AATH 2006 Book of the Year

Humor Heals

Norman Cousins taught the country this lesson about the healing power of humor many years ago and we are often reminded of this truth. We know that the act of laughing is healing.  It makes us feel better and helps us get better.  It is very easy to take ourselves in particular, our careers, and our work much too seriously. 

Close friends have experienced our occasional over-the-top, out of control laughing, true guffaws, and sometimes snorting.  Does anything feel better?  You cannot laugh while feeling sorry for yourself.  Seeing the humor in any situation brings relief and release.  Did you hear about the drunk who got a “speeding” ticket after passing out at the wheel of his car? A tragedy when it happened, yes.  Being able to laugh at the incident in hindsight brings understanding and relief.  Our favorite apocryphal joke is about hitting a pig, reporting the accident anonymously and getting a ticket in the mail for $500.  And how did they find us, you ask: “The pig squealed.”

Shirley set the stage for our approach to her treatment for breast cancer, which included large doses of humor from day one.  As she was wheeled in for her first mastectomy, laying on a gurney just outside the operating room, she looked up and said to her surgeon, Phil McWhorter:  “Hey, Phil, you ought to charge me half price.  I’m pretty small.”  She was the epitome of courage, strength, and fortitude.  She was then and is today a winner. 

A year later in 1983, Shirley suggested to the hospital’s then President & CEO that she was being over charged for her mammogram, that she should get a 50% discount. After all, they only had to take a single x-ray image, not two.  What’s fair is fair.  She left him speechless.  It just makes sense to me.

And there was her relationship with her oncologist, Dick Hollister, and his incredible office staff.  Do you realize that over 95% of cancer treatment takes place in a physician’s private office, not in a hospital? If you choose to work in oncology, you know from the get go that at least 50% of your patients will die as a result of their disease.  And yet Dick and his staff always provided hope, comfort, and, best of all, large doses of laughter and humor. 

Dick made the choice to become a doctor and treat patients with cancer at age 13 according to his mother, at age 11 according to him.  He was the perfect match for Shirley, who turned him bright red (fairly easy given his red-head’s freckled complex-ion), when she whipped out her temporary breast prosthesis during his first visit to her hospital room.  He was speechless.  He knew he had a live one, despite the poor prognosis.  Shirley was an interesting and challenging case for a new oncologist in his first few years of practice.  Jokes were a staple in his office during the course of our year of treatment.  Humor is healing to body, mind, and spirit.