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How the love of music helped one woman make a remarkable recovery after brain surgery

After a complicated brain surgery to treat an aneurysm, Allison Woyiwada couldn't speak. Her family was heartbroken to witness all that she'd lost. But then they realized she still had her music. Today we rebroadcast a moving story of a remarkable comeback through music....
CBC Radio ·
A brain aneurysm nearly ended Allison Woyiwada's (right) lifelong relationship with music. But in the end, her husband Bob (left) and their daughter Maya say her remarkable recovery is being credited to music therapy.
The Current22:12How the love of music helped one woman make a remarkable recovery after brain surgery - Oct 13, 2014
"...the second she started playing everyone's heads turned"


When she was a little girl Allison Woyiwada was given a gift that would change her life... a piano. Soon she would be performing at church and for friends in her home town of Portage-La-Prairie, Manitoba.

Allison Woyiwada went on to earn a Bachelor of Music... became an opera singer, a composer, and for about 30 years, she taught music to thousands of students at Hopewell Public School in Ottawa. In fact, a wing at the school bears her name.

In May 2012, Allison Woyiwada was suddenly threatened with the possibility of never playing music again. But as you'll find out, music would return to change her life, one more time. CBC Reporter Julie Ireton brings us her story in this encore documentary, Allison's Brain.

Find out more about Allison's book at her website: Allison's Brain.
 

This documentary first aired in September.
 

Has music helped you or a loved one recover from surgery?

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