Woman Resorts to Comedy to Confront the Trauma of CancerCancer is no laughing matter, but a woman suffering through chemotherapy is rethinking that.
Bonnie Southcott, of Ferndale, Wash., is teaching people that even though cancer isn"t fun, it can be funny.
She was seven months pregnant with her second child Nate when doctors found the tumor.
“In a flash moment, I went from being a happy expectant mother, to being someone afraid for her life,” she told reporters.
Minutes after doctors delivered Nate by emergency Csection, Southcott went into surgery. The diagnosis was ovarian cancer.
Suddenly tears and chemotherapy overtook her life. But the lowest moment came after she lost all her hair and a free wig arrived.
She tried it on as her older son Kyler watched.
“I thought I can cry about this bad wig and he"ll remember it, or I can laugh about it and he will remember that,” Southcott said.
That was when she started laughing a lot, and found it was the perfect medicine.
“I spent a lot time looking for anything humor based for cancer patients,” she said. “And I"ll tell you what: There isn"t much out there.”
Using herself as a bald model, Bonnie started her own line of greeting cards and a calendar. Each pose pokes fun at the tribulations of chemo.
“We desperately need to laugh,” she said. “It"s vital to our joy.”
Even though Southcott"s ovarian cancer is in remission, the diagnosis is no laughing matter a 25percent chance she will live for another twoyears.
She plans to appreciate every moment of motherhood. And she plans to laugh.
她用笑声同癌症病魔抗争
伴随癌症的从来都不会是欢笑，但是一位正在因患癌症而接受化疗的妇女却重新审视了癌症--这个可怕的病魔。
美国华盛顿州芬代尔的癌症女患者邦尼·索恩科特正在向人们传播这样的理念：尽管癌症不会是什么乐趣，但是我们可以让它变得充满乐趣。
当她从医生那里得知自己身患癌症这个噩耗的时候，她的第二个孩子纳特即将出世，她当时已经有了七个月的身孕。
索恩科特告诉记者说：“在那一瞬间，我从一个快乐的准妈妈变成了一个时刻要担心自己生命的人。”
就在索恩科特剖腹产生下纳特短短几分钟后，她又被推进了外科手术室。诊断结果她患的是卵巢癌。
顷刻之间，泪水和化疗淹没了她的生活。在满头秀发完全脱落并得到了一副免费假发的时候，她感到自己走到了人生的最低谷。
在大儿子凯勒的注视下，她试戴了她的假发。
索恩科特说：“我想如果我因为这顶糟糕的假发痛哭他就能记住这种东西，或者我还可以对着它大笑，这样他也能记住它。”
于是索恩科特开始哈哈大笑，并且发现这居然是最有效的药物。
她说：“我花了很多时间在癌症患者身上搜寻各种幽默元素。但是我不得不告诉你：这样的幽默实在太少了。”
邦尼以自己的秃头形象为模特，开始设计问候卡片，此外还有一种日历。尽管化疗时要经历种种苦痛，但是卡片上她的每个姿势都十分有趣，她用自己的 表达方式传播欢笑。
她说：“我们非常需要欢笑。我们需要欢笑带来的快乐。”
虽然索恩科特的卵巢癌病情正在好转，但是目前的诊断结果仍旧不容乐观--她的生命只剩下两年的时间，而且这种几率也只有25%。
索恩科特准备要细细品味作母亲的点滴时刻。此外，她准备要笑对人生。
Spacewoman Stuck in Orbit
Peggy Whitson, the American astronaut spending her 130th day in space, said on October 13, 2002 that she was happy in orbit, but maybe she brought along too much shrimp.
“Sometimes, when you come to space, your tastes change. One of my favorite foods on the ground is shrimp, and up here I can"t stand it,” said Whitson, the science officer on the International Space Station .
A quick check of the station"s manifest showed that Whitson had planned more than 40 shrimp meals for her stay.
“The guys like it because they get all my shrimp,” she said, referring to her two Russian crewmates, Valery Korzun and Sergei Treshcvev.
