"I wasn't sure how this book would be when I started to read it, but I finished it in 2 sittings, mainly because it was SO comical! If you've been through any type of doctor's visits requiring followups and tests, you will relate to much of the book!"
read more:
http://blesstheirheartsmom.blogspot.com/2011/10/book-review-and-giveaway-how-can-you.html
While writing a great book on how to recover from illness, Carla wrote an even better book on how to live a healthy and fulfilling life. No doubt, you have a good doctor if you see “How Can You NOT Laugh at a Time Like This?” in their waiting room.
"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."
read more:
http://kittycrochettwo.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-can-you-not-laugh-at-time-like-this.html
"From never let them stick a needle twice, to writing on yourself with permanent marker prior to surgery so the surgeon is sure to get it right!, to refusing suggested testing and treatments when the possible complications can be just as bad or worse than the actual disease/problem being treated, How Can You NOT Laugh at a Time Like This? offers some very wise advice, often with some tongue-in-cheek. Carla recommends you research, ask questions, be in charge of your treatment and above all else keep a sense of humour!"
read the rest here:
http://shirley-mybookshelf.blogspot.com/2011/08/review-and-giveaway-how-can-you-not.html
Carla Ulbrich, besides being a very funny performer, has written an excellent book called "How Can You NOT Laugh at a Time Like This?"
I read your book. I swear, I've lived so many of the scenes you wrote about. You're an inspiration!
AATH members might remember Carla Ulbrich's inspirational keynote address at the 2007 Conference in Panama City Beach, Florida. Carla, known as "The Singing Patient," shared her journey about recovering from multiple autoimmune diseases. Now Carla's inspirational journey is in print, with her first book, "How Can You NOT Laugh at a Time Like This? Reclaim Your Health with Humor, Creativity and Grit."
Carla intertwines her story throughout the book, however she focuses her energy on helping the reader understand what it's really like to be the patient. And this book isn't just for patients. Doctors, nurses, families and those well-meaning friends who always happen to say the wrong thing at the wrong time will definitely benefit from reading this. It's a guidebook, a companion, a friend you can lean on, a butt-kicker, a coach, and a fountain of knowledge.
AATH members will cheer when reading chapters entitled "Send In The Clowns!" "Rubber Chicken Soup: Keeping a Sense of Humor" and "Take Two Movies and Call Me in the Morning." Several of Carla's lyrics from her funny songs are also printed throughout and are always good for a chuckle.
Carla educates, empowers, and encourages her readers to take control and find the hope that will be the foundation for living a healthy life. The wisdom she shares from her often unpleasant experiences and her countless hours of research are priceless. The humor she injects will not only bring about much laughter, but it does wonders for making uncomfortable situations very manageable. No doctor is too mighty, no symptom is too gruesome, no subject is off-limits to Carla's wonderful wit, wisdom and sense of humor.
"it's an incredibly witty, chin-up book, bound to get laughs where no laughs have gone before."
"What is most impressive about "How Can You NOT Laugh at a Time Like This?, is how the author uses humor to help her fight her condition... How Can You NOT Laugh at a Time Like This? " is for anyone who needs to know an alternative way to treat a disease. It is also for anyone who wants to be a more positive person."
half hour interview about the book:
http://www.itsyourhealthnetwork.com/audio_archives.php?cid=7
With aplomb and spirit, Ulbrich delivers candid insight alongside restorative doses of humor for living well and living with chronic disorders.
"Carla is AWESOME! She was the highlight of our corporate event, and had our entire staff laughing with tears rolling down our cheeks. She performed for a group of medical professionals, and with her extensive background as a "professional" patient, her hysterical songs and stories fit us perfectly. She's bubbly, outgoing and witty! With an emphatic YES, we would recommend Carla Ulbrich for any occassion."
Saluting the new year at First Night in Morristown was a crosscultural — even intergalactic — experience. Where else can you encounter Delta blues, Japanese drumming, South American woodwinds, celtic harp, Native American dancers, American jazz and a smattering of Klingon, all in one town in one evening?
Down at the Market Street Mission, songwriter/comedian Carla Ulbrich made sure no one had time to feel blue about any blown 2010 resolutions, thanks to her lineup of clever lyrics and parodies. She began the evening with a song “about finding the perfect man. It’s fiction.”
