Not long after, I trained as a Laughter Yoga leader. I became an expert extolling laughter’s virtue to anyone who’d listen. That was until a distinctly un-funny time in my life—a bowel cancer diagnosis at age forty-two. Despite there being nothing humorous about cancer, I knew deep within that laughter was inextricably bound to my experience. The moment had arrived to practice what I preached. I just needed time (and a couple of major operations) to connect the dots. Read More
A universal language, across societies we guffaw, chuckle, chortle, howl, snigger, roar, snort, titter, hoot, whoop, snicker and cackle. Our cultural background shapes our laugh-print. Read More
My shock diagnosis of bowel cancer got me thinking about the language around cancer. It really annoyed me. It is all-pervasive — ‘she has cancer’, ‘he has cancer’, as opposed to being contained and specific, for example, she has a cancer in her breast, he has a cancer in his prostate. Saying a person has… Read More