter how many times you watch ‘The Help’ and recite those

magical words to yourself that the black maid said to her little white girl child,

“You is kind, you is smart, you is important,” (and you indeed may be),

there ain’t no denying the fact that you is no one’s priority.

By  Marla  Lukofsky

April 18, 2012