Music as medicine
Posted: Friday, February 20, 2009 12:17 PM by Sam Singal
By Janet Shamlian, NBC News correspondent
If you live in Houston and have children, you just like knowing it's THERE. One of the nation's best pediatric hospitals calls this city home. As a mom of five, I've logged a few hours at Texas Children's Hospital as doctors stitched and bandaged the inevitable badges of childhood. That was in the emergency room and worlds away from the ninth floor where every parent prays they'll never become a 'regular.'
It's brightly lit and filled with toys, but make no mistake, the ninth floor of Texas Children's means your baby is in the fight or his or her life. Every child, from toddlers to teens, is battling cancer and has come to nine for a dose of hope -- chemotherapy. There are a dozen or more infusion rooms but sometimes they're all in use and soon the waiting area is full of bald heads and heavy hearts.
And yet if it's possible to see a rainbow inside, there's a vivid one on the ninth floor. It's coming from a small room down near the elevators. If you follow it, you'll find a true Texas treasure; a woman who's the subject of our Making A Difference report tonight.
She's not a doctor or a nurse -- but she is healing kids like leukemia patient Mary Jo Stavinoha with a different type of tonic. And it's happening one song at a time.
NBC's Janet Shamlian and leukemia patient Mary Jo Stavinoha
More information on the program highlighted in Janet's report.
