Humour has an amazing way of helping people get through times of crisis. This was definitely confirmed when my husband David and I discovered I had breast cancer. What buoyed us along this journey were our quirky, and sometimes black, senses of humour. As a couple we were determined to survive breast cancer, and pooled all our psychological and spiritual resources to do it.

Our lives changed even more when in November 2004, the surgeon informed us the choice was not to have my breast or a lump removed, but to have a mastectomy, with or without reconstruction. He gave us a week to decide. We both agreed for me to go for a breast reconstruction. As a Xmas present, I'd have a breast reduction on the other side at a reduced rate. I'd always been a sucker for a bargain. The later, post-operative discovery I had HER2 positive breast cancer, the most aggressive kind, presented us with further challenges, both financial and political.

Like most women receiving a diagnosis of this kind, I headed straight for my local library to learn more about breast cancer and what was in store for me. Even more importantly, I needed to find out what I could do to optimise the management of breast cancer and my post-operative experience. We had many questions. Among numerous well-meaning texts I found about prevention, treatment, experiences of, and coping with breast cancer, I found only one paragraph about the power of humour for healing.

Humour gave David and I such strength to carry on to face the next hurdle, on a daily basis, that I wanted to share its potential with other women diagnosed with breast cancer. The result, 'Laugh Your Tits Off!', is a little book which gives breast cancer humorous treatment while offering practical advice to women who have undergone a mastectomy because of their illness. Having struggled with weighty books (both physically and in content) after my surgery, I was adamant my little "breast book" was going to be small, compact and bright.

As its provocative title shows, it is more about seeing the potential for humour rather than dwelling on the negatives inherent in breast cancer. Laughter is the best medicine may not strictly be true and it'd certainly be a hard battle to get PHARMAC to fund that, among other things….but the literature indicates that laughter certainly has its place in the healing cycle. Having had a tram flap reconstruction there were literally times it felt like I was splitting my sides laughing at some of the predicaments breast cancer brought me. But, it's no exaggeration to say that what pulled me through was my own sense of humour as well as my husband's.

What we joked about became the cartoons in 'Laugh Your Tits Off!' Something funny would happen, or I'd invent a joke about an aspect of my breast cancer experience, which I would record in my little red notebook for later. These have been interwoven with a number of practical, helpful tips to get people through their treatment after mastectomy, reconstruction and chemotherapy.

My objective in writing this was to encourage other people to laugh too, to reap the benefits of humour as we did, while at the same time becoming more informed about breast cancer and the things they can do to make it easier and more tolerable.