[NEohioPAL] Moving Toward Life (By Guest Blogger Tracey Dwyer)

[Valerie Schumacher via NEohioPAL]

spontaneous remission n “complete recovery...inexplicable by medical means.” Mosby's Dictionary of Complementary and Alternative Medicine. (c) 2005, Elsevier.

Artists and scientists both seek pathways that lead to the heart of exploration.  The search begs questions like, “how can I make the impossible, possible?” We often make our own best guinea pigs in our attempts to answer such questions.  I had the opportunity to offer myself up to self-experiment when I received breast cancer diagnosis.  I endeavored to dedicate my life to explore my ideas about the power of consciousness over cell regeneration, and the effectiveness of creative process as a tool for transformation.

I am not anti- allopathic medicine as it has saved my life more than once. I believe in healthy balance on every level.  I am a holistic health practitioner in a hospital setting which very much reflects my standpoint.  I am also a dancer, and every dancer knows a secret most don’t: it is the feeling of a perfectly executed movement – a combination of practice, balance, and surrender to a seemingly impossible feat.  This experience is a divine instant when the dancer knows a supernatural experience of suspension, flight, and unimaginable precision.  The moment is fleeting but transformative.  It was with this experience of a normally unattainable feat that I began my road to recovery.

When a dancer hears “that’s impossible”, they will do anything to prove you wrong.  By the time I was advised to do surgery, chemotherapy, radiation and a five year drug regime in order to survive, I was primed to prove otherwise (those options didn’t sound good to me).  I wanted to offer my body a chance for natural balance after years of stress and lack of self-care. I chose only surgery and denied the other treatments and was told by doctors I had a death wish.  I stuck to my choices. I then turned my recovery into a living art project by documenting my body over the years with photography and film showing images of strength, vulnerability, flexibility, grace, and vitality.  I moved and danced and rocked my body and soul back to health.  The project has been a way of turning something ugly and terrifying into something beautiful and motivating. It took a situation that ordinarily generates patients who feel powerless and offered me a tool of self-empowerment.

Dance offers me light when there is none.  Medicine provides me with extended life by removing malignancy and tests that deliver continued evidence of my health. Creativity allows me to thrive because of the purpose it gives me.  Coming up on my 5thyear anniversary of being cancer-free I am deemed in the medical field as a case of “spontaneous remission”.  Frankly, nothing about it feels spontaneous.  But I have found a place of balance where art and medicine intersect on a deeply personal level where I can cast myself in whatever role I need.  With access to both worlds I am able to be my own healer.  It is with both worlds that I have the support and inspiration I need to fully move toward life.

For more about intersections in the arts and health fields:

Attend the conference: http://cultureforward.org/Our-Programs/Creative-Minds-in-Medicine-Conference
Read Creative Minds in Medicine <http://cultureforward.org/Reference-Desk/Research-Library/Health-and-Human-Services><http://cultureforward.org/Reference-Desk/Research-Library/Health-and-Human-Services>.This>

This blog is used under license by the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture (CPAC) and was submitted by volunteer contributor Tracey Dwyer. In addition to her dance projects, Tracey teaches movement and anatomy to the MFA theatre students at Case Western Reserve University. She is a 2014 Creative Workforce Fellow for dance. The opinions represented here are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CPAC. CPAC does not endorse the purchase of products or services by its guest bloggers. We thank all writers for volunteering their expertise with us in order to continue to strengthen, unify and connect greater Cleveland’s arts and culture community.
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