“Won’t you please do something stupid so I can get over you? If you really cared about me, it’s the least that you could do.”
A South Carolina native, she mused on moving to New Jersey with her husband — “that is true love” — and (mis)perptions of her home state. “My neighbor didn’t even know there were two Carolinas,” she confided, “so I told him it was East and West.”
She reminded the audience of some of the Southern state’s great celebrities — “We’re very proud of Vanna White because she can spell” — and its motto: “Thank God for Alabama.”
“One thing you don’t have in New Jersey, and I do miss them: You don’t have any Waffle Houses,” she said. “It’s a crime. … It’s the crossroads of America. Everybody goes to Waffle House — except y’all.”
“The guy who changes the light bulbs changes everything,” she said, noting the frequency of inoperable lights in Waffle House signs, and the odd lettering that ensues.
“Waffle House is ‘awful’ House without the W. … What is Waffle use?”
Displaying a little cultural diversity, she then announced: “I’ve written a duet for myself and a Klingon.” Her husband Joe Giacoio – “we have all our arguments in Klingon” — joined her onstage for a rendition of “I say potato, you say [insert indecipherable Klingon dialect]. … Let’s call the whole thing off!”
“Don’t you know any English,” she finally asked.
“Surrender or die!” he replied.
Ulbrich also addressed holiday disappointments, to the tune of “Let it snow.”
“You didn’t get what you wanted for Christmas, even with your 10-page wish list. But it’s 25 years ago. Let it go, let it go, let it go!”
Just wanted to say how much I enjoyed you, your music and your stage presence at the AATH conference. What a delight and such a powerful message about laughing through the tough times - from someone who's been there and done the patient scene. Thanks for sharing your wisdom and whimsy.
"Carla led a near-perfect example of the ideal program for our Fellowship. It was all first class."
She's one of Dr. Demento's favorites, and now we know why. How many women can sing in Klingon, after all? Carla Ulbrich, the Queen of Parody, can make surgical procedures a laughing matter, as she ably demonstrated Friday at the Minstrel in Morris Township, where she crooned about losing one's derriere, stealing boyfriends and experiencing hospital life in all its invasive glory.
If you want to start your Monday on an upbeat note, check out Carla's song about copyrighting everyone's favorite four-letter word. Our only quibble with the Minstrel show was its sparse attendance. The good news, however, is that this endearingly silly South Carolinian now makes her home in Somerset, NJ. So your odds of catching this funny bone infection again should be pretty good.
• What a Treat!
• Loved it!!!!
• Useful. Creative and Entertaining
• Great! Authentic!
• perfect!
• This, Carla, was just wonderful-so witty, funny, intelligent, thought provoking, heart warming, clever, funny. Extraordinarily incredible timing in her comedy. Just GREAT! I loved this. Carla, you are a poet and a philosopher and a comedienne.
• What a wonderfully talented woman. She made me laff and cry. A gift to us all.
• She's a WOW!!! From a "prednisone" colleague, she nailed it!!
• great, enjoyed her
• Wonderful, I loved Carla's wit and music!
• Fantastic Recovery! Great voice!
• great Ending!
Carla was fantastic. The entire process from booking to event completion was very easy. Carla was prompt, prepared and very entertaining. She managed to work into her act, specific information about us that made the performance much more personal. I would recommend Carla to anybody in need of professional, quality entertainment.
"We loved having Carla perform at the conference and my boss received very positive feedback. I also think she's found her calling. Her ability to involve the audience and to incorporate unique aspects of our business amazed the audience and had them laughing more than they thought possible at a healthcare conference. Carla made our reception the talk of the conference."
"a terrific meeting... very clever and most amusing songs... kept us all with BIG smiles and laughing out loud. I had very positive feedback from all who were there."
Carla Ulbrich visited the Tower for the very first time April 07, and for a firstup did brilliant box office. On the night she delivered a stonkingly good performance full of verve, wit and extraordinarily excellent guitar playing. Ulbrich, a name to book even if you can't pronounce it.
“Our patients really loved Carla’s visit to our lupus support group. Not only did she share her story with us , but she brought with her music and laughter. So, not only did our group members feel understood and identified with her story, but they were uplifted at the same time.”
