Getting kicked out of the oncologist's office is not the best treatment for all patients. For Laura Fial, it turned out to be the best medicine. Everybody has a rotten week occasionally...
Music therapy has become a recognized companion to medical care - not a replacement for it, but a real support alongside treatment. Working with a trained therapist, patients use singing, listening, and songwriting to ease anxiety, manage pain, and reclaim a sense of control during one of life's hardest passages.
What makes stories like Laura's resonate is the reminder underneath them: healing is not only physical. The voice, it turns out, can be a powerful thing to hold onto - and the choice to keep singing, in the face of everything, is its own kind of courage.
Originally published in View AZ Highlife Magazine, Spring 2008.