S4E16 Laughter is the best medicine with Shari Short

Geoff Allix (00:00): 

Welcome to Living Well with MS, the podcast from Overcoming MS, the world’s leading multiple sclerosis healthy lifestyle charity, celebrating its 10th year of serving the MS community. I’m your host, Geoff Allix. The goal of our organization and this podcast is to inform, support, and empower people with MS to lead full and happy lives. We’re excited you could join us for this new episode. 

 

Make sure to check out this episode’s show notes for more information and useful links. You can find these on our website at www.overcomingms.org/podcast or on whichever podcast platform you use to tune into our program. If you enjoy the show, please spread the word about us on your social media channels or leave a review wherever you tune into our podcast. Have questions or ideas to share? Email us at [email protected] or you can reach out to me directly on Twitter, @GeoffAllix. We’d love to hear from you. Finally, don’t forget to subscribe to Living Well with MS on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode. And now, let’s meet our guest for this episode. 

 

Welcome to the Living Well with MS podcast. This episode is Laughter is the Best Medicine, with guest, Shari Short. Shari is a patient advocate, a professional in healthcare communications, and naturally, a stand-up comedian. As senior director of insights and strategy at Bionical Solutions, she has over 20 years of experience in patient education, from behavior change to clinical trial recruitment. A developmental psychologist by training, Shari has held positions with the National Cancer Institute, Centers for Disease Control, Virginia Department of Health, Fox Chase Cancer Center, and various healthcare marketing firms. Shari received her MA in Developmental Psychology from Columbia University Teacher’s College. 

 

Shari has been living with multiple sclerosis for 14 years. As a patient advocate, Shari has shared insights from living with multiple sclerosis to the New Jersey Statewide Advocacy Committee of the National MS Society, as well as written for their national magazine, Momentum. She incorporated her experience with MS into a sold-out one-woman show called, It’s My Mother’s MS, I Just Have It, and a satire letter series from The Crazy Cane Lady. Shari has been featured on multiple podcasts. She had been performing stand-up comedy since her teen years and has opened for performers such as Shawn Colvin and Sandra Bernhard. Welcome to the program, Shari, and thanks so much for joining us on Living Well with MS. 

 

Shari Short (02:34): 

Thank you for having me. 

 

Geoff Allix (02:37): 

You have a very eclectic background, from stand-up comedy to developmental psychology. Can you tell us a bit about how that all ties together and has helped you forward your current path focused on behavior change? 

 

Shari Short (02:51): 

Sure. I mean, doesn’t it sound like such a natural path, from stand-up comedy to developmental psychology. It’s like a board game, really, it’s like a party game. I basically started out really wanting to be in the arts and especially stand-up, I preferred stand-up to acting. I sing, I act, whatever, but stand-up was my favorite. And I for some reason had the guts to start it at 14 years of age when I had braces and was in high school and was able to go into the comedy clubs and just watch, watch and learn. And the older comics there just, they adopted me and took really good care of me. I read John Belushi’s book, a book about John Belushi by Woodward, at a young age, and it scared me to have to depend on my sense of humor for finances. 

 

So I said, “Well, I want to have like a solid degree and a solid job and do stand-up.” And of course, when you’re a teenager, you think that all works. I was eager to at least get academic credentials behind me, so I went to film school, went to NYU, and there I minored in psychology, spent a lot of time during the summers, working with young kids and parents in theater camps, and just absolutely fell in love with… Excuse me… The way that our lives changed when we become parents. And it wasn’t me, I was watching people become parents, and I was helping parents and I wasn’t even a parent yet. So when I chose developmental psychology for my graduate work, I felt like that’s what I’m going to go into. I want to create resources for parents. 

 

I became concerned with… like we talked about Microsoft earlier, I was like, “Are there books for parents on how to use the computer?” I interned with Sesame Street. I was very focused on being creative within this academic psych setting. But once you go to grad school, nothing’s really funny, so I stopped doing comedy. I had opened for Sandra Bernhard, I’d opened for Shawn Colvin, I’d had a wonderful time, but you got to commit. If you want to do stand-up, you have to commit and you have to want it, you have to want that life and I preferred giving lectures. 