The three members of the space station"s Expedition Five team held a joint news conference with the six astronauts from the space shuttle Atlantis on Sunday.
“I"m having a great time up here. It"s fun to live here and do the science,” said Whitson, a biochemist conducting and monitoring dozens of studies on the station.
When someone asked about her plans for Christmas, Whitson said “It"s hard to imagine being back home because I guess I feel like this is my home right now. I don"t have my husband, but other than that, this is my home.”
Whitson, due to return to Earth with Korzun and Treschev aboard a U.S. shuttle in November, said some changes in space take more getting used to than others.
Salsa can usually overcome space blandness. “We could probably eat paper if we had it with salsa,” she said.
But calluses are another matter. In weightlessness, she never actually stands, but does sway about with her feet in foot restraints.
“It was really interesting to me to lose the calluses from the bottom of your feet and to get calluses on the top of your feet after being up here for a few months,” she said.
女宇航员进入太空
到2002年10月13日为止，美国女宇航员佩吉·惠特森已经在太空度过了漫长的130天。她对自己的太空生活感到愉快而满意，如果真的要问有什 么麻烦的话，也许是她带上了太多的虾到太空来。
这位国际空间站的女科学家说：“也许人到了太空里，口味就会发生变化。虾是我在地面上最喜欢吃的食物之一，但到了这儿，我却再也受不了了。”
从空间站的物品清单中可以看出，佩吉为她的太空之行一共准备了40顿“虾餐”。
在空间站的还有惠特森的同伴，俄罗斯宇航员瓦莱里·科尔尊和谢尔盖。她说：“他们都很爱吃，因为我带来的虾都用来犒劳他们了。”
10月13日，空间站五人探索小组的这三位成员携同亚特兰提斯号太空梭上的其他六位成员召开了一个新闻发布会。
作为在空间站监管并进行着许多研究的生物化学家，惠特森说：“我在这里过得很好。不论是生活还是搞研究都充满了乐趣。”
当被问到圣诞节怎么过时，惠特森说“很难想象回到地球的情景，因为我已经把这儿当成了我自己的家，除了我丈夫不在我身边,这里跟家没有什么区别 。”
按照计划，惠特森、科尔尊和谢尔盖将于11月乘坐一艘美国太空梭返回地球。她表示，自己付出了更多的努力来适应太空中的变化。
太空的食物总是平淡无味，还好有辣味番茄酱来帮忙。惠特森说：“如果蘸上辣味番茄酱，我们甚至可以把纸也吞下去。”
可足茧问题就没那么容易克服了。由于失重，宇航员在太空不能进行真正意义上的站立，而只能靠在脚部固定装置里移动脚来四处“游走”。
佩吉说：“在这里待上几个月，脚底的老茧都不见了，他们全部都长到了脚背上，这对我来说实在是有趣之极。”
The Flying Frenchman Set to Smash Round the World RecordThey are calling him the Bob Beamon of sailing. And just like Beamon, who astonished the world with his recordbreaking longjump in 1968, the French sailor Francis Joyon is rewriting the nautical record books in an unprecedented fashion.
Joyon, 47, is now in the final stages of an incredible voyage and on course to smash the existing nonstop solo roundtheworld record by 20 days. Once he crosses the finish line off the Channel port of Brest on the morning of February 3, 2005, he will have completed one of the greatest feats of singlehanded sailing in history.
Just like Beamon, whose leap at the Mexico Olympics in 1968 broke the world record by an almost unbelievable 21in which stood unbeaten until 1991-Joyon"s expected time of 73 days for the 26,000mile global course will have far exceeded what most thought possible for a solo sailor.
Joyon set sail in November on an adventure some predicted would end in disaster. The father of four from La TrinitesurMer in Brittany was undertaking the voyage in the 90ft trimaran IDEC, a boat of tremendous power with a huge rotating mast that had been built to be raced by a crew of up to ten.
Many were worried that Joyon would end up exhausted and IDEC would simply flip over as she ran out of control in the Southern Ocean.
