Writing Through Cancer

Cancer is no laughing matter.

Yet if you happened to pass by the conference room in the cancer centers where I lead expressive writing programs for men and women living with cancer, you’ll often hear the sounds of laughter.  That’s right, even though we’re writing about the emotional impact accompanying a cancer diagnosis, laughter is no less frequent than tears.  Counterintuitive perhaps, but there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that laughter, like Norman Cousins told us in 1979 when he wrote Anatomy of an Illness, is good medicine.  Even before Cousins’ insights, Mark Twain advocated for the power of laughter:  “The human race has only one really effective weapon and that’s laughter,” he said.  “The moment it arises, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations and resentments slip away, and a sunny spirit takes their place.”

I love to laugh, and in part, because when I do, I feel better.  Life looks brighter; gray moods dissipate, and others share in the smiles, so I wasn’t surprised to discover, according to author Jeannette  Moninger,  writing in the Winter 2015 issue of CURE, many hospitals across America offer laughter programs for cancer patients.  Moninger describes a few:  At North Kansas City Hospital, patients can watch funny movies…Duke Medicine offers a Laugh Mobile, a rolling cart from which adult patients in oncology wards can check out humorous books and silly items like whoopee cushions and rubber chickens.  And the Big Apple Circus Clown Care Program sends…clowns to 16 children’s hospitals nationwide to help put smiles on the faces of ill children… (pp. 26 – 29).

Even as far back as the 13^th century, surgeons used humor to distract patients from the agony of painful medical procedures!  It turns out they were onto something, and many research studies have borne that out.  Laugh, and not only the world laughs with you, but your body releases endorphins, the “feel good hormones that function as the body’s natural painkillers, ”Moninger writes, the same hormones that create the “runner’s high.”  Endorphins also decrease the body’s levels of cortisol, the hormone associated with chronic stress.  Cortisol has a number of negative effects on our bodies, compromising our immune system, tensing up our muscles, elevating blood pressure—all of which laughter helps to counteract.  I don’t know about you, but I’d like to bottle up some laughter and always have it at the ready to counteract the stresses our rush-rush world.

We all need a little laughter in our lives, no matter if we’re dealing with cancer, an over-busy or stressful life, the loss of loved ones, or simply sharing time with friends and family.  We need to laugh just as much as sometimes, we need to cry.

…when you are raised with the gift of laughter, as I was, it can’t stay suppressed forever. It’s too powerful. Thank goodness for that. I eventually could see bits of “ha-ha” in my own life. Certainly not in the cancer, but in the mind-blowing circumstances that suddenly consumed my life. And laughing at parts of those experiences made me feel a little more alive.  The funniest part of it all was that the more I allowed myself to laugh, the more therapeutic my tears became.  

(Jim Higley, “Finding Humor in the Midst of Cancer,” Coping with Cancer Magazine, March/April 2012)

Smiling and laughter are simply contagious.  I think of Louis Armstrong, that familiar gravelly voice always enough to make me smile, but in particular, singing:

When you’re smilin’ keep on smilin’
The whole world smiles with you
And when you’re laughin’ oh when you’re laughin’
The sun comes shinin’ through

Try it.  Whether during cancer treatment or simply living a world be constantly dominated by hardship and struggle, it’s good to find something—even a small thing—to smile or laugh about.  Dig back into your memories this week—the fun times, a time you laughed so hard, tears ran down your cheeks.  Take a break from writing about cancer or those other painful topics of life.  Try on a little humor.  Perhaps you have a few memories of times that made you smile, even laugh aloud whenever you think about them.  Write one, that funny story, and let a little “ha, ha” brighten your day.  After all, as Charlie Chaplin said, “A day without laughter is a day wasted.”