 

I preferred making the audience laugh that they had to be there, I had to grade them or they had to be graded, they had to show up. And I tipped my hat off to everybody I know that’s successful now, that just put in those hours and put in that amount of travel to live the life of a stand-up comic, especially in the 90s, and the early 2000s, because that was way before MS for me, but something I knew I didn’t have the stamina for. And I was so nervous to not get paid and have it all depend on my sense of humor, that was a big thing for me. 

 

Geoff Allix (06:14): 

We’ll come back to the humor in a bit because it’s obviously an essential part of your personal and professional identity. But first, because this is a Living Well with MS Podcast, we want to understand a bit about your experience with MS. Could you give us a bit of an intro, anything that you feel comfortable sharing about your MS journey? 

 

Shari Short (06:35): 

Sure. I was diagnosed in the summer of 2008. I had become a runner a year or so before that, and was training pretty intensely for a 10k, and I suddenly had vision loss and pain behind my eye. It presented as the optic neuritis, but I didn’t know that. For me it was, “Oh, there’s pain, there’s my eye, there’s my head. Clearly it’s a brain tumor.” And I panicked and went to the urgent care center and they sent me to the ER, and I got an emergency eye doctor appointment the following morning. And the eye doctor just said, “Oh, this is really classic optic neuritis.” And I was like, “Great, give me some eye drops.” I didn’t know what that meant, and he just kept sitting there and I’m like, “Oh, you have more to tell me, don’t you?” 

 

He got me into a pretty quick appointment with a neurologist. And I don’t have a slow, drawn-out diagnosis story, like so many. They had a neuroradiologist at my MRI, they saw lesions, I was diagnosed really quickly, all based on that one event with the optic neuritis. 

 

Geoff Allix (07:53): 

I think there is a difference in different health care systems around the world, it does seem to me the Americans I’ve spoken to, do get diagnosed typically quite quickly, whereas in the UK we often get diagnosed quite slowly. But on the flip side, we get lots of free medication. 

 

Shari Short (08:10): 

Yes, it’s quite the flip side. 

 

Geoff Allix (08:13): 

Definitely tradeoffs between the different- 

 

Shari Short (08:13): 

It’s quite the flip side. 

 

Geoff Allix (08:16): 

If someone were to come up with the best of both worlds, it’d be pretty good. But yeah. Yeah, I would never say anything bad about our system, our system is fantastic. 

 

Shari Short (08:24): 

I’m a fan of your system. 

 

Geoff Allix (08:25): 

But yeah, there are downsides to how quickly things happen occasionally, but anyway, we can live with that. 

 

Shari Short (08:30): 

Yeah [inaudible 00:08:33]. 

 

Geoff Allix (08:33): 

Was there a point when you developed a philosophy or methodology even of using humor to cope with some of the challenges that came up because of MS? 

 

Shari Short (08:45): 

It was pretty organic, I think, for me to be using my humor to cope. And I just didn’t realize how naturally it would be until I was actually in a situation where I had to really tap into my coping skills. At my very first MRI where they diagnosed me, and the neuroradiologist is literally showing me my scan so I’m seeing my skull, the first thing out of my mouth, Geoff, was, “Do I look fat?” Right? It’s like, “What?” Like, “Where’d that come from?” Like okay, I’m nervous and I’m processing, and clearly I’m going to try to lighten the mood. And to just see myself consistently doing that, when I got my first handicap tag and I was very sad about it, I remembered I had a dress the same color and I’m like, “I can finally accessorize.” 

 

So things were just coming to me in a way to get me off of the morbid train, to get me off of the “Okay, I could really [inaudible 00:09:53] because of this particular situation, but I’m going to find the humor in it.” And the more I did that, the more my friends would say to me, “You’ve got a collection of stuff here. You’ve got stories, you’ve got strangers who’ve said ridiculous things to you, you’ve got just funny conversations, you’ve had funny interactions.” People would see me, and I didn’t mention this before, but eventually after the optic neuritis, eventually I lost feeling on my left side and now I walk with a cane and two leg braces. And I’ve had people just approach me, like I’m some sort of former athlete and then they’d be like, “Oh, was it soccer?” They just made up sports and they’re strangers, I started telling people it was a Quidditch injury. 