Carla's act was funny, entertaining, and interactive. She also took the extra mile to customize her show to our event. We highly recommend her!
In order to have a successful music career, you sometimes have to be patient.
In the case of Carla Ulbrich, she had to become a patient -- a medical patient.
In the 1990s, Ulbrich was a singer-songwriter who toured all over the eastern seaboard despite coming down with Lupus in 1992.
"It took two years before I was diagnosed," she told AOL News, and during that period, she suffered fevers, joint pain, kidney pain and was anemic.
Carla Ulbrich had a fair-to-middling career as a songwriter, but after two strokes and a bad case of lupus, she turned her pain into success as the Singing Patient, and now makes medically-related music.
But she found her true muse in January, 2002, after a stroke of good fortune.
Scratch that. It wasn't a stroke of good fortune. It was just an actual stroke. Two of them in a three day period.
"I had one in the left foot and one in the left hand," Ulbrich said. "I woke up and my left foot was asleep. I could walk on it, but I couldn't feel it. I remember driving to a gig and got dizzy. Then the strength went out of my left hand."
It was so bad that she could only move the index finger.
"I believe that the show must go on so I sang all my songs while playing one note at a time," she laughed.
Ulbrich was out the rest of the year and because she had no health insurance, she spent eight days at a teaching hospital.
"It was like the one on 'House,' except the doctors had his social skills, but not his talent," she said.
Ulbrich got sick of the chronic illnesses and says it was only when a friend helped her co-write a ditty about Maxi-Pads that she felt her spark come back.
Yes, in order to get well, Ulbrich needed to use her sick sense of humor.
"I remember one day when I was doing a medical test that required me to pee in a jar for 24 hours," she said. "I borrowed a ukulele because it was easier to play and had a music book that included the old song, 'Little Brown Jug.'
"Sure enough, the jug they gave me to pee in was brown, so I started writing a song about peeing in a jar that was to the tune of 'Little Brown Jug.'"
From there, Ulbrich became "The Singing Patient," and was inspired to write other forms of medical music, such as a ditty inspired by countless encounters with phlebotomists who can't find veins.
"I took the Huey Lewis song, 'Stuck With You,' and changed it to 'I'm So Happy To Be Stuck By You,'" said the singer, who lives in Somerset, N.J., with her husband.
Ulbrich also turned "On The Road Again" into a ditty called "On The Commode Again," and wrote about her distaste with using the steroid Prednisone to the tune of the march in "Bridge On The River Kwai."
"Prednisone will make you get real fat/ Prednisone will give you cataracts/ Prednisone it will destroy your bones/ So get some Prednisone/ Destroy your bones today."
As much as Ulbrich's medical music is meant to make people laugh, there is a point behind songs like this.
"Obviously, this is a song about the conundrum one is placed in when your choice is dying or being very ill, and taking this known toxic drug, knowing that if you stay on it long enough you'll be even worse off than you are now," she said. "Unless something else kills you first."
Ulbrich's debut album as the Singing Patient came in 2004 and, oddly, she's making more money off her satirical song parodies than she ever did writing love songs.
"I play four gigs a month all over the country, even to England," she said. "Some gigs for medical personnel and some are for patients. But I am making more money than I was as a folk singer. You know how you make a million dollar as a folk singer? Start with $2 million."
Although Ulbrich hasn't yet reached the mainstream, her popularity in the medical community is such that a friend whose house she stayed at was able to auction off a bar of soap she used for $20 on eBay.
In addition, she has been able to parlay her fan base into other kinds of writing. Her debut book, a collection of essays called "How Can You 'Not' Laugh at a Time Like This?" (Tell Me Press) will be published Feb. 1, and she is working on a new collection of even sicker songs that are designed for two types of audiences.
"I want caregivers to know that they really do make a difference and I want to make patients laugh about something they usually cry about," she said.
There is another group she'd like to reach as well: People who think of the word "lupus" as a punchline.
"Lupus isn't a joke," she said. "It's the only disease that seems to have an anti-awareness campaign. Problem is, on 'House,' Hugh Laurie always says, 'It's not lupus!' so that's the first thing anyone says when you mention it."
"She writes funny material, and yet there's always a message," Deitz said. "When we're doing what we do at our best, we're entertaining people, but we're also teaching them something, sending a message or conveying what we think about a topic."