Sometimes, life throws so many curve balls at you there’s nothing else to do but laugh.

A severe health diagnosis, financial strain, loss of a loved one… none are funny, but if you dwell on all the negative, you’ll drown in it. You have to use some sort of self-survival skill in order to avoid the void.

Dr. Tali Lando-Aronoff knows this feeling all too well, having encountered not one, not two, but three devastating health issues within her family in a short period of time.

First, she was in danger of suffering eclampsia, with her blood pressure reaching 190/100 at 34 weeks pregnant. Her daughter was in the neonatal ICU (NICU) for about 45 days. Then, her father was diagnosed with glioblastoma (a deadly brain tumor). And, to top it all off, she discovered a tumor in her breast and learned it was locally metastatic.

In her new book, Hell & Back: Wife & Mother, Doctor & Patient, Dragon Slayer, Dr. Lando-Aronoff captures some of the more humorous moments along her journey, as well as some of the dark ones.

For example, she shares with Dr. Michael Roizen how her parents would bring a “spy pen” to her father’s appointments, so they could record everything that was said. Another story involves her very proper mother, who never curses, tearing into a parking attendant after one of Dr. Lando-Aronoff’s rigorous chemo treatments.

Certainly, cancer is nothing to laugh at — and there were plenty of sad and stressful times during all of this. But Dr. Lando-Aronoff’s sense of humor helped her and those around her get through it the best they could.