Customer Reviews

How Can You NOT Laugh at a Time Like This?: Reclaim Your Health with Humor, Creativity, and Grit

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This little book is big on helpful advice and creative ideas. Carla Ulbrich shows us how we can all have an influence on our health and indeed, our lives. We can take charge of a lot, rather than just be reactive to what happens to us. This book is highly recommended. It focuses on the role of laughter and who can't use more laughter in their life? This book is recommended for everyone who is sick, and everyone who is well and wants to stay that way. The stories are short so can be read anytime you have a few minutes to spare.

I've bought her CD "Sick Humor" for all my friends who have dealt with major illnesses. This book is even better. I understand better what to say and not to say to friends dealing with major illnesses, and it's also a great insight into the medical world from a patient's point of view.

This is a remarkable book in part because it is written with such verve and reveals a personality that is not going to easily yield to negative news. I think it goes way beyond just having a good sense of humor -- although that helps -- but it points to a determination that makes us aware that we too need to dig in when we feel that we are likely to get bad news from the doctor. Carla Ulbrich is a model of what one ought to do in the face of bad news: fight, explore, be willing to experiment, and don't give up on one's self. I found this an inspiring book.

First, by way of full disclosure, I need to say: I know the author of this book. More precisely, I knew her in high school, but lost touch with her after graduation. We reconnected on Facebook a year or so ago, which is how I found out about this book. With this context, then, let me ask: have you ever had the experience of meeting up with an old friend, perhaps over lunch, and as you sit and eat and chat, you find yourself laughing so hard you cry? For me, that was the experience of reading this book. It pains me to read about what my friend went through in the 25+ years since high school, but I am also delighted to see that she has kept her sense of humor and appreciation of absurdity. The book is not a narrative of Carla's illnesses, but rather a series of essays about various coping mechanisms she has developed over 20 years of dealing with autoimmune disease. I found myself reading many passages out loud to my wife (who did a great spit-take when I read her the part about the coffee enemas). Stepping back for a moment, I must say that I am more skeptical about "alternative" treatments (acupuncture, qigong, coffee enemas...) than Carla is. She does not proselytize about such things, though, which I find refreshing. Rather, she just writes about what works for her. She happily acknowledges the placebo effect. Borrowing a turn of phrase from J.D. Salinger, I find Carla's approach to her illness "breathtakingly levelheaded." This is a light read in spite of its subject matter, and I would recommend it to anyone who is having difficulty coping with prolonged health problems. The particular treatment and lifestyle recommendations may not apply in all cases, but Carla's positive attitude is (in a good way) contagious.

A quick note about the Kindle formatting: There is nothing particularly nonstandard about the text formatting in most of this book, so the Kindle handles it well. In the passages with song lyrics (Kindles are well-known for screwing up poetry), the lines are double-spaced, which makes the line breaks work out reasonably well even at large typeface sizes.

If that headline doesn't peak your interest, hopefully this review of the book will. Here is a matter-of-fact, common sense opus that truly proves (in the author's words) that an illness is what you "have" and is not what you "are"!! Carla Ulbrich is a wonderfully talented songstress (sorry about the word stress - read the book to find many suggested remedies for that) and folk comedienne who has overcome several setbacks that life has tossed in her path and through her experience has captured the true essence and meaning of the word perseverance. She has proven that anything in life, including illness, can be overcome by education (do your own and don't rely wholly on so-called "experts"), steadfastness of will (to give in is not productive as it doesn't change your present situation), positive thoughts (your own and from others), accepting help (no, we don't have to be everything to everyone and we have to know when to quit) and the willingness of the person to truly listen to the lessons that their life is teaching them (don't always focus on the negative and slide into a "poor me" lifestyle). As "The Singing Patient", Carla has flown into the face of adversity by channeling her personal health issues into a humorous and thought-provoking look at how we can either become our own worst enemy or best friend. She describes the importance of food choices as a dual-edged component of life that can either contribute to our illness or to our wellness - are you a "Crapatarian"? Do you consume too many "excitotoxins"? Are you taking enough "Vitamin F"? The bottom line is that Carla has finally put on paper what perhaps too many people are afraid to think about or to do something about and that is that despite unfortunate and sometimes life-altering events - life may not be fair, but it's ours and WE are in control of our lives!! To focus on making ourselves whole and to understand that "whole" means mind, body and soul, we have to find the silver lining and learn to make the proverbial lemonade. If you want a great supplement to this book, Carla's CD "Sick Humor" contains many of the songs referenced in the book and even with the frankness of some of the issues within those songs, they are truly funny and will make you laugh (unless, of course, you have no sense of humor whatsoever in which case you need to go back and read the book again)!! Thank you Carla for a wonderfully enjoyable and thought-provoking read!!!

