Contributing this month: Janice Hoobler, Coordinator, Patient Resource Center at Alta Bates Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Healing Yourself with Words

Words can be very powerful tools for healing. "Words are created from deep within and released into the world. We can shift and change and transfer to a reality that is healing. The words take us deep into our visions or memories, away from worry and pain. They show us new ways of seeing." (1)

Those are very powerful words in itself. The healing power of words can help patients through their cancer diagnosis, treatments and recovery.

We want to share the following poetry submitted by patients at the Alta Bates Comprehensive Cancer Center:

Ode
by Rick Fields

A little cell
             Loses its way
Goes astray

The gates of hell
                 Creak open
Stench of sulfurous decay

A teenie tiny bit
                 Of living matter
A cell

Forgets to die
              Takes upon itself
To multiply

Little cell
           Where are you going?
Please stop growing

Like everything born
                    Both of you and I
Have our time to die

Don't be a thorn
                In the soul of my life
Don't be a knife

In the heart
            Of my life
Go away you've had your fun

I've got things to do
                     Places to see
                                 Races to run

The Unexpected Word
by Shimon-Craig Van Collie

Metastasized:
Like pinballs the hard consonants
Cascade downward,
Setting of alarms, bells and flashing lights.
Gravity pulls them
To an unavoidable conclusion:
Cancer, the unseen, unspoken,
The disease that other people get.

And yet, the doctor stands there
With the lab report he could not read to you over the phone.
The one you know will change your life forever.
And the bells and sirens and exploding stars
Are in your head
As you reach out for support

Wednesday Morning Support Group
by Ina Campbell

Inside this office at the end of the hall,
Life is stripped to the bone.
In a moment of silence, Dorothy pronounces,
Life is what goes on inside this room.
Returned to the group after months of crazy blood counts,
Back and forth visits to the hospital,
She leans back and grins,
Teeth white as moonstones,
Watches as we bob our shorn heads.

Here, we huddle in a circle, dare to speak
The unspoken. We pass a box of Kleenex
As one of us after another admits we're afraid -
More tumors, more metastases to health organs
And bones, more nausea, fatigue, pain.
Confess we use denial to protect us
From knowing our lives are compromised,
That death has the upper hand.

How will we know when dying starts?
Will we lose weight, turn yellow?
Will we be ready for leave-taking?
We start planning, move books from the floor,
Ditch dead plants.

While cleaning our homes, we rummage
Through closets, desks, drawers,
Find our possessions evoke more stories
That there is time to tell.
If we could only prolong our lives,
We would do almost anything.

(1) Creative Healing: How to Heal Yourself by Tapping Your Hidden Creativity", Samuals, Michael, M.D. and Mary Rockwood Lane, RN, MSN, Harper Collins, New York, NY, 1998, p. 169.