Comedian Kathy Griffin took to social media Saturday to speak publicly for the first time since she underwent surgery to treat her lung cancer, saying she is finding laughter in small moments to keep her spirits up.
Last week, Griffin revealed she has lung cancer, adding that she was immediately starting treatment, which would include having half of her left lung removed.
“Hi you guys, I might start to post little videos about my recovery and stuff. But, my voice is, like, really hoarse, and I don’t want to scare people,” Griffin said, laughing in a video update posted to Instagram on Saturday.
“I’m laughing, it’s just even that notion [is funny],” she added. “For some reason, I’m laughing at everything now. And if it’s horrible, I laugh way more.”
In another video posted to Instagram Sunday, Griffin laughed as she told a story about how her husband accidentally sliced his hand open while trying to make lunch in the kitchen, moments before she went outside with “no pants on” to greet a deliveryman dropping off a package.
“Yesterday, I’m in bed, and I hear this, like, weird noise, and I can’t figure out what it is,” Griffin explained at the beginning of her story.
“And then, after a while, like — maybe a full, like, minute, I realize it’s my poor husband screaming my name from the kitchen in a weird voice, because he was making us lunch, and he sliced his freaking hand open, like, bad,” she added. “And so, I’m laughing, because, I’m thinking: If he’s calling for me for my help, it must be bad, because I can’t do anything.”
“So anyway, I run in there — oh, I’m going to hell for laughing, I’m going to hell in a handbasket — and I see my poor husband, and I can barely even walk, and I got no pants on, and I see him holding his hand up, and it’s bleeding like crazy, like in a movie or something,” Griffin continued, laughing as she told the story.
“And then, I look down and all four of our dogs are trying to lick up the blood, and it’s so gross. I know, it’s gross. And so, he’s like, ‘I think I have to go to the hospital.’ So then we call 911, and I’m trying to help him get it together,” she added.
“And then 911 comes, and they send a full fire truck,” she continued, laughing hysterically as she talked. “Which, it’s great, and I’m glad, I’m grateful.”
Griffin went on to explain that while her husband was at the hospital getting “stitched up,” the doorbell rang, as she had a delivery from one of her friends in New York, who sent her ice cream bars.
“The doorbell rings, but I’m too to answer it,” Griffin said. “But then I remember, one of my girlfriend’s saying, ‘I might mail you ice cream bars’ — so I’m thinking, ‘I don’t care if I have cancer, over my dead body am I not getting those fucking ice cream bars.'”
“So I go outside, which I should not have done — I still have no pants on — and the poor delivery guy is like, ‘Here you go,'” the comedian continued. “And so, I’m like apologizing to the guy, and then he pulls his mask down, and he’s like, ‘Girl, I’m a big fan, I’m one of your gays.'”
“And I’m like, ‘Sorry, I don’t have pants,'” she added. “And he’s like, ‘Love it.’ And he’s like, I read about you, and I hope you feel better.”
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.