Because laughter is surely good medicine, we visit with professional comedians who are also cancer survivors, as well as a top surgeon at New York’s renowned Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, to understand the role of humor and a positive attitude in surviving the disease. Listen to comics who have personally faced the gloom of cancer and yet who have found ways to laugh at it. We also journey to Los Angeles to hear the very human and humorous observations of playwrights who have had cancer and now present their personal journeys in the form of stage performances that are both deeply honest and filled with laughter. With Robert Schimmel, Dr. Patrick Borgen, Marion Grodin, Dr. Lee Berk, Loretta LaRoche, Jonna Tamases, Hal Ackerman and Dr. Jeffrey Gurian.

I think [laughter] is a tool, like swimming or meditating, that helps you live, that keeps you buoyant, that keeps you afloat, that gives you mirth, that’s like a life preserver in a sea of difficulty. But it can’t be instead of. I mean, I’ve cried so much in the last couple of years and that’s been so necessary.”

—Marion Grodin, comedian and cancer survivor