Last month, you went onstage at Largo in Los Angeles and did a very unusual set. You told the audience how four months ago you contracted a life-threatening infection. Days after your release from the hospital, your mother died after a freak fall in her house. Shortly after that, you were given a diagnosis of Stage 2 breast cancer. You opened your set saying, “Thank you, I have cancer, thank you.” The crowd laughed. Did they know?

I don’t think a lot did, no. People were laughing, and I remember being onstage thinking, We’re all standing on this bridge and only I know that it’s about to collapse. And it did.

What resonated most with the audience?

I always think about the idea that God never gives you more than you can handle, and just the idea that God would be looking at me and thinking, Eh, I think she can handle more. And the angels thinking: What are you doing? You’re a lunatic. And God being like: “No, no, trust me. She can handle this.”

Do you see this as the universe being cruel?

No, I don’t believe it’s karma, I don’t think the universe is turning on me, I don’t think it’s God, I don’t think it’s any of that.