27-year-old TikToker faces cancer treatment with hilarious outlook. See inspiring videos
Near his 27th birthday, an Illinois TikToker found out he had cancer.
After being diagnosed May 23, Chicago TikToker Anthony Corrado, known as @Toekneecorrado, knew he wanted to document the journey in the best way he knew possible — through comedy.
Corrado was diagnosed with lymphoma after undergoing what he thought would be just a hernia surgery, according to a TikTok posted to his account May 30. Doctors found out after the surgery that he had a cyst in his lymph node. After sending the lump to the lab, it came back positive for the cancer.
“Initial reaction was of course shock,” Corrado told McClatchy News in a phone interview. “The second day I was annoyed and a little bit angry, and by the third day I was ready to rock it.”
Corrado said he shifted into a positive mindset quickly, but he doesn’t know exactly how he did it. He saw his diagnosis as an opportunity to help people on a deeper level.
“I got into comedy and doing what I do for the sheer fact that I truly love making people laugh,” he said. “In making people laugh and with a younger demographic who could be going through something similar, I wanted to show people they could laugh and make fun of something rather than be scared of it.”
Documenting his cancer treatments
In a TikTok posted June 17, the Michigan native showed the process of him getting his new port placed.
“If you don’t know what a port placement is, they shaved my Italian chest bare and they’re going to be putting a port somewhere around here,” the TikToker who joked that he was going to be part bionic man said in the video. “And that’s basically going to make it super easy to get my chemo.”
Then the man rolled out of the hospital room for his port placement, as the song “Pocketful of Sunshine” by Natasha Bedingfield played in the background.
In a June 23 video documenting his first round of chemotherapy, Corrado pretended his hospital room is an episode of “MTV Cribs.”
“This right here? This is where all the magic happens,” Corrado said, pointing to the hospital bed.
The man later joked in the video about how he constantly had to use the bathroom because of all of the fluids being pumped into him.
“If you think about it, every time I go pee, I’m actually peeing out the cancer cells, and then I’m flushing them down into the dirty, deep depths of the Chicago sewer system, where they belong,” he said in the TikTok.
Later in the video, he staged a music video, equipped with dancing on the hospital bed and breaking down with his IV flowing the medicine into his body.
Going beyond TikTok
Making people laugh is just one thing Corrado has achieved with his TikTok videos.
Children’s research hospital St. Jude commented on the TikToker’s video saying “Your positivity during treatment is so so inspiring! Keep fighting.”
Many others have agreed.
“Let me tell you. Your spirit is going to help you through all this. And I don’t think you realize how many people you’ll inspire along the way,” another person commented on one of his videos.
Corrado said he doesn’t know how to respond to the overwhelming support he’s received from all different angles.
“The amount of people that have reached out saying they’re going through something similar… that’s the part that gets me a little choked up,” he said.
But Corrado doesn’t want people to watch his videos about his diagnosis and treatment and think of him differently.
“When this all started happening there was this fear that people would just see the cancer stuff and feel bad for me and not see the comedy behind what I do,” he said. “I want to be able to show people who I am while shining a light on a part of life that doesn’t get the best attention. I just don’t want to be someone that people feel bad for.”
This story was originally published June 26, 2023 at 4:57 PM with the headline "27-year-old TikToker faces cancer treatment with hilarious outlook. See inspiring videos."