After his recovery for gallstones, a man awakened in his hospital room to discover the stones on the same tray on which his medication had been placed. A nurse had put them there so he could see the cause of his torture. With some effort, he was finally able to get them down.

When you received your diagnosis of cancer, you probably noticed that any prior habits of finding a funny side to everyday life immediately disappeared with those three words--"You have cancer." That's perfectly normal, because all the anger, anxiety, depression or denial that you felt in the following months created a frame of mind that was incompatible with humor. If you want to revive this part of your sense of humor, the best place to start is with areas of your life that have no direct link to your cancer. And--at first, at least--make it a point to do so on the days when you're in a good mood, and not depressed, anxious or angry. Once your ability to find humor in everyday life reemerges on the good days, you can gradually start looking for humor on the tougher days.

As the example at the opening of this article shows, there's always the potential for a funny side of things, even when you're in the hospital. If you're in the hospital now, try asking other patients the funniest thing they've seen since they got into the hospital. This will help you connect with other patients, and get you started noticing things that have been there all along without your seeing them. For example, one patient was overheard telling a family member that he was suffering from "sick-as-hell anemia." A woman said to her duaghter, "I have micro-orgasms in my blood."

Watch for funny things when you're traveling in the car. We've already talked about looking for road signs that can be interpreted in more than one way (e.g., "Slow children at play," "Draw bridge"). Watch other people's behavior while driving. I was driving to a speaking engagement recently when I came into a traffic circle. I had to hit my brakes hard to avoid hitting a car that was backing up. It's a circle! All the driver had to do was go around in order to catch the turn he missed. I was so amazed at this that I drove around four times, just watching people's reaction to this guy. While most people were angry, the whole scene was so absurd that I found it very funny.

I was in a new grocery store recently and had to swipe my own credit card in a machine that was unfamiliar to me. The cashier saw my hesitation, and said, "Strip down and face toward me!" I immediately turned to her and laughed. I said, "Are you sure you want me to do that?" She looked confused for a moment, and then blushed. She was totally unaware of the other meaning of what she had been saying to customers for weeks.

When I'm in my car and run into heavy traffic, I generally take out one of my 30 animal noses and put it on while driving. I hate traffic, and it can put me in a bad mood, but something as simply as a silly nose keeps me in good spirits because of the reactions other drivers have to it. About half the drivers either laugh at it, make a silly face at me, or react in some other fun way. None of us gets through the traffic any faster, but we're in a better mood as a result of this simple form of humor.

These are just a few examples of the power of humor in your every day life. Your sense of humor has the power to prevent negative emotions from taking over when you're in tough situations. It helps you manage your mood, assuring that you keep a positive focus, even in the midst of circumstances that are stressing everyone else out.

I invite you to start viewing your sense of humor as a stress deodorant. It helps prevent stress, as well as helping you cope when stress occurs. On your good days, one application of this emotional deodorant in the morning will probably get you through the entire day. But when you're learning to live with cancer, you may need repeated applications throughout the day. Don't wait for humor to come to you, be determined to be on the lookout for it every day as you get out of bed. This will seem like work for the first week, but you will soon find funny things popping up all over. You will discover the truth of a well-known saying by Dr. Seuss, presented at the beginning of the August article in this column:

"From there to here and here to there, funny things are everywhere."

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