For nine years, Kevin Hand ran through the streets of Honolulu spreading fun. He worked as an artist for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and got through late nights and heartbreaking stories by looking for ways to make people laugh.

He waged wet-toilet-paper wars with colleagues who gleefully pelted one another with wads of bathroom tissue. He performed as the Mynah Bird mascot for Hawaii Winter Baseball. He teamed up with co-worker and best buddy Bryant Fukutomi to stage wacky stunts as “Too Stupid Guys.” One time, they were duct-taped to the side of the old newspaper building on Kapiolani Boulevard. Another time, they came up with “egg bowling,” using themselves as bowling balls and careening through a pile of raw eggs.

Hand fondly calls that time, 1988 to 1997, as “the years of living dangerously” and says Hawaii is still the closest thing he has to a home. He left for a job at the Chicago Tribune in ’97 but has stayed close to Hawaii friends and returned to have his wedding here.

In October 2013, Hand was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer.

“Stage one means there’s something there. Stage two is it’s made it to the lymph nodes. Stage three is it’s gone beyond the lymph nodes but not to major organs. Stage 4 it’s in the liver and probably heading to all points,” Hand said.

He had surgery to remove the cancer and a large section of his liver. After that, he had chemotherapy.

“Chemo is … oh my gosh, it’s a lesson in boredom,” Hand said. “Sitting there for hours, looking out the window … letting a toxic chemical into your body.”

The lifelong happy prankster found the biggest issue for him was dealing with fear.

“Looking out of the windows at the chemo center, sitting there worrying about things, the fear has gripped you and it’s not letting go,” Hand said.

He lives in Missouri now, and though Hand says the view from those windows was pretty, all he could do was worry. He worried about what he had done in life. He worried about what he had left to do.

He stared out the windows and eventually seized on an odd thought: “It would be great if a marching band comes over that bridge and cheers us on.”

That was a turning point. Instead of staying scared, Hand got creative. He worked with the nearby college to get musicians to perform in the cancer center. He got the idea of wearing a crazy costume to bring some levity to the affair.

“I thought of the chicken, the icon of fear,” he said.

And he’s been Cancer Chicken ever since.

Cancer Chicken has bopped through cancer centers visiting with patients and passing out candy, dumb jokes and Super Glue.

“I give them the glue and say, ‘Do your best to keep it together.’”

Cancer Chicken has performed with visiting musicians.

“One time I brought in a lute player,” Hand said. “You can’t get much funnier than a lute and a chicken.”

He dances along the roadside in his town of Cape Girardeau holding signs like “Beak Cancer.”

“I have not had anything thrown at me,” Hand said. He expected someone might pelt him with a raw egg. He almost hoped for it.

“I’m a perfect target for an egg,” he said. “I would think it was funny.”

Hand, now 55, is training for the Chicago Marathon in October. He will run as Cancer Chicken, though he will wear a modified chicken costume to facilitate running. He is using the event to raise money for the American Cancer Society. Cancer Chicken has a Facebook page with a link for donations. Hand set a goal of raising $1,500 and “blew through that on his first day,” he said.

And, after a hard-fought battle, he says he’s feeling great.

“I never say the word ‘cure.’ I never say ‘remission.’ I don’t want to jinx myself.”

But for now, tests have found no cancer.

These days, Hand works as a freelance artist, mostly for big magazines, but he has also done animation for television shows. His wife, Joni, is a tenured art history professor at Southeast Missouri State. He’s in training for the marathon, running in 96-degree summer heat, and says he feels great.

Hand has a prank worked up involving a nearby waterpark. He plans to stand in the chicken suit across the street from the waterpark holding a sign that says, “Why?” and then cross the road and flip over the sign to read, “… to get to the water slide.”

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.