Dr. Poetry

You may imagine that this story will be about how poetry heals. And poetry does heal, but this story is not about that. Rather, it is a story of healing made possible by the relationship between physician and patient—of the power of words and metaphor, of being with and feeling seen, and of the human potential for posttraumatic growth.

We met on the eighth floor of the university hospital, after I was admitted for neutropenic sepsis (a serious infection coupled with low white-blood-cell count and often linked to cancer treatments) and a pulmonary embolism.

After years working in a medical setting as a doctor, a psychologist, myself, I found hospital stays a strange blend of familiarity and an alienating surreality.

She was a hospitalist, caring for hospitalized adults, but she was also a pediatrician. I don’t know why that stays in my memory, but it does. Perhaps someone who cares for children has a special capacity to care, to hold.

The adult oncology unit was full, and since I lacked any immunity to infection, I was given a “single” on her floor. The day she started her five-day shift was the day I arrived in that room, where I was not supposed to be. Serendipity.

At first she was any other hospital doctor—young, kind, professional. With the day almost over, she rounded on me, her eyes betraying fatigue. She introduced herself, but after a year of cancer, I no longer heard the names, only the “Dr.” part. I was tired, too.

As she entered, I pulled down my scarf to cover my naked scalp—a reflexive clutching for dignity.

She could have been any doctor. But as she approached, she paused to look at the hospital tray at my bedside. On it lay a book, Cloud Cuckoo Land, which is, fittingly, a love story about books. I mean, about those who love books. (If you haven’t read it, you should.)

“I love Anthony Doerr,” she said. “I haven’t read this one yet. How do you like it?”

“I love it,” I responded, surprised to feel tears welling up.

Life as a patient had raised all sorts of unexpected feelings. No longer wearing a doctor’s badge, and uncertain when, or if, I might return to that role, I now bared my body to the hands of nurses, residents and attendings. I was struggling with this loss of physical boundaries and professional identity, and, in ways I could not articulate, trying to hold on to my personhood.

Now, in the midst of my confusion, she’d addressed me as a book reader, a book lover—not just another patient on another bed, another gown and bald head. A cancer patient, yes. But a book lover, too. Human.

She sat at my bedside.

“My husband and I read his novel All the Light We Cannot See,” she said. “We loved it so much that we’re planning a trip to Saint-Malo to visit all the places in the book.”

Or had she already taken this trip? I don’t remember. But I do remember everything else—most of all, how she showed me that I mattered.

We found other points of connection. Not only had she read a book that had sustained me throughout my illness, Kitchen Table Wisdom, but she’d studied with its author, physician Naomi Remen. (Have you read it? You should.)

“She inspired me in so many ways,” she confided. “I now teach our medical students and residents a course that she developed. We focus on healing—which is, of course, not the same as treating or curing.”

As a professor of child psychiatry and pediatrics, I’d worked to support families with young children exposed to trauma. I, too, had spent years helping trainees shift from an “expert” mindset, focused on fixing things, to partnering with families along their healing journeys. I told her that I try to foster an appreciation that while past traumas cannot be undone, nurturing relationships and therapeutic support can help turn down the volume of trauma in the present.

“How do you teach this?” she asked, again looking past my scarved head and gowned body to acknowledge the wisdom I might hold, as provider or patient.

In reply, I told her what I hoped I might do in the future with what I now knew.

“I’m so grateful for the science, the medicines, that are saving my life,” I said. “Though to be honest, I also worry that those same medications might end it.”

She nodded.

“And I’ve been thinking a lot about dominant metaphors for illness and treatment, and how they just don’t work. At least not for me.”

“How so?” she asked intently.

“People have been so supportive, and of course I’m incredibly thankful,” I answered. “But the words ‘fight’ and ‘battle’ are everywhere. Countless people tell me that I can ‘kick cancer’s butt.’ A friend shared a meme: ‘Not a worrier, a warrior!’…but honestly, I’m worried!”

We smiled.

“Basically, the conversation is almost always about fixing, fighting and treating,” I said. “Not about healing.”

“Is there something that works better for you?” she asked.

“Well, yes,” I said. “I don’t think about battle or war. I just can’t welcome that inside of me.”

She nodded.

“Instead, I think about fire. Good fire.” I paused, considering. “You know how, in forests, they place signs saying that there will be a controlled burn?”

She nodded.

“Well, for me this works. A prescribed burn. Chemotherapy clearing invasive tissue to make room for healthy growth. Harsh, yes—but healing.”

Those words were almost my mantra, seldom spoken aloud.

“If chemotherapy is a prescribed burn, I can welcome it in,” I continued. “Not fighting, welcoming. This good fire might, of course, cause collateral damage. But it can also alter my ecosystem, allowing my body to regenerate, to heal.”

She listened, asking for more, adding thoughts and sharing in the delight of talking about the power of healing. Most importantly for me, she conveyed appreciation for, and really seemed to see, all of me.

The next evening, she again sat by my bed. Tired of the hospital’s discomforts, the restless nights and endless comings and goings, I asked to be discharged.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “Your platelet count is too low. I can’t send you home until it rises above 50.”

So our conversations continued. As patient and physician, and as colleagues, we sought to understand our experiences.

When I talked more about not wanting “battle” or “fight” as my metaphors, she elaborated, noting that, in one novel, “Doerr shows us that wars are cruel and, like cancer, can never simply be ‘won.’ ”

“Yes,” I replied. “There’s always collateral damage, dreams lost and bodies worn. Life’s path unexpectedly and profoundly changed.”

There were also pauses, a quiet sense of “being with” that let the shared thoughts settle in. Together we evolved an understanding that, in living through life’s fires, there’s almost certainly posttraumatic stress—but also the hope of posttraumatic growth.

Talking with her about literature and meaning, I also felt something that I now know was healing: the experience of being seen, of being with—of relationship.

As her five-day shift came to an end, my platelet count almost magically began to rise, and I was cleared for discharge. That evening, she sat beside me and, breaking with custom, handed the paperwork to me, rather than to the nurse.

I took the blue folder filled with medication lists, instructions and upcoming appointments.

“I included a few extra things for you,” she said. “I hope they might be helpful.”

At home, I pulled the instruction sheets from the folder—and there, neatly folded between them, were two pages, each with a poem.

Poetry that heals. Dr. Poetry.