Hank Wolgamott, who has hemophilia A, and his mother, Amanda, live in Texas. They describe how humor helps them to cope in challenging situations.

Amanda: I’m pretty sarcastic in general, so I just try and use humor to get anybody to calm down. If it’s, like, a big situation, like, he’s trying to find a vein, and he can’t find a vein or something, I’ll just say something stupid, like, “Do we need to cut your arm off?” Or something just ridiculous so that he’ll laugh. And then it kind of makes everybody chill out a little bit.

Hank: Because, yeah, if I’ll get, like, a small cut on my finger or something, and I’m kind of overreacting about it a little bit, she’ll be like, “Do we need to cut it off?”