‘It’s about love’: Battling a brain tumor, a man finds resilience through storytelling
In telling his story, Michael Bischoff is a case study for an unusual medical question: Can the act of storytelling improve a person’s health?
It was mid-October in St. Joseph, Mo., and Michael Bischoff, 46 and rail thin with dark wispy hair and a faintly visible scar behind his right ear, stood before nursing home residents and their family members, to tell a story of generations.
The community room smelled like hamburgers and potatoes. At Bischoff’s side sat his father, Donald, 75, head down and silent as usual, in a wheelchair, a decades-old scar arcing his scalp.
Their brain tumors had struck 70 years apart. Donald’s was successfully treated when he was a toddler, but he developed a brain condition that ultimately left him depressed and physically debilitated; his wife and three children