 

Geoff Allix (08:45): 

Well Quidditch is very dangerous. I mean, the altitude and… 

 

Shari Short (10:48): 

Well, yeah, this is my little PSA. Yeah, so Quidditch causes MS, so yeah. I had a lot of time to not only see how I was using my humor to cope, but also to just see humor in situations. I was watching it unfold and gave myself the project of putting together a one woman show. And in doing so, in writing and in taking every Sunday to just sit and write and write, it was really, it was a deep dive into my own perspective. And from there I did the show, but I also then put together presentations and different types of creative outlets and tools for coping, that could hopefully help other people. Because this is not a mindset that just comes easily to a lot of people. 

 

Geoff Allix (11:39): 

You’ve produced a lot of content, which you’ve touched on there, and it is mentioned in the show notes, so do have a look, there’s links to a lot of that content. Some of the things are shows, like On My Nerves, as well as a satirical piece for Momentum, the National MS Society magazine in the States. Presentations at the University of Pennsylvania, various podcast appearances, including this one. Could you tell us if there’s any of those experiences that stand out for you? 

 

Shari Short (12:11): 

The one-woman show was phenomenal, and it was called On My Nerves, but the working title for me was, It’s My Mother’s MS, I Just Have It, because I had so many stories about how mom was dealing with my diagnosis or dealing with my disease, as opposed to me. And then that dovetailed into how everybody else was dealing with my situation, and the stories that I had on that. To have so many people come out and see that, and then be asked, “Do you want to do this for fringe festivals and stuff like that?” And to have to say, “Actually, no, I can’t, that took all the energy I have.” It was amazing, I’m glad I had it taped, I’m glad I have my binder. I could do it again, but I couldn’t do it on a show basis. 

 

To have a night at the theater where 140 people came out and it was sold out, was a really wonderful way to honor how I’ve used the humor. And also I got just emails and responses from people with other chronic illnesses, and a lot of people with more silent, hidden chronic illness that were like, “Thank you for that, because you just touched on stuff that no one’s talking about, and you did it in a way that was safe.” And I just realized that the humor can help people and it’s not just helping me. Yeah, and then just the Crazy Cane Lady letter series that I started a couple of years ago was just a little creative advocacy project for me, where I would just write letters, fake letters, very real feelings, but fake letters to different entities, like hotels or restaurants, or back to school night, or Broadway theaters, about how they could be more accommodating to people like me. 

 

I definitely honed in on the cane part of my existence because I see that there are tremendous accommodations, and we could still improve for people in wheelchairs, but the cane, it gets a little middle child treatment sometimes. And there’s a ramp that it’ll take me a year to get up the ramp on the cane when I could just go up the steps and then be there. So I just feel like there’s a lot to learn and people have a lot to learn in terms of event planning and in terms of accommodating people with canes. I did this series of letters during MS Week here in the States, it was in March a couple of years ago. And I made those public, and that took off really nicely. People responded really well to that, and I need to write more of them. 

I was going to do it again the following year, but the following year was COVID and I just felt like we all had bigger fish to fry than if I can find a bench near a movie theater, right? So I didn’t continue with that. I did a video series, like an Oscars version of just thanking different entities within the MS community that have helped me cope. I feel like if I can’t perform it or if I can’t write it and put it out there in a satirical way, I’m not processing. I don’t do the serious stuff and process; it has to be creative for me to feel like it’s healing. 

 

Geoff Allix (15:37): 

You’ve mentioned that humor’s helped you deal with situations you’ve had and help with your physical abilities and not take yourself too seriously, so how transferable are those benefits to the broader MS community? And how would you advise people to try to tap into that relationship you have with humor? 

 

Shari Short (16:03): 

Yeah, no, that’s a great question. I think that it comes down to the lens that you’re seeing life through and the lens that you’re seeing your mobility issues through, or whatever it is that MS has affected for you. And the lens I used to see my slow gait and my balance issues, I used to just… Well, I went from being a runner to the negative and it was, “Oh, great. This is what I get, and this isn’t fair.” And all of those very, very normal feelings, to, “All right, I’m going to rock a cane.” Or “All right, with these assistant orthotic devices, they make me look like a Jedi.” Or not, they made me look like a storm trooper actually, because they were white. 

