November 12, 2007

Bill Bell: Kicking cancer with a smile and a joke

HEY man! Cancer's no joke.

has been president of the Whittier area Chamber of Commerce and is vice president of the Whittier Host Lions.

He earned his living as an executive with three credit unions and two Whittier banks, Quaker City Bank and Banco Popular. He also served eight years as executive director of the Boys and Girls Club of Whittier.

Perisho was born May 21, 1952, in Oskaloosa, Iowa, moved to Whittier as a second-grader, graduating from California High where he was a 6-foot, 6-inch All-American high school basketball player. He graduated from Cal State Fullerton with a degree in biology, specializing in advanced genetics.

He married his high school sweetheart Christa Lopez, daughter of late Whittier Mayor Vic Lopez and his wife, Jan. The Perishos have three sons, all college grads.

Perisho had no symptoms when he scheduled a colonoscopy for himself after learning that a close high school friend was battling colon cancer. He resigned from Banco Popular shortly after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer "because I was scared to death," he said.

He had prostate surgery Dec. 1, 2004, at City of Hope in Duarte, praising everyone therewonderful, compassionate people.

"It was an amazing surgery," he said. "They pump you full of gas and for the next four days, I was passing gas like it was my job," he said. He said the doctors performed a robotic prostate removal one day and sent him home the next day.

He had to wear a catheter for a week.

Perisho said he saw a money-making opportunity in the procedure.

"They could give a patient a choice of scents such as lilac or lemon to pump in with the gas," then the patient could pass fragrant gas over the course of the next four days.

"A week later I went back to have the catheter removed. The doctor pulled me aside and said, 'We have some bad news. Your cancer escaped your prostate and got into a seminal vessel, meaning your survival rate nosedived."

Perisho said the doctor told him "there was a study going on that I now qualified for. Yippee! Eighteen weeks of chemotherapy and two years of hormone therapy. I signed up."

Not unless you happen to be Jerrold Stephen Perisho, 55, who from time to time figures it's good to give the big C a slap in the face, some of its own medicine, so to speak.

Perisho figures he has earned his slapping rights. Cancer turned his life upside down in 2004, but now he's nearly a four-year survivor and has just accepted a well-paying job that will take him to Texas in March where he will fulfill a lifelong desire to become a motivational comedic corporate speaker.

Colonial Savings has hired him for the task.

But then, he's already been a joke writer for Johnny Carson, David Letterman, The Los Angeles Times and a bunch of radio stations. Don't worry, he's not moving to Texas.

He's also on the verge of seeking a publisher for a book that's been two years in the writing about his sometimes agonizing and sometimes hilarious knockdown, drag-out bout with cancer.

Who is Jerry Perisho anyway? Most Whittierites already have known him as the area's "Toastmaster General," providing comedic emceeing duties for major local events such as Chamber of Commerce installations, the annual Whittier Police Silver Shield Awards dinner and retirement events.

He Through all of this he kept a journal.

"I realized some very funny things had happened to me, so I just decided I had to write a book. ... I asked my doctors if there was room in the world of cancer for a funny book. They both gave it an enthusiastic 'yes.'"

Such a book cannot be all laughs, he said, so "it is also about the emotional sting of hearing that you have cancer. Being afraid of dying, being encouraged by your friends and people that you love, in addition to the funny things. And, it's a book about hope.

"There is a section in it where I encourage people to stay upbeat, stay strong and laugh every day. It's my belief those things, along with the good medical treatment, give you the best opportunity of winning," Perisho said. "By winning I don't mean being cured. I mean buying time to be with your loved ones and say the things you want to say and experiencing a little bit more of your life."

Did he change as a person after being diagnosed? You bet.

"Little things don't bother me. I appreciate things that I used to take for granted," he said.

He said he feels he owes a great deal to his high school friend whose cancer motivated him to get his checkup.

"I don't know when I might have gone to a doctor had it not been for her," he said. "She is now deathly ill, but I believe she won, because she was brave and took on numerous bouts of chemotherapy that bought her time to spend with her family and her friends so that everyone could say all of the things that needed to be said.

He said he has "a distinct feeling for my friends who were willing to go through this with me." Like two of his closest friends, a married couple, Lane and Pam Thomas, who came to his house, their eyes red from crying, within an hour after they learned about his cancer.

"Rather than running from it, they ran to it," said Perisho. "They spent a couple of hours just trying to help Christa and me to get through that moment."

After a two-hour, gut-wrenching conversation, Pam asked very seriously, "Jerry, is there anything we can do for you?"

"That triggered a debate in my head," Perisho said. "I asked myself, 'Is this the right time to do a joke?' I decided, absolutely, this is the right time."

So he told his slightly off-color joke and watched Lane squirm with "whether to fire back" with a funny retort.

Lane did fire back and they all had a good laugh.

"So even in that moment of darkness, we were able to kick cancer a little bit by making a joke." Perisho said.

Just before his prostate surgery Perisho and a group of close friends went out for their weekly dinner. Perisho was answering a barrage of questions about his surgery, including the need for a catheter.

Former state Sen. Frank Hill, a member of the dinner group, suddenly stood up and slapped his palm down in the middle of the table, declaring "Let's all make a pact! As long as Jerry wears a pad, we all wear a pad!"

Next day, Perisho went to a pharmacy and bought them all personalized gift pads. He said such humor by his friends helped him keep things in perspective and also showed him that his friends really cared and "knew I was scared to death."

Perisho said his strong religious beliefs played a part in his thought processes during his struggle against cancer.
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