Cancer on Five Dollars a Day (chemo not included): How Humor Got Me Through the Toughest Journey of My Life

One of Comedy Central's 100 Greatest Comics shares how humor helped him cope as he battled cancer. In the spring of 2000, stand-up comedian Robert Schimmel was diagnosed with stage III non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and soon the fire of his white-hot career started to fizzle. But Schimmel never lost his sense of humor, his searing honesty, and most of all, his passion to make people laugh. Indeed, it was his basic need to entertain—even if the only people around him were suffering from cancer and the room he was playing was the Mayo Clinic infusion center—that carried him through his ordeal. Alternately laugh-out-loud funny and deeply moving, Cancer on 5 a Day is a stirring account of how one man's face-off with a deadly disease helped him better understand himself, and ultimately changed his life. "Robert Schimmel always makes me laugh. Now he makes me laugh and cry at the same time. Cancer on $5 a Day is a true testament to laughter and the power of the creative spirit." —Billy Crystal "Engrossing . . . with touches you'd expect from the rough-edged, ribald comic." —San Diego Union-Tribune "[A] remarkable and riveting account. . . . Inspiring it is, and moving, without being mawkish or phony. Schimmel is simply too laugh-out-loud funny, and his storytelling too compelling." —Cleveland Plain Dealer\ "Among a crowded field of inspiring and straight-talking personal survival stories, Schimmel's conversational account is particularly ribald, emphasizing the importance a sense of humor can play in coping, learning, and healing." —Publishers Weekly Read more