How Singing Saved My Life

Mitchell L. Gaynor, MD

Copyright First for Women 8/19/02

At age 54, married mom of three Marisa Harris was told she had just months to live. Four years later, she"s the picture of health-and she gives much of the credit to the magic of song.

Ithough I had a successful career and a solid marriage, four years ago my life was one continuous stomachache. I"d endured abdominal pain for years and had several colono-scopies only to be told I just had a "bad stomach."But a week after I showed my gynecologist a lump in my groin, I found myself in an oncologist"s office at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City The diagnosis was stage four pancreatic cancer, and it had spread through my blood and lymph systems. I sat silently as my husband asked about my prognosis. "Maybe nine months, if you"re lucky." the doctor told us. Chemotherapy would only add a few months. So he talked about pain management and palliative care-how he could help me die. I walked out of his office in disbelief.

On one level I was in shock, but I"d always said, "There"s no problem you can"t tackle. Do your research and find out how others have solved similar problems." And that"s how I found Dr. Mitchell Gaynor.
First he changed my diet, and then he said the most beautiful words I"ve ever heard: "I"ve seen much worse than you and they"re fine today I"am I going to introduce you to them."


At Dr. Gaynor"s support group for realized that I"d always lived in the
patients, ex-patients and really anyone at all in search of emotional-and physical-healing, he played Tibetan metal bowls, which he said would help center us and bring us into harmony I could feel the sound going through my body. It was so powerful, it stopped my mind chatter completely-I almost felt like I was flying.

Then we began to chant. I"d never sung in public, but what did I have to lose? I plunged right in. A few days later, I asked a friend-a very spiritual person- what I should do about my situation, and he said, "Sing! At the top of your lungs-in the shower, in the car, on the street-and it will help you live."
So that"s what I did. When no one was home, I"d sing along with Van Morrison, the Beatles and Bette Midler. One Midler song in particular, "Hello in There," affected me deeply. It inspired me to ask myself, Hello in there. Who are you? What do you want to do ? And for the first time in my life, I kept a journal. I began going to a nearby synagogue where the rabbi plays guitar and leads a singing group. I took up piano lessons and started going to New York Philharmonic rehearsals just to be filled with sound. I got my own Tibetan bowls, and syllable by syllable, I"d chant my daughters" names while I played the bowls-"Jen-na, Sa-ma-ra, Ra-chel."

As I immersed myself in sound, I felt like all these knots inside me were loosening up. And I
future, looking forward to the weekend or the next big thing. Singing, on the other hand, put me in the moment.

And most important, I could actually feel the cancer cells breaking up! It was like the sound was massaging and breaking down the tumor. I could see it happening in my mind as well as feel it in my belly. The cancer markers in my blood work had been extremely elevated, but after five months of singing every day, they dropped down to normal-before I started chemo. And once on chemo, I did better than anyone I know. After five months of chemo, I went to Florida, ran a race and came in first in my age group-and I didn"t have a hair on my head! Anytime I got scared or sick, I played the bowls and sang. Four years later, I"m healthier than I"ve ever been. And I still sing every day.