Sarah Rossi,a board certified music therapist, is one of 20 music therapists on staff at Houston Methodist Hospital.

At Houston Methodist Hospital, licensed music therapist Sarah Rossi works with a patient on song writing. Rossi is one of 20 music therapists in the Houston Methodist Center for Performing Arts Medicine.

It wasn’t until my mother was being treated for breast cancer that I learned she loved the Chris Stapleton song “Tennessee Whiskey,” or that she knew so many blues tunes by heart.

In 2022, two years after my father died of prostate cancer, I had to tell my mom that she had stage 2 triple-negative breast cancer, an aggressive form of breast cancer that is three times more common in Black women.

For her weekly chemotherapy treatments at Houston Methodist, I set up a makeshift office outside of her hospital room on an empty table with a view of the Texas Medical Center. I tried to focus on writing as much as I could, but it wasn't always easy. The port in mom's chest irritated her skin. She was either too cold or too hot.

Advertisement

Article continues below this........

© Houston Chronicle