Story-telling power of scars

New York Times writer Dana Jennings reflects on his many scars--from accidents and surgeries--and concludes that they tell his personal story and give reasons for optimism.

Here's an excerpt:

[F]or all the potential tales of woe that they suggest, scars are also signposts of optimism. If your body is game enough to knit itself back together after a hard physical lesson, to make scar tissue, that means you’re still alive, means you’re on the path toward healing.
. . .

There’s also something talismanic about them. I rub my scars the way other people fret a rabbit’s foot or burnish a lucky penny. Scars feel smooth and dry, the same way the scales of a snake feel smooth and dry.

I find my abdominal scars to be the most profound. They vividly remind me that skilled surgeons unlocked me with their scalpels, took out what had to be taken, sewed me back up and saved my life. It’s almost as if they left their life-giving signatures on my flawed flesh.
. . .

It’s not that I’m proud of my scars — they are what they are, born of accident and necessity — but I’m not embarrassed by them, either. More than anything, I relish the stories they tell. Then again, I’ve always believed in the power of stories, and I certainly believe in the power of scars.

Zen as a dimension of healthcare (reform)

The L.A. Times reported recently that Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City offers Zen chaplains for expanded spiritual care of its patients and employees.

According to the American Hospital Assn., about 68% of public hospitals have a chaplaincy program. But few have Buddhist monks, and none compares with the program at Beth Israel -- where more than 20 Buddhist chaplains and chaplains-in-training offer bedside meditation, interdenominational prayers and other assistance to pregnant women, dying cancer patients and even stressed hospital workers.

. . .

Advocates say the availability of alternative treatments is crucial at a time when millions of Americans are struggling to pay for healthcare. Instead of relying on drugs and hospitalization, the Zen center encourages stress- and pain-relief through meditation, breathing exercises or simple conversation. Even if such methods cannot provide a cure, they can make patients more comfortable. And the Zen chaplains are able to spend more time with patients, time that busy doctors and nurses often cannot spare.

Celebrity, privacy, and inelegant charitable solicitation

By now, nearly everyone knows that actress Farrah Fawcett has serious cancer, and the media have reported on her every twitch. The L.A. Times ran this piece about how her medical privacy was breached for the sake of tabloid news and how her treating hospital asked for a large donation from her for a cancer foundation.

In an interview with the Times (given last August, but green-lighted by Fawcett recently), "Fawcett described how she was deprived of the choice that most other cancer patients have: when, and even whether, to share information with family, friends or strangers."

In the time since the interview, the hospital employee who leaked the information was criminally prosecuted and convicted, the medical center has attempted to remedy its policy, and the governor of California has signed a stricter medical privacy law.

On the topic of the solicited donation, the story notes:

The university went so far as to give her a prewritten letter that she could sign and fill in a dollar amount for the foundation, documents show. It also created an official-looking proposed announcement that said, "Ms. Farrah Fawcett has established a fund in the Division of Digestive Diseases with the expansive goal of facilitating prevention and diagnosis in gastrointestinal cancers."

Caregiving lessons from a two-legged friend and from a four-legged friend

Two recent pieces in the New York Times discussed the difference a caring companion makes in coping with serious illness.

First, a medical student reflects on the comfort and companionship a man gave to two patients who faced death and long recovery.

His story, I realized, was a kind of love story, and in some way it evoked all of our stories, whether we are doctor or patient, comforter or comforted, healer or healed. Josh reaffirmed for me what we medical professionals know but all too easily forget: the human story is not a series of illnesses and treatments that we manage, but is an unfolding mystery — a process with which we ourselves are in ongoing communion, both as witnesses and as full participants.

Also, from the "Well" health blog, Dana Jennings tells Life Lessons from the Family Dog--the author's struggle with agressive prostate cancer and the contemporaneous age-related decline in his dog's health.

Even so, as I face my own profound health issues, it is my dog’s poor health that is piercing me to the heart. I’m dreading that morning when I walk downstairs and … well, those of us who love dogs understand that all dog stories end the same way.

. . .

Dogs also tell us – especially when we’re sick – of our own finitude. And, partly, that’s why we cry when they die, because we also know that all human-being stories end the same way, too.

