A local comedian diagnosed with Stage 3 esophageal cancer is trying to  look at the lighter side of having the disease.

Josh Haddon, 28, is writing a book about battling the cancer after he was diagnosed on Dec. 1.  

When it came time to research his cancer, he didn’t trust what he found online so he headed to a bookstore.

But everything he found was depressing.

He wants to give others with cancer a look at what it’s really like to have the disease.

“I wanted to call it ‘What to expect when you are expecting to die. One fish, two fish, three fish, you have cancer.’ That’s one of my favourite ones,” he says.

He says people’s reactions have been funny.

"Comedians say the dirtiest words all the time, and (now they’re) coming up to me and not even saying cancer. 'Hey man, I heard about the big C.'"

Haddon is trying to change the stigma around cancer using his personal experience. He is 20 days into chemotherapy.

"My treatment has a two to five per cent chance of working. Ya, if it doesn't work I'll be dead within three years."

Haddon wrote a bucket list in 2006 and he found it after his diagnosis. Tops on the list was to write a book.

"I've had publishing companies talking to me about having a book but they are weird about giving me an advance because they are worried I'm going to die," he says.

"I have a weird moral compass, and I do what I want to do and do what makes me happy. That's why I'm ok with this."