Where has all the laughter gone?

She came back about an hour after she had left my consulting room. As I was wondering why, she thrust a folded piece of paper into my hand and made for the door. I took a quick look at her face. It was laden with emotions – a troubled and teary face providing a clue to the unpleasantness of the content of the yet-to-be-read letter.

I held her hand, refused to let her go and guided her back to the examination chair. “Ms Mofun, what is it that’s making you unhappy? I am your doctor, please tell me the reason for your distress?” I pleaded, trying to console her.

Still sobbing, she wiped her tears with her handkerchief and just managed a sentence, “Dr. Ben, please read the note in your hand.”

I unfolded the note, but as I was about to read it, my nurse rushed into the consulting room, “There is a new patient in severe pain. She is crying like a baby,” she said.

Immediately, I dropped the letter on my table and asked my nurse to bring her in. Even before seeing her, my head had started working like a clock, ticking away all the possible causes of severe pain in the eye.

I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out, at last, that it was not on the initial list that went through my head. A little flying insect had entered her eye. If you have never experienced it before, you will find it difficult to appreciate how agonising the pain she suffered was.

With every blink of her eyes the pain was more intense. I put a drop of a local anaesthetic agent and carefully removed the insect under magnification produced by the Slit-Lamp. She gave me a big smile. What a great reward!

The next person to enter my office was not a patient but an acquaintance. His pathetic tale of woe distressed me considerably. He needed some money urgently to pay the hospital bill of his wife.

He had not received his pension for over  six months and all their four graduate children were jobless. What a shame! I gave him a note to a small credit organisation to assist him. The more I tried to humour him, the more placid was his face.

I saw a couple of patients after this. They all wore long faces. Some had delayed coming to the hospital because of costs. Now they had developed serious complications; and apart from the fact that they had to pay a lot more than they would have paid if they had come early, they were likely to get less value for their money — poorer outcomes!

All around me, there was gloom. I didn’t know when I started singing the famous song of Pete Seeger’s – Where have all the flowers gone? The lyrics of this beautiful song inspired me to ask the question, “Where has all the laughter gone?”

“I decided to find out. I went out into the streets. I saw hordes of jobless young people milling around with no particular purpose or direction. Not one of them took any interest in me. They had their eyes glued to their phones! Some paced up and down the street talking to God knows who.

My thoughts collapsed when, suddenly, I remembered Ms Mofun and her little note lying on my table! She must have walked out of my consulting room when our conversation was interrupted by my nurse. I hurried back to my office to retrieve the note. It was nowhere to be found! She must have taken it with her when she left in a huff! I was sad, very sad.

Definitely, she needed counselling. How would I comfort her without a peep into her heart and her feelings which the letter would have provided? The natural smile on my face vanished and with it a big chunk of my inner beauty. When we smile or laugh, the smiling muscles on our face contract and send signals to the brain to stimulate the centre controlling our reward system.

Hormones or endorphins such as cortisol are released which increase the level of our happiness and our endurance, reduce our pains and stress and strengthen our immune system.  Thus the act of smiling is good for our health and happiness.

I decided to get over my worries immediately. I called Ms Mofun. It was a pleasant surprise to hear the cheerful voice at the other end. She immediately apologised for not waiting for me to finish with the emergency case I had to divert my attention to while she was with me.

“She taught me a great lesson! I had thought I was suffering but when I saw her in agony, I knew what I was going through was a child’s play. From now on, I will always wear a smile on my face, like you, Dr. Ben.”

Now she has rekindled my resolve not to let the smile disappear from my face.

Let me share a few facts about smiling with you. Smiling is our first facial expression and we are born with the ability to smile. Smiling makes us more attractive to others, and children tend to move closer to those who wear a smile.

A smile is the universal sign for happiness. It does not matter what you are going through, you can smile if you want to smile. Wear a smile on your face today and always.