Taking the battle against cancer to a new front

Wired magazine recently offered this interesting piece on how the efforts spent on the usual approach to cancer treatment and research--cure--may be better spent on an often secondary approach--early detection.

The article explores the elusiveness of successful prevention and early detection, in the face of this stark statistic: "If we find cancer early, 90 percent survive, if we find cancer late, 10 percent survive."

As detection and treatments advance, many cancer patients and their families share stories of strength and commitment. For example, see the L. A. Times column by Al Martinez, who shares the story of his adult daughter Cindy:

I'm putting her name in print today so that you can tell me stories of your own fight against cancer; so you can help our family find the strength and courage to defeat the enemy within. We're all family in a way, you and I and Cinelli and Cindy and the rest. We share a mutual village. Cindy was handed to me a long time ago and occupies a special place in my life and in my heart, and I'm not about to hand her back.

(Photo by Mataparda; used by permission.)

Poetry to cope with one's mortality

In an essay that pays tribute to a friend who died of cancer, a writer in the New York Times magazine shared how her friend's poetry expressed the "clarity" cancer brought to his life.

She quotes her friend, Jason Shinder: "Cancer is a tremendous opportunity to have your face pressed right up against the glass of your mortality."

In a brief poem, he expressed his inner fear of his disease:

I've been avoiding my illness

because I'm afraid

I will die and when I do,

I'll end up alone again.

However, his journals of poems also express his philosophical belief in hope and something bigger than self:

"The hours are left for vanishing and also for joy and for blessing and gratitude."

(Photo by Deb; used by permission.)

End of life series from the Dallas Morning News

The Dallas Morning News ran an excellent five-part series on end of life decisions and difficulties. The "Edge of Life" series follows a palliative care team at Baylor University Medical Center. Nurse Min Patel and several of her patients discuss, prepare for, and address the family, health, and spiritual dimensions of dealing with death in the face of modern medical technology.

My nut-shell summary:
Old way: "Aversion to their own mortality was at the core of doctors' inhibitions in helping patients at the end of life . . . . It made physicians hide behind stiff white coats, rush from room to room, and turn clinical and cold when they couldn't fix or rescue."

New way: Palliative care professionals address all relevant issues head-on. "[They] can't fix everything, but [the patients] don't have to go it alone." The outcomes are better for all those involved when they realize "that using more drugs and devices wasn't always the best way to show love."

The stories in this series are so touching it makes you wish all death and grieving could be as good as this featured approach aspires to.

Also, check out my previous post on hospice care.

(Photo by blueskygirl; used by permission.)

We love our pets... part three

In addition to doctors, nurses, high-tech treatments, family, and friends, cancer patients have another ally in their care and survival--a pet. The Washington Post reports testimonials from breast cancer survivors about how their pets helped them cope with cancer. The cancer survivors even made a calendar featuring photos of themselves with their pets (see the calendar photo gallery here).

There are some common themes in the way the women talk about how their pets have journeyed with them through their cancer. "Just their warm heartbeat lying next to me was incredibly healing," says Connie Reider, who finds purpose in a workshop she teaches for cancer survivors called INscape, the Healing Art of Photography, and finds comfort in her Portuguese water dog named Splash.

The organization behind the calendar project is Critters for the Cure.

(Photo by Carol Guzy - Washington Post)

How public do we want our personal health?

Personal illness, even serious illness like cancer, sends us into an inner retreat sometimes. In a recent "My Turn" essay in Newsweek a cancer survivor describes his ambivalence in beating his cancer when others have not and in the public acknowledgment of surviving embodied in the Cancer Society's Relay for Life.

Here's an excerpt:

When darkness fell, and I'd suffered through the promised laps, I sat on the ground with my family beneath the moon. We listened to the roll call of those locals who had died from cancer—names of old friends and familiar mountain surnames—lilting off into the cool night air. Brown paper candle luminaries representing victims formed a circle of light on the ground around the track, and people took turns reading as photos of the fallen were projected on a movie screen.

It was then that I realized something profound about my day. It wasn't humiliating. It wasn't cheesy, or corny, but just right. My mom was right to sign me up. The people that really know me—the ones who watched me grow up, who coached me in little league and went to the Presbyterian church with my family—were here for me and all of the rest of the men and women who'd lived through their own lonely cancer hell. It mattered to them that I was still here. That is no small thing.