Healing Words
THREE AND A HALF years years ago, I found a lump in my right breast. A mammogram confirmed what I felt, cancer was diagnosed and suddenly I was swept up in a parade of medical appointments to assess my strength for the upcoming marathon of poison-slash-and-burn treatments.
Of all the tests that preceded my pre-surgery chemotherapy, the Multiple Gated Acquisition (MUGA) scan of my heart was the only one that touched me emotionally. My oncologist had prescribed ruby-red Adriamycin (one of the tried-and-true drugs to annihilate breast cancer) as one ingredient in the cocktail I would receive via the handy-dandy porta-catheter now installed in my chest. But could my heart’s major pumping chamber, the left ventricle, stand up to the possibly heart-stopping effects of the all-powerful Adriamycin? A painless and noninvasive procedure, the MUGA scan would produce a moving image of the muscle until now known to me primarily in the metaphorical sense, the supposed source of love, and courage and emotion.
As I lay on the examining table near the computer monitor, the soft-spoken technician with a mysterious accent showed me my perfectly beating heart. “Oh, look!” she said, pointing out the chambers. “So beautiful! So perfect! You are very strong!” She went on to convince me I had the strength to go through with the treatment ahead.
At age 19, my heart was so thoroughly broken by the accidental death of my first love that I thought I, too, would die. But my heart kept beating, meeting more sorrow along the way but also much love and joy. Instead of rewarding it for persistence, though, I have treated it poorly for much of my adult life. For many years, I was a smoker. As for exercise, my only athletic prowess lies in my ability to read more than one book in a day. Yet no matter what I’ve done or felt over the decades, my heart has been there for me. Beating, pushing the blood back through and beyond, a circular motion of tides and moonscapes and women’s seasons, forcing me to remain alive even on those bleak days when I might have chosen otherwise.
Now, as I stared at the pulsing image on the screen, I was reminded of music, the rhythm that runs as an undercurrent to all of our lives. Who keeps it going in such perfect time, I wondered? I imagined an orchestra conductor in my head, waving her wand with grand, sweeping gestures that my heart speeds to meet. As my eyes filled with grateful tears, I began to trust that my flawless internal beat would somehow carry me through.
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Gail Coufal lives in Oakland. She is grateful to the “Cancer in Other Words” writing workshops, which have occupied many of her Saturday mornings for the past three years.
Healing Words
Scars | by Wichita Sims
My Beating Heart | by Gail Coufal
Harmonica Lessons | by Susan English Fetcho
Beyond the Spin | By Diane Dodge
