In search of wordplay

[derakon]

In translating Maliki, one recurring problem is the character Fang. She's a young Chinese immigrant with rather badly fractured French, which the author uses to create wordplay; ideally we'd like to have similar play in the English version. One particular example which is giving us (the translator group on the Maliki forums) trouble is this strip, where they discuss a character who died from brain cancer. Fang has the line "Tu meurs si t'as tumeur?", i.e. "You die if you have tumor?" but "tu meurs" and "tumeur" are pronounced the same.

Any suggestions for something broadly similar in meaning that has wordplay in English?