 

I also, I have to say I had a small child during this time, so I really felt the need to be creative about what was happening to mommy, because he saw me go from a runner to, I can’t walk well, and that kind of pushed me along. There might be something for other people, when they consider, “Well, am I looking through it in the glass half full lens, or am I looking through it in the glass half empty? And what lens am I looking at it through? And are there things that I think are funny that, if I tell people I think they’re funny, they’re going to judge me?” And I’m here to say, embrace all of it. It’s your lens, you’re seeing it through. I did a lot of acceptance of dark humor. I did a lot of acceptance of the fact that humor is a language and some people will be put off if you’re joking about your condition. And some people will feel like, “Oh, okay, good [inaudible 00:17:53].” 

 

Geoff Allix (17:53): 

How do you deal with that discomfort if people are not comfortable with you talking in a humorous way about something as serious as MS? 

 

Shari Short (18:03): 

Sure. Well, it’s always know your audience, right? If I’m talking to other people who have MS, to the best of my ability I gauge where they are, like that talk I gave at Penn here in the States, they knew they were logging on to see a comedian, they knew what they were getting, so I wasn’t too scared to read the Crazy Cane Lady letters or whatever. But I mean, to this day… look, last week I dealt with COVID and I knew I had COVID not because of a cold or a cough, but because I collapsed, and my husband had to pick me up off the floor. It triggered something in the MS and I’m like, “Oh, I’ve got a virus that my body wants me to know about.” 

 

And I could tell people and I get the “Oh.” You know, I get the face. And I’m like, “Yeah, but I didn’t hurt myself.” Or “Yeah, my husband was right there.” Or “My COVID’s more fun than your COVID.” I feel the need to keep going with the story instead of letting it halt and let them know I’m okay. And not everybody can do that, and I get that. And that’s why, when I do workshops or anything like that, I get personal and talk about, “Okay, what’s in your toolbox? What can you grab onto at that moment that is going to help you get either through telling the story or through what you’re doing?” Almost in a cognitive behavioral way, “What’s a great image you have in your head to just move you through the situation?” 

 

And that’s all just been because that’s worked for me, and I know from research that humor is healing and laughing is really good for the body. There have definitely been situations in my life where the instinct is to cry, but I know it I’ve always felt better if I set the situation up so I could laugh at it. 

 

Geoff Allix (20:10): 

You’ve got a principle, I believe, called laughing on purpose, which you’ve almost touched on there, I think. But could you tell us a bit of more about that? 

 

Shari Short (20:18): 

Laughing on purpose? 

 

Geoff Allix (20:19): 

Yes. 

 

Shari Short (20:22): 

Laughing on purpose, I mean, when I hear that phrase, I mean, I feel like it’s making a conscious choice to keep your sense of humor about you when things are challenging. And that looking at things with humor is not a weakness, it’s like, if I don’t laugh, I’ll cry, that phrase that’s out there. It’s like if you laugh, it’s actually going to help the situation a little bit. And it’s for you, it’s personal for you. It’s not like, “Oh, somebody else is suffering, so laugh at them.” I’m only talking about when one is dealing with one’s own stuff. That would be horrible advice to give to anybody to just laugh at other people’s challenges. 

 

Geoff Allix (21:04): 

I just think all the best humor is when it’s the comedian laughing at themselves, I think that’s the funniest humor, isn’t it? 

 

Shari Short (21:10): 

Of course. Yeah, and I felt like sometimes I had to be jostled into it, I had to be jostled back. And I had this wonderful story in the show whereby I got that handicap tag and I was sad about it. And my boss at the time was like, “Well, can I borrow it? I have Springsteen tickets, and I would love to use your handicap tag.” Here I was feeling really bad for myself, and then people were like, “You’ve got the golden ticket.” I have this motto or whatever, or this creed or this way of looking at things, like if I don’t try to find the humor in this, then I haven’t really processed it, like I mentioned before. And it’s not a pressure, it’s just how can I help myself? 

