Perusing Intima's last issue, I noticed some overlapping themes between two very different pieces: my own fictional piece “Sweet Dreams,” and “Humor As (Narrative) Medicine,” an autoethnographic study by Alyse Keller Johnson, an associate professor of communication studies at CUNY Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn.

Johnson evocatively describes her relatives’ many stories of how they each utilized humor in several unique yet familiar ways to manage the experience of living with Multiple Sclerosis in the family. Some used humor to reframe the narrative of illness imposed by society, some used it as resistance against sadness, and there are many other fascinating and moving examples.

I was most intrigued by the examples of humor as relief—the notion that we can use humor as a way to simply divert attention from the tougher parts of our lives and focus on the more enjoyable and laughable elements—even when they are less common.

I realized that much of the humor in my own story, which traces the life of a seriously ill protagonist that's just a shade less ill than the more beloved, protected and pampered sister, is in this vein of relief. My protagonist, who narrates the story from the first person perspective, is distraught by the years of emotional neglect and deeply craves a few moments of attention. And while a few bitter tendencies do emerge, this humor of relief, so clearly described by Johnson, is—I think—what lets my protagonist (and maybe all the rest of us) get through the struggles of the day-to-day.

Moshe Gordon is a second-year medical student at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.