I love this book! Everyone should read it. As a cancer patient and avid reader, "How Can You NOT Laugh at a Time Like This?" is right on target. I highly recommend this book to everyone. If you have an illness, know someone who is sick, have ever been to a doctor or hospital, or just looking for a good read, this book is for you!

This is a great book for anyone who has health issues (and don't we all at one time or another) or someone who just needs a good laugh. Carla shares her hardest times with honesty and humor. We have given this book to friends who were going through medical problems and they appreciated the book immensely. Aside from being a humorous book, it is also a manual of how to take charge of your medical situation, deal with doctors and hospitals and medical tests and how to get well again. Most of all, it gives hope to anyone going through similar problems. Laughter is the best medicine.

I found Carla Ulbrich on Facebook and thought she was just funny but after reading her book, I realize that she's a whole lot more than that. Her short essays are filled with a thoughtful wisdom that only comes from living with a chronic illness. She lightens the subject matter with her quirky humor and offers sage advice for anyone dealing with any kind of illness or life struggle. She inspires you to eat right, pace yourself, and most of all be kind to yourself.

The only problem I have with her book is that it's not longer! She left me wanting more and I hope she continues to author books because I want to hear more of what she has to say.

I was really expecting to be laughing out loud as I read this book and to be honest I wasn't. I found myself chuckling at certain points and smiling and thinking "hey Carla, you hit the nail right on the head with that one!!" but perhaps that is because I could totally relate to what she had to say. Carla uses sarcastic humor to make numerous points throughout the book and she does an excellent job in doing so which makes this book such a light, fun read for me. Having to deal with A Headache for 11 years and being a sarcastic person myself, she allowed me to sit back and smile and enjoy a humorous look at my medical issue. From the person who doesn't believe she "looks sick" to the endless times she has to repeat her entire medical history for every doctor she sees, I was smiling and finding someone who I could totally agree with. She does have some good serious points in the book and thank you Carla for the 10+ things to say when dealing with a serious illness- sometimes our emotions take over and we don't know what to say. All said and done, a good book if you're dealing with medical issues or know someone who is. The books doesn't have to be read all at one time and it's a light read. I thought it was a fun read and one that I will share with others that are faced with medical issues.

Quote: "Once you've got a chronice illness, you feel like you yourself have a thousand faces, or at least three: one for the public (I'm fine), one for the doctor (I'm sick), and one for home (I'm me)".

I had never heard of the author Carla Ulbrich until I read her book, so I was a bit skeptical that a book about being sick could be funny. Well upon reading it there were often many instances that I had to literally stop reading for a bit because I was laughing so hard. She has a way of looking at things that are flat out funny, but more than that she gives the reader some very practical advice on how to maneuver thru the health care system that is invaluable.


There are ten chapters in this book, and each chapter is broken down into several mini-stories that deal with the topic the chapter covers, make this book easy to read. I actually read it from cover to cover, but then marked some of my favorite mini-stories to reread, such as the chapter about prednisone, or the one titled Disease Envy, where she shares a little ditty titled "On The Commode Again."


If the old adage is that laughter is the best medicine holds true then everyone should have a copy of this book. The cute cover really catches your eye but the stories inside not only inspire but because Ms. Ulbirch shares her stories anyone facing an illness will realize the things they face and the questions they have are normal. Whether your facing a personal illness or know someone who is, this book will certainly uplift and encourage.