How Jim and Jeannie Gaffigan Found Humor in a Crisis

It was her kids’ pediatrician who first raised a red flag during a routine visit. That is, if you deem “routine” a single appointment last April with all five children, two daughters and three sons (now) ranging in age from 4 to 13, in tow. After noting her rattling cough, the doctor switched focus from the Gaffigan brood to their mother, who couldn’t hear much out of her left ear, either. An impromptu examination showed no obvious signs of inflammation, so he suggested Jeannie immediately see an ear, nose, and throat (ENT) specialist. She complied. And didn’t think much of it. She certainly never imagined she’d find herself about to be wheeled into major surgery a few days later, a frightened Jim at her side. It all happened so fasthealth: The ENT ordered an MRI scan of Jeannie’s head, which revealed a 6-centimeter tumor the size of a tennis ball growing within the tightly contained space of her brain stem. While it eventually tested benign, its dimensions and location were particularly dangerous. Had it gone unchecked for even a short time longer, she would have had problems thinking and remembering, paralysis, and very likely death, according to herdoctor, Joshua Bederson, MD, at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. “We did tell our two older children what was happening because we knew the household was about to be disrupted dramatically,” Jim says in a phone call from his hotel room just a few hours before he performed a comedy set in New Orleans. “So we did to them what the doctors did to us: presented the information with a positive, glass half-full approach,” even if his true level of anxiety, he admits now, was off the charts.