Book Alert / Cancer on $5 A Day (Chemo Not Included)

Cancer on $5 A Day (Chemo Not Included) -- How Humor Got Me Through The Toughest Journey in My Life by Robert Schimmel. DaCapo '08, $22, 195 pages, ISBN #0738211583.

That laughter can strengthen the immune system is a principle discovered not by scientists but by a patient. In 1964, longtime Saturday Review editor Norman Cousins deduced that if a person's negative feelings can hurt his prospects for recovery from a debilitating disease, perhaps positive feelings could be helpful. So he had jokes read to him nonstop and watched Marx Brothers movies for hours and hours in a darkened room, laughing hilariously all that time. In short order, his symptoms lessened and eventually disappeared.

Scholarly, urbane Norman Cousins and wisecracking, raunchy Robert Schimmel could hardly be more different, but they're preaching the same sermon. But humor for Schimmel isn't a hobby; as a standup comedian, it's his life's work and one senses he feels it's the reason he's been put on this earth. He has an addict's drive to make people laugh, whether it be his family, a doctor or the janitor. Some of it may be a bit gamy for some; after all, it's from a man who's a regular on Howard Stern.

Early in his treatment for Stage III non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, Schimmel's doctor told him that his recovery depended on putting himself first. This he does with a vengeance. At the time of his diagnosis, the 50-year-old comedian is living with Melissa, pretty and half his age. He's been separated from Vicki, to whom he's been married and divorced an amazing three times and whose ministrations extended their cancer-ravaged son's life by eight years. Improbably, she offers to take him in and care for him during what could be a terminal illness.

With little hesitation, Robert ditches (he'd use a much softer term) Melissa and moves in with Vicki during excruciating months of chemotherapy, while he alternates crying and laughing as he loses weight along with all his hair. One of the more laugh-out-loud anecdotes is Schimmel's recounting of his meeting with a salesman who makes wigs for the pubic region.

As you've probably gathered, this memoir is a roller coaster of laughing and wincing. Tears may form as he comes to the end of his rope, seriously begging his Holocaust-survivor father to help him to the hospital window so he can throw himself off. Unable to talk his son out of his plan, resourceful dad (Schimmel's parents are genuine heroes) corrals two of Robert's children, each about 10 years old, walks them into his room and says, "Robert, tell them what you told me," which shocks Schimmel to his senses.

Still listening to his doctors by ministering solely to himself, Schimmel finally reaches the point of remission and is able to perform again. And who should cross his mind now but Melissa, whom he proceeds to woo and ultimately marries. Vicki, the long-suffering caregiver? We hear nothing further about her. Hey, after all, he's just following doctor's orders.