 

Occasionally they’ll be like, “Oh no, no, no, it’s not working yet. It’s not working yet.” And in my toolbox, I have things that make me laugh. I have old Blackadder episodes, I have the best of Bits of Fry and Laurie, I have comedians like David Mitchell and things on the BBC that make me laugh, or American comedians like Kathleen Madigan. And I just go there, I’m like, “They’re going to make me laugh and it’s going to reset me.” The things that are dark, the things that I’ve had to deal with with MS, the intimate, discreet ways in which the central nervous system wreaks havoc, MS wreaks havoc on it, I don’t want to share with everybody, but I’ve become a little bit more like, “I’ve got to advocate for me or no one else will.” 

 

So if we’re all going into a restaurant, I’m like, “Excuse me, but the seat near the bathroom. Yeah, that would be me. That is mine.” Right? Yeah. And it’s just like, I’m 51 years old, people might think, “Oh, oh, women do that.” No, no, no, it is totally because of the MS. But I’ve just grown a little bit more comfortable with the uncomfortable because I communicate with my humor. And when you have MS, I mean, everybody’s got it differently, but there’s uncomfortable things about it. 

 

Geoff Allix (23:33): 

Sense of humor can apply to many things in MS. It can be coping tool, teaching tool, defense mechanism, so just for general member of the public who’s got MS, how can they harness humor to make a positive benefit to themselves? 

 

Shari Short (23:55): 

I think, first of all, you have to ask how you’re processing any aspect of where you are in your patient journey, is the term that’s used most often. How are you processing? Are you talking about it a lot? Are you thinking about it a lot? Are you down on yourself because of it? Or are you trying to give yourself pep talks? Are you worried about the future? Where are you with it? And then ask yourself in that processing, “Okay, what kind of lens should I look at this through so it’s going to help me move forward?” 

 

The toolbox is something I come back to a lot. What makes you laugh, as you, your own person with MS, what makes you laugh is not what makes me laugh, is not what makes everybody else laugh, it’s you. So write it down, actually acknowledge your sense of humor. What makes you laugh? And start to collect those things, whether it’s books or whether it’s links on the internet, whether it’s the cat video or the guy who says, “I’m not a cat,” to the lawyer, you know those things that went viral last year. There are things that can immediately make you laugh so just be more aware of them because they’re tools for you to reset. And I use humor to communicate, not everybody does. You may find in your dealing with MS, that you’ve got two friends that will get your dark humor, that will get your jokes, or will support you on that, then they’re part of your toolbox too. 

 

I’ve found that I’ve had, like we talked about earlier, there’s people that get uncomfortable or they make faces and I don’t stop too long in their party. I just go, “Okay, yeah, yeah, no, I know it sucks.” I can’t take care of anybody else but me, so I think that’s really important, is to just look where you are, what lens are you looking at it through? Where can you find, is there humor in this situation? Do you want to write about it? Do you want to tell a good close friend about it? Do you want to tell your doctor about it? But collect those things, because at other times it’s going to make you laugh when no one else knows what you’re thinking, and it’s going to be part of your own collection of stories that you can go back to and say, “This is how I dealt. This is how I helped myself.” Because to find humor in situations, it’s not self-defeating, it’s empowering. 

 

Geoff Allix (26:26): 

With that, I’d like to thank you so much for being our guest on Living Well with MS. We’re thrilled to learn about the amazing work you’ve been doing to help people with MS, to ease their burdens and get the most out of life using humor. And I would absolutely encourage everyone to learn more about you and your work by checking out the links in the show notes, they’re available on every platform. Have a look at the show notes of the episode. And thank you much for joining us again, Shari. 

 

Shari Short (26:52): 

Thank you so much for having me, this was great. 

 

Geoff Allix (27:01): 

Thank you for listening to this episode of Living Well with MS. Please check out this episode’s show notes at www.overcomingms.org/podcast. You’ll find all sorts of useful links and bonus information there. Do you have questions about this episode or ideas about future ones? Email us at [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you. You can also subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast platform, so you never miss an episode. 

 

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The Living Well with MS family of podcasts is for private, non-commercial use, and exists to educate and inspire our community of listeners. We do not offer medical advice. For medical advice please contact your doctor or other licensed healthcare professional. Our guests are carefully selected, but all opinions they expressed are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Overcoming MS charity, its affiliates, or staff.