Monday, October 24, 2011

Humor and Cancer

Here's a link to an episode from Radio Free Humankind called "Humor and Health." It's about 10 minutes long, and it isn't really groundbreaking -- it gets into why humor and optimism are beneficial to the immune system, and especially for cancer patients -- but it's ncie anyway.

It features interview clips with several doctors and patients, including a comedian, Marion Grodin (daughter of the actor Charles Grodin), who incorporated her cancer diagnosis and treatment into her act. About 7 minutes into the podcast, she gets into how she was able to joke about it all. (She's pretty funny. After her double lumpectomy, she said to the doctor "Just cut it all off. My ass, my head. I'll just be an arm on top of a foot." You can see more of her here if you're interested.)

I've said it before -- humor is so important, to me, anyway. I know there are people who wouldn't dream of joking about their cancer, because it's just too serious an issue to them. But for me, being serious just gives cancer too much respect.

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