I like to shop at factory discount stores. Clothes marked irregular fit me fine. - Brett Leake, comedian with muscular dystrophy

Mounting evidence -- medical, psychological, social, spiritual -- suggests that people with disabilities and serious health problems not only can find humor in their situations, they'd better. Humor is being taken very seriously as a way to enhance physical well-being and minimize the stresses of modern life, including those imposed by disabilities.

This wallpaper is awful. One of us has to go.
- Oscar Wilde on his death bed

There's virtually no human experience that hasn't spawned a joke. Books on humor quote quips born in concentration camps, prisoner of war settings, intensive care units, earthquakes, hurricanes, funerals and death row, and from people facing cancer, AIDS, paralysis and every type of disability and disease. In her book, I Want to Grow Hair, I Want to Grow Up, I Want to Go to Boise, the late Erma Bombeck described one of the things she learned from children living with cancer: "I have been quoted as saying, 'There are just some things you don't poke fun at.' I was wrong. Laughter rises out of tragedy when you need it the most and rewards you for your courage."

Camp is the only place I don't worry about cancer. I worry about mosquitoes.
- Child quoted by Erma Bombeck

The kids Bombeck met realized something important: They needed to laugh. It helped them feel better physically and emotionally, and it reminded them there was more to their lives than cancer.

I dropped a hammer on my foot. I said, ouch, I bet that hurt.
- J.D. England, comedian with paraplegia

Humor developed in crisis is a healthy defense mechanism, a type of armor that protects you against a huge challenge that could destroy your spirit.

Doctor: I have some bad news. You have cancer and you have Alzheimer's.
Patient: Well, at least I don't have cancer.

Allen Klein, a leading expert on the benefits of humor in tough situations, writes, "Many nationally known comedians experienced intense isolation, depression, suffering, or loss in their childhood. They found that kidding around about their losses and difficulties was a way of gaining power over them."

When I'm happy I feel like crying, but when I'm sad I don't feel like laughing. I think it's better to be happy. Then you get two feelings for the price of one.
- Lily Tomlin as Edith Ann

Regaining your power over circumstances is perhaps the single greatest value of a sense of humor for someone living with a neuromuscular disease. Disability can produce a sense of helplessness and impotence, but if you can poke fun at it, you're in charge of how it affects your outlook and your self-concept.

I know it's not politically correct to call myself handicapped. I'm supposed to say physically challenged or developmentally disabled. But I don't have that kind of time.
- Chris "Crazy Legs" Fonseca, comedian with cerebral palsy

Laughter makes you stronger. No, it won't cure your neuromuscular disease, but it helps you master the things you can control -- your own attitude and, sometimes, other people's reactions. By learning not to take everything so seriously, you may develop a positive outlook whether you want one or not.

Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up but a comedy in long shot.
- Charlie Chaplin

In a study reported in their book, Humor and Life Stress: Antidote to Adversity, two psychologists, Herbert Lefcourt and Rod Martin, presented each of several people with mobility impairments with one of two disability-relevant cartoons. (One depicted a gallows with a staircase and a wheelchair ramp leading to it; the other had a wheelchair ramp leading to the edge of a cliff, on which there was a sign reading "Suicide leap.") They then asked questions that allowed them to rate the subjects on several scales of psychological well-being, including vitality, self-concept, coping ability and sense of self-control (the belief that one is in charge of one's life).

We don't laugh because we're happy. We're happy because we laugh.
-William James

Lefcourt and Martin found that the people with disabilities who showed a sense of humor by laughing at the cartoons scored higher on all these scales than those who didn't laugh. They concluded: "Subjects who could laugh at cartoons that pointedly referred to their need for special facilities were decidedly better functioning individuals."

If you can laugh about your predicament, then you've accepted that and the other person doesn't need to treat you with kid gloves. If you can poke fun at yourself, they feel like, oh, he's just a guy and this is just what he's dealing with and it's not a big a deal.
- Patty Wooten, R.N., lecturer on humor and health

I only flirt with girls who look like they have ground-floor apartments.
- John Callahan, cartoonist with spinal cord injury

Jokes about disability poke fun at the teller, the medical condition, and at society's stereotypes and preconceptions.

People ask me why I don't wear dark glasses. Well, I don't see deaf people wearing earmuffs.
- Alex Valdez, comedian with visual impairment

Well-meaning people may think it's inappropriate or unkind to laugh at jokes about disabilities. But comedians with disabilities have developed a whole new type of wisecrack that anyone can laugh at; they put the humor first and the disability last.

I went to the state fair and I won a teddy bear at the shooting gallery. They gave it to me just to make me put the gun down.
- Chris Fonseca

Most comedians draw on personal experience, so it isn't surprising that Fonseca's act is filled with jokes based on his cerebral palsy. Listeners, whether they have disabilities or not, laugh because they appreciate his perspective on life.

Those handicapped bathroom stalls are so big. I'm sitting in there thinking about where I'm going to put the couch.
- Kathy Buckley, comedian with hearing disability

Some comedians with disabilities use humor to educate, and others see social enlightenment as secondary to the entertainment value.

First, I have to be funny. If I can make a point, it's that much better.
- Chris Fonseca

I get thousands of letters a year from people who get their eyes opened to disability through my cartoons.
- John Callahan

You can apply humor when answering familiar questions about your disease or responding to standard assumptions about disability.

My real handicap is being sexually frustrated. I haven't had a date in three years. Maybe it's because I haven't heard the phone ring.
- Kathy Buckley

Dispelling tension with a joke or light-hearted remark is a great way to break barriers and help people see beyond your disability. When people are laughing because of your wit, they can't be laughing at your limitations at the same time.

I have facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy. But that's just too hard to say. So when people ask what happened to me I just tell them I broke a chain letter.
- Brett Leake

Leake doesn't make his disability a focal point of his comedy act but he always tells a few jokes about it. Otherwise, the audience may be focusing on the way he moves rather than on what he says.

Do I get sympathetic laughs? I hope so. If you feel sorry for the joke, laugh.
- Brett Leake

"You simply explain what's different about what they expected and that disarms the audience and you move on to talk about what you choose to," Leake says. "Then I can refer back to things that are frequent in all our lives, growing up, driving a car, staying in hotels, going to school."

You'll see, in the case of a nightclub performance, the audience changes where it looks, from looking at your body and the way it moves to up at your eyes. And (the disability) stops being the concern of the audience.
- Brett Leake

It's important to remember that a sense of humor is as individualized as taste in clothing or food. When it comes to disability humor, comfort levels and sensitivities vary.

Whatever makes you laugh, one thing is beyond dispute:

A merry heart doeth good like a medicine, but a broken spirit drieth the bones.
-Proverbs 17:22.

Thanks to these sources for many of the quotes used here: The Healing Power of Humor by Allen Klein, Tarcher, 1989; Compassionate Laughter, Jest for Your Health, and Heart, Humor & Healing by Patty Wooten, R.N., Commune-a-Key Publishing, 1996 and 1994; Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot by John Callahan, Vintage Books, 1990; and "Look Who's Laughing," Public Broadcasting System, Nov. 1994.